“With great power comes great responsibility.”

It is not every day easy to be an adult. There was a time where I would wake up, serve myself a glass of vodka, and spend my time carelessly — taking the day as it came. Nowadays, a glass of vodka will make me remember for two days that my digestive tract is not in its prime condition any more. A matter-of-fact reminder of the unavoidability of time.

Growing older shifts concerns. These days, I am more often concerned with having to tread a balance carefully every moment of social life. Take an example: today, I heard the dreadful question: “what do you think about me?”

Being honest is easier when what you say is inconsequential. When mistakes are cheap and have little consequences. However, when closeness attaches extra value to sincerity, words become heavier with significance; they become gifted with the magic that will give their shape meaning beyond semantics — that same magic that shapes feelings and crystallizes them into monuments of actualization and everlasting bonding memories.

In those moments, even small mistakes will hurt deeply; although the “right thing” might merely be superficially constructive.

I dislike this situation. It forces me to think and judge real human beings (real, as opposed to those away and encapsulated by bits and waves), carefully and thoughtfully — and then share my thoughts openly and distinctly.

I never had the chance to be the recipient of such careful attention; to the contrary, I was hurt often by carelessness and mindlessness in the use of words that I allowed to carry magic into my direction. Without proper positive experience, I fear daily that I am not competent enough to act responsibly. Something about this: Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person. — or so I heard.

Seriously, why is it important to say more to friends than that you love them and that you are happy that they exist in your life?

Sometime this afternoon I will be standing before my stove, manipulating my pan hence and forth, shaking sizzling butter under layers of eggs, milk and flour. This cheerful self-entertainment, supported by adequate music, will further brighten my day already much enlightened by rest and peacefulness.

On my way to the kitchen, I will shed the last shadows of uncertainty about how to handle the drama evolving in my close environment in the past few weeks.

Off will go the worry that the neatest self-balance may hide a decreasing self-confidence and increasing loneliness, possibly exacerbated by a recent life event; off will go the worry that frustrated ambition and unshared social and cultural moral codes stand in the way of mutual understanding and cooperation; off will go the worry that distance and an idealistic longing for reduced world misery and inequality are creating heart ache otherwise sootheable by good company; off will go the worry that lack of “outside” experience and first-hand knowledge of social diversity may be active cause in uncertainty and procrastination; off will go the worry, lately acute, that limerence may impede constructive social development and life progression…

The cost of loving is empathy and shared aches; but why is it that I should feel as if I had a role to play besides acknowledging their personal situations? There is no problem in need to be solved, only individual life experiences to be supported — as time and opportunities allow, and not through the darkness of worries and stress. After all, the moral pressure I feel is my construction, since I am the only one to consider “us” family.

This was today's enlightenment. Drama has quickly followed television on the list of things I have decided long ago to do without. Now behold, here come the pancakes!

A little over five months ago, I started the following experiment: I invited my best female friends to help me compile a comprehensive and didactic approach to handling complicated relationships.

My invitation went as follows:

Subject: a little group exercise!
Dear friends,
would you like to write something for me?
The request may come unexpected, and I apologize in advance if I am taxing your busy agenda or bothering you in any way. Since some of you don't know each other, I am hiding your e-mail addresses for privacy.
But since I know each of you, I like your personality and I find the way you express your feelings interesting, I would like to involve you in a serious, cultural “interview” I am conducting in my social circles. There is very little reward involved, except my generous gratitude and possibly eternal fame afterwards :) (see below)
Language is free: write in your native language, or the language you are most comfortable writing in. Even a language you know I don't understand is fine!
Length is free: one word is OK, ten pages equally good. Ideal length would be as much as you would write on a real postcard or in your personal journal.
There is one catch: I get to choose the topic :)
When writing, you can adopt one of these two standpoints:
1) a very close (female) friend of yours if feeling uncomfortable: she is involved in a steady relationship and is attracted to (or has an affair with) some other person; she does not know what attitude to adopt;
2) you have experienced yourself such a situation, and you try to explain to a very close (female) friend of your how you are dealing with the situation.
A few hints to focus the situation: children are not involved. Nobody else knows (yet). It's the best sex ever you've ever had (or no sex if you prefer to not have sex at all) on both sides. No money issues either.
At the same time, I am asking you for permission: I would like to reproduce your answer on my web site, in part or in full (you choose!) with or without your first name next to it (you choose! but no last names) in a compilation that will carry the title “Relationships 101: crash course by European girls”.
You can start straight away and let your heart speak for yourself. General opinions are OK, personal experience is good too. But it has to involve some feelings, not only rational thoughts! If you don't know where to start, imagine that your audience will be European teenage girls that are looking for some input from more experienced adults, and who will gladly learn some good advice to not f*ck up later.
And then, it would be also nice if you would reflect in your thoughts your personal opinion on some attitudes from outside Europe on this topic. I'm thinking for example very strongly about polyamory in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory, http://www.faqs.org/faqs/polyamory/faq/index.html
(French: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamour)
(Dutch: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamorie, http://www.polyamory.nl/polyamoryFAQNL.html)
but also other cultural positions on these topics from Asia, Africa, the middle east, whichever you know about.
Thank you in advance and so much for your attention and this little bit of your time. There is no delay, take your time to think about it if you need to!
PS: also feel free to forward this request to your (trusted) female friends. I also gladly accept reply from girls I don't know yet, but only if you would recommend them personally!
Thank you again, and big hugs to all.

For the record, the twenty-something friends I involved in this “exercise” are dear to me in different ways; and for each of them, we had at one point or another previously discussed their own relationships and their opinions about the topics mentioned above before I asked them to produce a more constructed argument.

Here is the summary of the reactions I have received so far:

• two have immediately informed me that they were sensitive to the issue and would prefer not to write about it;
• two others have immediately expressed an intense interest in the topic and promised to participate the best they could; however I haven't received yet any further reply from them despite several more recent interactions;
• three others have expressed verbally a moderate interest and suggested they will think about it; of them one highlighted that the lack of deadline might postpone indefinitely her efforts;
• one did actually answer after one month with a well-though argument that I thought was very positive and considerate.
• eleven have not reacted to my invitation in any way whatsoever despite numerous other social interactions since then, and one even denied receiving this e-mail when asked about it a few weeks ago.

I am still waiting and am considering asking for an update next month, i.e. six months after my initial request. Short afterwards, I will ensure with the author(s) that they allow me to publish their works before making them visible online.

Disclaimer: this is a post about its author. If you just want to be entertained, you can skip reading.

One more page turning. While I have spent the official “big party time” of the year quite comfortably lying on a couch, watching TV and playing video games, the occasional greeting SMS compounded with heavy fireworks and an yearly summary e-mail from a close friend reminded me this is the time of the year to contemplate the time passing and make the best out of transitions.

So here is my summary.

The year 2009 was about growing up. I am officially an adult now. During this year, I have started: considering an actual career, caring for retirement plans, comparing health insurance plans, caring about world politics, contracting a mortgage, planning for future savings, considering the financial well-being of my family before making big spending decisions, planning to care for kids in a somewhat near future and — biggest one among the rest — contemplating and actually enjoying the prospect of getting older, especially turning 30 in the coming year. If I told myself how comfortable I would be with these “accomplishments” a mere 5 years ago, I would not have believed myself. 5 years earlier, I would have been down right suspicious and would have showed contempt. Time does wonders!

At the same time, I have been somewhat unsatisfied with the way I take care of the people who are more or less regularly part of my life. Many times per week, if not every day, I spend a few moment thinking about how much I respect / like / love / admire / am grateful towards the people I know, wondering how to inform them of my feelings. All my acquaintances have contributed in one way to another to the person I am, and for this I am routinely and genuinely grateful. I try to smile, interact socially and positively, send friendly words on cards, e-mails or facebook messages, be supportive. But I realize I have not taken the time to really get to know my entourage better and understand their existence as human beings outside of the pleasure I have interacting with them. In short, I often fear that I appear to act as if I was using my friends to entertain myself or acknowledge my own existence, and that I do not show them (often) enough how much I care about them. At the same time, I feel childish at the thought of more frequent tokens of appreciation; I fear I would come across as “bizarre” or “creepy” by overwhelming friends with tokens of affection, or come across as flirtatious or romantic instead of genuinely happy to know them.

And 2009 was also the occasion to take on bad habits. I have become cynical; I tend to see either stupidity or malice in all aspects of the world that I dislike, instead of considering that my expectations have become distorted by a lack of diversity in my channels to the outside world. In my efforts to move forward dutifully and fight procrastination, I have set up a routine where I pursue small goals one after the other — often losing sight of the big picture and overall direction I would like to go. And I have let work take away a lot of my free time, reducing greatly my opportunities for social activities and self-development. All these changes impact me negatively.

My own resolutions for 2010 area bout sharing and improving my contact with other human beings. I will try and learn to trust friends. I will interact more emotionally with the people I meet and try to understand who they are and what is important to them. And I will exercise more at enjoying my immediate surroundings, instead of worrying about remote issues that I have little impact over.

The trouble with nerds, when they stay in front of you looking into your eyes, not saying anything and not doing anything, with this awkward half-second of silence after a conversation ends, is that you don't know how to handle them because it could be they are just being dorky.

A thorn in an otherwise bright and enlightening period; why, in all my inability to handle relationships in general, do I now get to hunt for hints of feelings behind thick layers of dorkiness and geekiness?

Bright eyes, big hands. Lovely evening, though.

Strange and unexpected: those are the first two qualifiers that come to my mind for this evening.

For a start, I was not expecting such a successful date. The energiest, pretty and extra-ordinary girl I planned to have dinner with reached me with her life projects. As we went through our groceries, my mind slowly stopped wandering around with recollections of my working day (plenty of good stuff in store for tomorrow!) and eventually focused on the conversation with my host: while our previous encounters had prepared me to a relaxing evening, I found her daring enterprises unexpectedly surprising and inspiring. This, in addition to the discovery of a remote part of Amsterdam which proved to be in reality more welcoming and civilized than what the local urban culture would otherwise suggest, soothed my busy mind and left it open to appreciate the beauty of a well-decorated interior. Such a reception! It really made my day.

As an expression of my gratitude I tried my best to prepare something edible — unfortunately likely a failed attempt, given the polite lack of feedback, but we fed nonetheless — and we had otherwise a pleasant and entertaining conversation, about experiences past and to come.

Meanwhile, rewinding this story a little, as I was initially waiting for my host to pick me up I wandered around one of the busiest areas in the neighbourhood; either the idle atmosphere or out of some desire for entertainment (not knowing yet how agreeable my date would be) instilled in my the idea of a visit to the nearby cinema. She accepted.

And zo was het, a boy and a girl having a good time after a dinner together, in a wonderful mood, and going together to the movies, and planning to enjoy a film and each other's company in the anonymity of obscurity…

As we sat down, I was already thinking: what will I say to people? What will people think of this? What am I doing?

We watched Brüno together.

As we sat up, I was now thinking: what will I say to people? What will people think of this? What have I done?

But then I was not taking myself seriously any more. My company was barely hiding her putting back her brain and her senses together after the exposure to more skin than she was expecting. I was still laughing, of course. Note to self: educate friends, especially females, with the basics before bringing them to the advanced courses. Because that's what Sasha Baron Cohen has made there — and I didn't know before tonigh, I swear! — although I wonder how she understood it; alas we did not take the opportunity to talk about that since she was busy stating and rehearsing her disbelief that anyone could even imagine such a concept… I was happily thinking: honey, there goes your sanity; denial first, we'll see to the rest later. We parted, I laughed again, and I took the metro back to the city.

What a nice movie. What a nice take on all I've ever been thinking personally about culture on the other side of the Atlantic. Would I ever myself have expected to identify so much with the message of a movie whose main character is so exaggeratingly, undoubtedly, painstakingly and obnoxiously “over the top”? Whatever, life is like a box a chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get.

Still, this day will be difficult to summarize.

Amsterdam is a city of many surprises — not. As I was unlocking my bike, the most derelict shadow of a human being I have ever met in person asked me if I knew my way around the city. His hat, sunglasses and scarf were hiding his face; his heavy winter clothes the rest of his body; except for his hands and his nose. The latter was wearing a piece of stainless steel; the former were spotted with open sores, although they were surprising clean.

Only years of experience in Paris allowed me to detect the slightly rehearsed side of an otherwise brutally honest, straightforward and heartbreaking conversation. He needed help, and his opening line was merely asking for it. Do you know places in Amsterdam where I could get help? City shelters for the homeless were my blind guess. They don't accept non-EU citizens, or you need to pay a small amount of money upfront. A hospital? That's where a friend died of an overdose yesterday. They provided the list of all the shelters, but it doesn't work out. The police? They are friendly and understanding, but they don't provide the most important: some money and/or a trip. I was honestly searching for more ideas. The guy genuinely sounded despaired, and why should he not? Even if his story is rehearsed, his trump card is certainly his honesty and his clarity. Despite the many recognizable scars over his veins and arteries, he was rational, polite and relatively well-mannered; he only needed a few coins either for a dose of whatever drug he's on, or to get into the only shelters that would accept him. And he was tired, visibly so.

“What would Jesus do?” My immediate previous experience had not prepared me for this. But the following scene still plays in my head:

— look, I don't have any cash on my. I usually don't anyways. But it happens I have some free time, and I'm in a good mood.

So we go to the nearest shop and I get two beers with my debit card. We sit. He tells me his story, not surprising and yet so human. I get an idea:

— I lied earlier. I have these two English pounds in my wallet from a previous trip. Those are the only coins I have. But I have an idea: you tell good stories. So why not making a show of yourself in Amsterdam, telling about your life and the mistakes you've made? Propose to answer questions; challenge tourists to guess what your life looks like, amidst the prejudice of what they think about how drugs work in the Netherlands. And then ask friendly a British visitor to change these pounds for the same denomination in Euros. Given the exchange rate they might accept.

In a way, I fathom it can be difficult emotionally to live isolated from society when one dragged themselves this way out of it. There was not much left in that human to let others identify with him in any way. But he was telling a good story, so how could I not spend a few minutes of my time with him, offer and let him feel honest and sincere attention for a little while? As any decent and moral social person ought to do, as they would expect others to do the same in return?

As this scene was forming in my mind, I was reflecting on my own mess. On the one hand, I socialize with wonderful and passionate women and I have absolutely no first-hand experience of the myriad of feelings they try share with me; yet I persist because the invisible wall that clearly separates us and establishes our mutual trust gives me a slight sense of control that my abysmal relational ignorance would otherwise shatter. On the other hand… Here should come a sentence with "men", but also "invisble wall", "mutual trust", "abysmal relational ignorance" and "myriad of feelings", although in quite a different order that I haven't sorted out yet. Every day, as the sun sets, I am scared. While a beautiful job and an exciting social life get me out of bed happy every morning, they are merely pushing away the nagging call of my hormones: seduce! couple! settle! breed! cherish your elders, so your offspring will cherish you as well!

An isolated life is a battle to fight every day, and I am proud to dominate my biological urges more often than not. If I can, why shouldn't he? Or maybe I was contemplating myself, twenty years down the line?

This world is a jungle: as I was unlocking my bike, I instead closed our conversation saying that I was coming from Rotterdam, and that I didn't know the city enough to answer him. I wonder if I can look at myself in a mirror tomorrow.

Still, this day will be difficult to summarize.

Last sunday my mind decided against the will of my body and despite one night dancing out I was ended up biking from Amsterdam to Marken and back. Fifty kilometers and a few sunburns later, I felt strangely relaxed, surprised again by the merits of exercise on my psychological sanity.

Besides the experience of serotonin, a quite distinct memory lingered after my stride around North Holland: the acute realization, twenty kilometers down the way and after crossing a few bakfietsen full with children, of the psychological imprinting that riding bikes has on most Dutch people, at the same age where I was spending most of my time building lego sets or playing around in a fine dry sand, a shy six hundred kilometers from the equator. I found it interesting to note that while the first memory of a lower water level at one side of a dike than the houses on the other blurs here with those of the first playground, my first memories often bring up the ruins of days long gone by. (And yes, I still recognize what's on that picture, although it has been nearly twenty years…)

There is a lot to recall and to tell about growing up as a third culture kid, especially when the only “consistent social unit” ends up imploding with emotional abuse — although deprivation may suit better the situation here — at the most unfortunate point in time, that is, the narrow window where one should learn models for a social identity. That's a quiet story I usually keep to myself, since demons of the past are best left lurking at the back of one's consciousness, carefully acknowledged regularly during the day so that they can stay reasonably quiet at night.

And yet, I was lucky and I could rejoice when fate, in an ironical twist, kicked me out of my own ignorance onto a world where I had to shed the scales I was given previously and grow my own. It was an unexpected but invaluable opportunity to deconstruct, and then reconstruct — a much-needed second adolescence during which the emotional turmoil proved to be a fertile ground for a new self: while I was fed vodka in nursing bottles by the woman who first handled me as a real person, I would imprint durably — like an inside tatoo overlaid on a fading pattern — the combined effects of friendship, ethanol and melodious rythmic sounds and let them replace gradually my fears of an autonomous identity in society.

Alas, location-based friendships built during the final period of a cosmopolitan education system are due to disintegrate when individuals go on with their personal development, often at very different locations at the surface of the globe. What survives is indeed invaluable — those few friendships that span frontiers, oceans and continents — but their distribution is precisely what prevents them from pushing a missing sense of “geographical belonging” into the unrooted, floating young adult now mostly out of the common flow.

But this is merely a minor concern. While some rawness makes me sensitive, it also makes me more receptive to certain feelings.

Tonight, I watched Shelter.

Because you asked so nicely, Julieta, I am willing to play along…

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. (Just find "notes" in your applications on fb and create a new note. Cut and paste this paragraph and add your 25 things) You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. Or I want you to know more about me. Something like that.

(yes, this is one of these Facebook chains)

1. During the past 4 years I have transitioned from a powerless and defiant attitude towards injustice, inequality and suffering in the world at large to an overall contemplative attitude. Reading about Taoism did help. However I still feel guilty for not dedicating my energy to fight for others where it is needed.
2. (related) I believe that the civil passivity of a citizen can be compensated by decication towards his social environment (family, friends, working as a teacher, etc); i.e. if I cannot make the world change myself, it is still positive action to actively support others. However I am struggling to justify this position to myself.
3. I love reading and learning, but I find it increasingly difficult to find people whom I can learn from and who can teach the things I specifically want to learn; meanwhile I also realize how much unexpected things there are to learn from pretty much anyone, and I enjoy that as well.
4. Sometime in the last 3 years I have been enlightened by the perception that plants, lichens, mushrooms and the like are multicellular life forms like we are. That there is so much biology in common between a human and the vegetal life forms usually used as mere decorations. This cured me of temptations of spiritual vegetarianism or veganism, as I see the death of animals and vegetables to serve as food for others equally dramatical from a spiritual point of view. Instead, I now feel slightly grateful towards my potential biological food when I see it alive, either animal or vegetal. (no feelings after it's effectively dead)
5. That said, from a practical-economical perspective I also think it does not make sense to eat a piece of meat more than once every week. I do not need it biologically, and growing an amount of animal food is much more environmentally expensive than growing the nutritionally equivalent amount of vegetable food. I recognize that some human activities (say, physical jobs) need more protein input than others; I believe that the production and distribution of meat should be restricted on this basis.
6. I never understood the meaning of “tingly feeling in the stomach” to describe a feeling (I used to imagine ants crawling there), until I saw two guys hugging and kissing out of sheer affection for the first time. Only then could I understand precisely why the media profusely show couples of men and women on screen.
7. I do not have strong feelings towards religion in general. My attitude towards religion is nearly purely rational. I am personally non-religious by total lack of education either for or against it in my young age, and lack of need in my later years. Reading about history and geopolitics made me realize that religions are a peripheral side-effect of the way humans tend to naturally organize themselves into societies; in this sense I do not see any long-lasting rationale behind atheism, except to create a god-less religion where an elite is taken as transcendental reference. I think (and can justify) that most religious dogmas have been elaborately constructed at a time when they were needed for political or overall public health reasons, and that new systems of beliefs need to be constructed over time to stabilize populations. For this reason I despise several religious beliefs that are now outdated, irrelevant and have become potentially dangerous; for example I think that the Catholic support for human reproduction at all costs is irresponsible in our over-populated world. I think many old customs will evolve gradually anyways, even though I know I will not live to see the changes myself. I think that football and otherwise entertainment in the media have taken the role that violent circus games had in the antiquity, and that public executions had in the Middle-Ages; both of which constructed religions have tried to replace by more peaceful rites and habits that can channel the excitement of humans into constructive activities. I avoid televisions for this reason.
8. I love flying, especially flying far. I find the experience of checking in and boarding into a plane exhilarating and it has spurted in my mind long-lasting periods of creativeness. Also, a flight takeoff is the only moment where I reflect what my peers' life would be after I die. Unfortunately lately my relationship with planes has been deteriorated by a light amount of shame for the large environmental footprint of my addiction. I now compensate with trains; while the feeling is there less strong, I can experience it more often especially in the Netherlands. Actually I have an invisible friend with the shape of a tiny plane so small that it is invisible, with the behavior and intellect of an ever trusting puppy, whom I make fly by showing his flight path with my finger as I walk. We have not played together for many years now, but I still think about him every now and then.
9. I am fascinated about information persistence as a basis for historical record. I have an acute perception that the last 30 years of computing are creating an historical “Dark Age”, from which historians of the future will not be able to retrieve our way of life nor our global knowledge. I feel lonely from the total lack of perception of this problem by my peers.
10. I find disguises of economic competition as nationalistic territorial or ideological disputes blatantly dishonest and ridiculous. In particular I think that heated diplomatic relationships entertained for decennia, if not centuries, are an irresponsible waste of energy, time, manpower and possibly lives; nationalists should realize how puny their concerns are compared to the immensity of the Earth (or the universe for whomever has ever looked up there), and/or convert their emotional distress into open commercial negotiations with their neighbors. Of course I do not believe there are simple solutions to all conflicts that are based on practical interest; some disputes may be virtually unsolvable based on the premises put forth by their participants. Take Israel for instance: my understanding is that the ruling leaders of the time basically took a piece of desert they had under their jurisdiction and “gave” it to the Jews, actually not out of sheer generosity but simply because accommodating them anywhere else would be practically more difficult. Conversely, the territory that is now Israel was virtually unused and non-habitable before the Israelis made it viable, and I find dishonest the Palestinians' attempts to disguise their interest in reaping the economical gains of the Israelis' efforts as a dispute over legitimacy. I think there is a lot to be said about these relatively current events in comparison with how the world community at large has accepted, or at least now tolerates, the way the Spaniards installed themselves in South America and how the Puritans colonized North America.
11. I will go to Trance Energy next month, for the 4th or 5th time ever, and I am looking forward to it.
12. When I was 20 I did not see myself live past 25, because I did not know of anything interesting to live through. When I was 25 I did not see myself live past 30, given how short-minded I perceived people become after they turn 30, marry and have kids. Since them I found out that aging is not so bad, and there are plenty of open-minded people to meet and things to do that actually require the extra maturity to enjoy. At the same time I still think people should retire from life when they become a burden to society. I plan to register a will in that sense.
13. (related) while I feel a little sad when someone dies not because of old age, I strongly support the idea that the interruption of autonomous life in organic matter when it has little self potential is not a tragedy when it balances with the well-being of other living individuals who have a longer or more potential future. For example I think that an embryo developing into a child with no support from his family and subject to emotional distress, which later develops into a strongly unbalanced adult, should not be allowed to develop in the first place; and that instead its stem cells should be reused for curing critical diseases that disable people who could otherwise contribute to society (i.e. I do not support "comfort" medicine or curing diseases for otherwise disabled humans). In the same way, I believe we should be immensely grateful towards young people who die relatively stupidly and make their organs available to others in a good shape. At the same time, I am acutely critical of biomedical ethics and I believe the decision to terminate autonomous life should never be taken by single individuals or groups of individual with religious, economic or political interests.
14. I once had purple hair for a while. Then I had it blue. Then silver. Later I turned orange, and I stayed red haired for a while. Now I am looking forward to seeing all my hair turn white, and I hope it happens before I lose it all.
15. I find the sound of spoken Dutch physically attractive. This strongly supports my efforts in learning the language on my own; I realize only now that relatively few foreigners and even natives share this motive and I have troubles connecting with other people because of this. Lately I discovered this attraction also when hearing Frisian.
16. I once heard there are people who arrived in the Netherlands and who do not want to learn how to bike because they find it childish. I am still bothered by the thought, as I totally cannot understand it.
17. I think that journalists, teachers and clerics (either administrative or religious) have the most responsible jobs in society. The first decide what knowledge is worth keeping and its transmission over space; the second are responsible for its transmission over time; the third administrate its archival and regulate its retrieval.
18. I believe that there exist global evil conspiracies of different natures and motives, but I believe those often purported in the media (Jew conspiracy, Illuminati, etc) are not global and have very little scope and influence. Instead, I believe for instance that cats are a highly developed species manipulating humans for its own benefits, and that the biosphere has an overall conscious existence of its own (the Gaia theory). More seriously, I believe there is a fundamental feud between mankind and womankind, that the rise of the Christian church and its misogynistic teachings was a temporary victory of mankind after ages of social ruling by womankind, and that the development of properly functional parthenogenesis or an artificial uterus by one kind will imply the prompt extinction, if not extermination, of the other.
19. I have issues with disposing of unused or unusable items. I feel a sense of responsibility towards the potential uses of any artifact, even uses I cannot myself imagine, supported by the fallacious belief that if I take care of conserving an item (as opposed to e.g. letting it be destroyed with other garbage) someone else, sometime in the near or far future, will be able to benefit from it. My former emotional distress on this topic was alleviated when I learned that it is possible to give unused items away to people who will take care of redistributing them; I now “only” need to solve the practical issue of classifying all the junk and transporting it to the right locations.
20. I think that love, anger, attraction, contempt, jealousy, in general the “mountains and hills” of human emotions are biological “features” built into our chemical processes; they were once necessary to survive, and they now merely regulate our good function in society. They must not be ignored or repressed, like pain should not be ignored, because they are useful and make life overall easier (when not unusually disturbed); however I think that entertaining conscious thoughts, discussions, art or other forms of expression for the sole purpose of showing feelings (as opposed to propagating them where they are needed or conveying a message in combination) is utterly useless and a waste of time and energy.
21. I experienced intense love for someone else and intense love from someone else in two distinct circumstances where it was not reciprocated. I now realize these are two situations that bring an insight on the complexity of human relationships that no amount of abstract education can possibly teach. It also has allowed me to really cherish my friends and my chosen siblings.
22. I don't know, and I care little, about the whereabouts of my biological siblings. However, I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering about the current life situation of other people I have met, especially those I have not stayed in touch with.
23. I am fascinated by body modifications, and I have spent a large amount of time to decide how much I can and want to modify myself. I think that any living being has the inalienable right to decide of its own form, shape and metabolism (as long as it does not cause harm to other individuals or disrupts society, but I think any right is constrained by this restriction).
24. I feel highly privileged to be allowed to live in the Netherlands and work in a University, and I have every intention to make myself worth of it. I had the occasion to test my limits in the past, I now know a balance between my responsibilities and my personal interests, and I intend to let this carry me for the next few years. I am ready to make adjustments as they are needed but I do not feel the need for radical self-desconstructions any more.
25. I procrastinate too much. I should really do something about it, especially given that I know what I should do. I'll start tomorrow, promise.

These are the first 25 things I randomly thought about, I now realize there are some other points that may be more important to state, but well... I guess there's a limit to what can fit on the good ol' net.

A kōan (公案) is a story, dialogue, question, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition.

Sometimes kōans appear out of nowhere, and I was today witness to a beautiful one:

(20:32) <@kena> sylvain_: c'est quoi l'art pour toi ?
(20:57) < sylvain> je suis inculte, nul, con et moche, et tu me
         poses cette question ?
(21:04) <@kena> tu dois avoir une opinion non ?
(21:43) < sylvain> je sais pas
(21:43) < sylvain> les filles me détestent totues
(21:43) < sylvain> j'en ai marre
(21:43) <@kena> ça répond pas vraiment à la question
(21:43) <@kena> je sais pas moi 
(21:43) <@kena> invente un truc
(21:44) < sylvain> faut que je trouve des choess à photographier.

Thanks, Sylvain.

The praying mantis is a small animal with an elegant body.

She stands still, beautiful and fertile; she waits for a mate with courage and strength to approach her. Then she chooses, they mate, and she bites his head off. He dies.

She may feel sad or guilty for a while. However soon enough she will be hunting again.

Nature is full of behaviors considered immoral by humans. We only need to step back and consider ourselves in the greater scheme of things. And she might starve before she can lay eggs.

… suivez mon regard.

À propos de regard, c'est bien ce que j'ai trouvé de plus intéressant pendant notre soirée.

En fait, j'aime beaucoup les yeux.

Il y avait ceux marqués par l'expérience et pourtant joueurs ; ceux marqués par une vie de changement et curieux de profiter du moment présent ; ceux ternis de fatigue émotionnelle et pourtant sensibles et dynamiques ; ceux qui se battent à chaque instant entre l'influence de la raison et ceux des sentiments ; ceux qui cherchent leur source de bonheur dans le regard des autres ; ceux qui cachent leur richesse derrière un phlegme bonhomme ; ou encore ceux dont l'esthétique ténébreuse fait fondre au premier regard.

Et pour tous, le dynamisme et la souplesse d'un regard qui apprécie et savoure ces moments privilégiés entre gens bien.

Today I feel warmth in my chest and on my face, because I feel the pleasure of a new emotional connection.

That is both good news and bad news.

Good news, because I had almost forgotten what it feels like. It's absolutely wonderful, and I find it far more interesting than lust or limerence because it does not tax the body or the mind by draining the energy out of it. I like to remember that this good stuff makes human bond together and societies hold. I like to remember that it has happened before, as my friends are coming to visit me for New Year's eve and now I will doubleplus thank them for being my friends.

Bad news, because I had almost forgotten what it feels like. Which means that I do not find many occasions to have it happen. Or maybe I do not hang out with the right people. Whatever. Now I want more of it and I do not really know what to do.

Hence another resolution for 2007: hang out with more people and see the good in all of them, to connect more often.

There were two guests at my place this week.

Hosting guests is one of the activities that help me keep care of my home.

There was a time when the mess would only be cleared when someone visited me. A reflex due to a contrast between the carelessness of youth and a deeply ingrained respect for the comfort of visitors. A principle acquired from my mum says that receiving someone properly goes necessarily through making every effort possible to make them feel home, and that is now part of my life.

Then it happened that I grew up (a bit). I started to realize the truth behind the age-old French saying: “charité bien ordonnée commence par soi-même,” and that the way to build the feeling of being at home for myself would go through making the kind of efforts I deploy for guests, for myself.

That was the moment when vacuum-cleaning, dish washing, mopping, laundry and disposing of the cat's litter became pleasurable (sometimes even fun), instead of a necessary chore to avoid as long and as often as possible. That was also the moment when I started actually caring about home decoration in shops in all places I visit. After that I would choose my furniture not only for practical aspects but also for the overall harmony they would bring at the place it would be eventually fitted. And so on; the list is long.

Oddly enough, it coincides more-or-less with my settling in Rotterdam. (ok, not that odd, but the coincidence is part of another story.)

But this is not a happy-ending story. I sometimes lose sight of the feeling of being at home when it becomes part of the invisible world of the daily routine.

Then come guests. Those people I like being with, for which I would just do the little extra that I can share with them and of which I know that it would make myself happy if it was reciprocated. Like preparing breakfast in the morning, or setting up beds in advance, and so on.

And doing so breaks the routine and brings the feeling of being at home back into sight.