A crazy Mathematician you say?

"People who are crazy, do not wonder about being crazy... therefore you are not, in fact, crazy"

There are two reasons this line got to me:

1. It's quoted from a movie about a crazy mathematician.
2. I sort of got one last assurance that I am, in fact, not crazy.

I discovered after watching that particular movie, that movies revolving around crazy mathematicians and their life's work actually fascinate me. And digging a little deeper into that feeling that overwhelmed me while watching it, I began bit by bit to find out why.
I have always been intrigued by the fact that genius -yet crazy- people who end up being the central characters of a movie are mostly and usually mathematicians. The more important reason behind my fascination, is their frantic passion for work, research and study; the way it is portrayed in a movie has always fueled my own ambition and zeal, that I had never succeeded in even beginning to take advantage of or apply in real life.

The main thing that always held me back from applying my potential for constant work that might lead to age-defying miraculous breakthroughs? Fear.
Fear of failure. Fear of impatience. Fear of loss. Fear of realization that even if applied, it might turn out to be a string of inadequacies and washed up thoughts.

I have always been convinced that I am in deed not the smart person some people (mostly or entirely my parents) like to tell me I am. I know that this is why I do not even try to experiment with my capabilities or potential. Because most of the time I just tend to come out as... let's just say... the antonym of the word "winner"... not matter how hard I try to rid myself of that result and that label.
I have to admit though, most of the time, it had been a self-granted label. I have never allowed any person the chance to name me as such; no one would be allowed to insult me in that way. Only I am allowed to label myself as that. Only then would it not be a humiliation. I jump to the opportunity whenever its scent presents itself; just to make sure no one sees it first.

The problem then occurs when I return to a state of soberness. When my system and veins are rid of all the intoxication that fills them. All the fear. That is when I begin to doubt my being; my sanity.
Which human being would be sane yet not begin to try to test out their full potential? Which human being would be sane yet back out of the competition just because there may be a 1 in a 100 chance they fail?

I think -contrary to what the voices try to say- millions. Even zillions.

I believe that more people than I think get scared everyday of facing something that they may very well be capable of doing, just because they are not strong enough to face themselves and their minds if they fail.

And let me just add a note to that thought: that no matter what it actually is they (we) do not face, it is a competition.
May it be becoming a parent, or studying for a test, or applying for a position, even if it is about facing a fear of closed spaces. It remains a competition. Human beings by nature (yes let's all face it) are competitive beings. No matter what we do, we compare ourselves to those around us. No matter what they do, we compare ourselves to them. We wonder if we are the best, or if there is someone out there that is going to do it better. And in some cases, we may never know.

I have been there, I have done that. And I shall never know.
With all the fear I have bottled up in my lungs and gut; with all the failed attempts to try, I have once reached a state of soberness for long enough that I got myself into one of the toughest challenges to face me in my life thus far (one grander than this blog about which I had once written: "I probably should not be pre-judging this newly-found trial arena before I even begin my attempts, but something tells me it won't not really work and the purpose would yet again be unfulfilled" and which I almost abandoned and let go of, if not for one spell of soberness).

How I came out of that challenge after its time had elapsed is a controversial topic. It, however, taught me one thing and brought out one question.
It taught me that no matter how much we try to deny its effect: Karma is a bitch. And it will get you every time, there is no place to hide and no where to go.

It also made me wonder the extent of instability and craziness that has overcome my constantly functioning mind. One day I'm up and letting go of all the problems and social dilemmas my life is facing, and the next day I'm six feet under because of them. Some things, some issues, as minor and insignificant as they are eat at me and feed on my insides. Deprive me of sleep and make me wonder at what my darkness calls "my incompetence" and what my sunshine calls "my modest triumphs".
So... am I? Am I crazy?

Well... since I started wondering if I am... I guess I'm not.

Recommended Movie: Proof

Recommended Song: Dream Catch Me- Newton Faulkner

Black Book Snippets

And I "wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend".*

I should have read this enamoring book whilst yet on the journeys that have taught me much and little at the same time. The comprehension that has been set on my mind, after four fragmented and hesitant days of reading and lack of such comprehension, has truly clarified the importance of such compilation of metaphoric thoughts. A compilation in the form of a book of life and of reference.

We weep for the end of innocence from the moment our eyes behold the light of every day and throughout every moment from then. And certainly we have wept the darkness of man's heart over and over during the fleeting minutes we felt a shared sorrow. At that moment the room became whole.

I am inhabited with the rooted conviction that these thoughts are not only mine, and that in fact a "we" is more appropriate than an "I". As simpleton-like I could sound, and as exhausted and over-credited it is, my conviction flows unobstructed. For once I do not dignify the judgments of "simplicity".

Further than that, as human and emotional as those words sound and look, they also connect to a more real moral that the author has dared divulge: "The shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable"*.

Such a powerful and daring moral behind a story. Just a story.

Ironically enough, I am interrupted by the infamous debates that might very well determine the future of a country that believes in the logical and respectable system. And this moral rings even further truth in the light of that timely interruption.

I wonder if they have ever read that book carefully, maybe then they would have been more aware of their assured utterances.

I also wonder at the perfect opportunity that this moral and quotation could have offered us, but unfortunately had gravely missed us. This moral becomes most appropriate to the reflections we pondered and searched for some time.

As needed as this moral was at that time, it has been far more needed by this faithful reader, thinker and believer.

Finally, the summation of a brief learning expedition found crossing my path in the midst of heart wrenching times. Finally dawn has been cast upon my mind through the dust and fog, for I had lost the entire purpose and all the conclusions that had come to me as spontaneous as life itself. I had lost it all on one flight "home".

But again the interpretations of this witted comment are as endless as its implications and consequences. It is a study in itself. A study of human behavior and of its attachments and efforts.

Its importance comes in the strings that attach it to the lost innocence of man and his dark heart. Has the digression and distraction from the fact that society comes down to the individual lead us to the lost innocence? As we forget, and as we put our faiths in abstract ideas with -admittedly- little foundation, we stray from the most simple and obvious idea. Society is the individual. The individual defines Society.

Before their arrival, it was Eden. After mankind, the shattering of civilization, the death of wisdom, and the proliferation of sadistic acts of murder seem to take over this once observed heaven. A degradation from civility to savageness; to the times man had thought he had escaped long ago.

Those who learn the secret? ...They die grusome deaths by the hands of their own societies.

I try; I struggle against the urge of reflection on our own societies, and "their" societies.

Yet, I do not fight the questions: Who becomes Jack Merridew the savage hunter barely recognizable since his birth on their isle? Who becomes Ralph; the believer in civilization; he who defies the temptations to the darkness of the hearts... he who mourns the loss of the true wise friend with the broken specs?

I fear the unknown answers.

I do not fear, however, the realizations nor the true colors that come to life basked in the sun's glories.

... I finally recognize the subjects of my adoration. Tell me about my life, read it out line by line, and I shall tell you more about my treasure hunt.

*The extracts used for quotation are from "Lord of the Flies" by "William Golding", which coincidentally becomes yet another recommended reading.

The Great Path to Nowhere

I think it's healthy to have a billion thoughts running through one's head. I think it's brilliant to know that none of them make sense.
I think that's how you know you're a genius.

Those who said that in the midst of a defining mess one finds one's greatest defining path, obviously knew more of their share of the world than they should.

That however does not mean that I do not have a serious correction to this statement. One in that case may truly find the "great path", but it should be made clear that the path is actually located in a completely different dimension than the one that is actually a mess.

One's life is nothing but a combination of dimensions; some intertwined, some not. Some intersected, some completely separate. I can only see it as a really complicated solid geometry diagram: planes X, Y, Z and L scattered around the paper, teasing me while I try to make sense of it all.

There is a personal life, there is a public life, and there is the life in between. The life that they see, that they barely sense, that they sometimes accidentally crash into. To each dimension its layers, its own routes... it stops making sense after a while... doesn't it?

No matter how long I try to think about it, it still confuses me. I still cannot get to the bottom of it, and I still cannot decide what to decide. My mind is never organized nor systematized enough to do that. I lost the highly required "since, therefore" process with freshman year.

What I do know is that when I realized the mess that is one of my layers, the others instantaneously cleared themselves out ahead of me. They formed the paths that call out in their highest and brightest notes.

But, it's never as easy as it seems, the trick is to find the way to those paths; to find the key to escape the closed box that is in a state of total destruction and travel all the way to the cleared out road that is waiting for those specific pair of feet.

All that effort and all that determination that are needed need to be mustered. They need to be engraved in the memory for good. It happens often that as one walks the road to their end, they lose focus and the original plan. The shiny distractions by the sidelines are too difficult to overcome as they become torturous temptresses that continuously haunt the soul.

No matter the clutter, no matter the disarray I should always keep in mind the ends that have always been mine, and the inspirations that have always reignited the fire beneath the skin.

I think this is such a mess; it becomes the perfect embodiment of my being. As dizzy as a daisy in a London storm.

And in response one more of my trusted friends says "Life is full of nonsense anyways. Who says everything should make sense"

Such Great Heights

Is it okay to feel sadder about other people's memories than one's own because one wants to belong "there" more than one wants to do so "here"?

An uncompromisable friend 4 time-hours away unknowingly gave me one of the most valuable moments of clarity I have encountered as of yet.

Old Shoes saved for a road that never was... and never will be..

I look at it the same way I used to look at those Picasso paintings in the museums in France. I slant my head to the right and then to the left. Then I just gaze at it.
I know where it fits in my own life. Perfectly. But from one angle, it looks like an incomplete sentence. From another it looks like a perfectly fine one because the whole point is about realizing reality. A third angle shows me affection towards things that will never be, but if only they could be. Upside down it may look like a cow eating strawberries.

I begin to wonder how different people from everywhere would interpret it. How would it fit in their own lives. In the middle of my interrupted sleep I can almost hear the unuttered whispers of those who are going through their own transitions and their own moments of angst. Maybe they're going through their boxes-filled-with-treasure.

Ironically enough, at the same time I think about those kids that are -again- 4 hours away having to say their goodbyes. The ones that are moving on with their lives. Or at least still trying to.


Recommended Music: Drop In the Ocean- Michelle Branch
Life In Technicolor- ColdPlay

Curiosity Killed the Cat 9 Times... And the 10th Did It In

I am the person who can not survive without elaboration.

Take away all elaborate descriptive analyses of life and I suffocate... and maybe die... just like a little gold fish... you know... the pretty ones that have a 3 second memory span?

Ever since I was a little girl, this has been my game and this has been my mind boggle.

I remember when my mother used to tuck me into bed at 8pm every evening. And I'd ask her to tell me something. Anything. So she just thinks of something random and that is when my favorite game was to begin.

I would ask her "why?" Just like that. No matter what it was she was saying. So being the good extremely patient and easily entertained mother that she is, she'd try to give a sensible response that would be comprehended by a 5 year old... as if that would satisfy. Another "why?" follows the first response, and then a third "why?" follows the one before. Needless to say, it goes on and on until she decides enough is enough and that mommies cannot explain everything in one night.

I think when I was that age -and as far as my memory allows me- I was only curious about things that are much more complicated and sophisticated than the minds of kids with 8pm bedtimes. Things like God, and life and death. Things like wars, and military tanks and guns and things like "why don't they get the most powerful boxers or wrestlers from their countries and have a match and whoever wins then wins the war instead of killing all those people?"

Honestly... I just did not understand the stupid illogical logic that older crazy people were following. It's just stupid... wasting all those lives when it can just be settled by a simple wrestling match.

To this day I feel sorry for my mother who had to find quick satisfactory responses to even quicker and more difficult questions.

But then came the times when I can no longer ask someone that deliberate why.

To certain secrets of the world I have reached my own conclusion that has thus far kept me relatively patient. The only conclusion that has ever satisfied me was that human kind will -might- find out about God's great plan and all the secrets that come with it on Judgement Day. What Stonehenge is all about; whether the Loch Ness existed; what really happened with the Prophets; who the evil Pharaoh that chased Moses really was and whether I'm his descendant; and whether the Bermuda Triangle is really cosmically-odd or not, there is still a chance we will find out. Even if not. I calm my self with that.

All the same, by now, my habits and games have finally caught up with me. I cannot stop questioning and it seems it will never stop. I cannot stop asking others and I cannot stop feeling ashamed with every question I ask. The lameness and the misunderstandings that get to me each time. And every time I promise it would be the last time. But my curiosity towards my life does not stop. My need and urge to reach a target and to stay still there also do not stop. No matter how many times I convince myself that they have and that I have reached the epitome of all places to be, they do not stop.

I constantly feel the need to attain my own access key to others' minds and their thoughts. The reasons behind their thinking and their justifications are left unheard while there are those who ache to hear them. Because if they do they would finally find themselves or find what they are not. And I only find that when one is left unchallenged that that habit of constantly searching for elaborations gets one into "one heck of a mess".

....

The words feel familiar and the road feels even more so. My curiosity gets to me one more time; I interrupt this messy attempt to being relevant to the public and to finding salvation from my own twisted thinking in publishing it. I get up to open a dusty and worn-out black book. I find the exact words, phrases and sentences sketched out. I reach out for another, and it is the same.

For once... I finally see it.

I run around in circles for years on end with no absolution.

The first time I am awakened to the cruelty of the fruitless, targetless and lost hunt I have been on for the past 2 years, is the time I can no longer hide from it.

Frankly My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn

Theme of the week... Or should I say Ferocious-Battle-Between-Even-More-Categorized-Concepts-Inorder-To-Decide-Which-Fits-My-Current-Status of the week?


I have come to realize that this entire blog is inspired by friends and the things they say to me that wake something up inside. Realizations that come crashing down on my head during all too normal and random conversations seem to have a greater effect than the speaker realizes, and I guess that only points to something in my own person rather than in theirs. I noticed that the way I look into often overlooked details and the way I analyze them and their effect on my life sometimes takes a greater portion of my waking moments than is normal to human beings.

Whether that is a good thing or not is debatable. By a lot of concerned people too I may add...

After the dust has begun to settle on the mess that was my life, I have begun to experience visits by an ugly and awkward three way tango; one that is indefinitely stumbling through its steps around my head in more way and form than just one.
The thing is, other than the fact that this entire past month has been nothing but one big agonizing pay check to fate in return for the extraordinary July and first 3 Augustan-days, it has also been a month of blasts from the pasts and quiet nights at home doing nothing but looking for "sharp clarities" and "certain truths". No worries though; It was not all gone to waste, but it did bring up some peculiar thoughts. I am beginning to doubt the supposed inarguable idea that I have gotten over particular tunes from the past, and as they pop up again left and right I begin to also find new definitions to their status in my life;

Let Go: v. to be aware of an issue that may become an obstacle in one’s path and to choose to drop the entire matter without giving it second thoughts to be gone with the wind. (Tara! Tara! … my apologies but I just can’t help it)

Move On: v. to be aware of such previously mentioned issue and acknowledge and accept its existence in one’s life and attempt to maneuver around it until it is brought up again.

Get Over: v. goes beyond moving on to indicate the person’s full recovery from the issue and the total removal of said obstacle from one’s life entirely, thus making its recurrent comeback a far shot and a rarity.


Call my crazy but I think this makes sense (why do I find myself saying this quite often? Have I ever said something that does not make sense? Doubtful..). And what is beginning to make more sense than ever is the fact that I have not gotten over anything at all; I've actually moved on from it all... And in fact I am actually welcoming every thing's return and all the sneaky visits I have been getting. Actually, maybe getting over all that would have been a big bummer because then I would not have been able to revisit the memories and the happiness or pain they brought me.

One's life is one's life. A person should never try to avoid the certainties and facts that are history. It is true that history is history, but -like Rafiki the Crazy Baboon says- how then do you learn form it if you try to ignore it?

Be that shining star. With all the melodies and all the shadowy pasts lurking in the background and all the lines and etches.

I've already tried to erase those etches, bumps and rough corners that identify a huge part of who I am and I've ended up being sore and bitter at what I have lost in the process; the conviction with who I am, who I've become and who I am going to become. There are many layers to a person and many dimensions as well, if we can't love them all; each and every one of them, with all their faults and perfect imperfections, then I'm sorry to say we aren't worth two dimes of the life God has given us. And if they can't love them, then I'm sorry to say they aren't worth two dimes of your time.

The moment you start believing in what people say about you... it's over.
Be that old sentimental fool who believes in life and opportunities; who believes in the world and its hidden treasures that are waiting to be found; who believes that life is as sure as the next plum you eat and hates it all at the same time.

They're going to love me for it, or hate me for it. And Frankly my dear.. I don't give a damn.

Recommended Movies: Go indulge and have a Disney marathon.. the lessons of life embedded in those are more important than in any self-help book known to man.

Recommended Activities: A scrap book or pin up your memories on a board

It Wasn't Too Late for Crepes Either...

I planned to sleep at 10.
Around 1 am I started making a dozen of my very own delicious-special-recipe crepes.

Some people are stress eaters. I, on the other hand, am a stress cooker. Yes that's true. There is such a thing... and even if there wasn't then I just invented it. But the valid question here would be: What is there to be stressed about? Everything. But nothing at all.

I lay awake, insomniac; watching bad 80's movies just to distract myself from all the things that could be upsetting me with the world. Who on this planet hasn't done this before?

It's only healthy to start pinpointing the things that stress out the soul one at a time, deal with them, and then put them up on the trophy shelf next to all the other solved puzzles. So now that I have identified the structure of the most efficient and effective process of thought for the night, the task becomes actually finding out what is stressing me out. Which is a task that cannot be called neither simple nor easy... that's also why talking to people about random things helps.

I was talking to a friend (the same friend who says I have my nice plastic moments) and I realised one thing. I realised that one of my best chances at fulfilling a dream of mine - and of my mother's - as well had slipped by swiftly and unexpectedly, even though it had been there for almost 20 years.
My great aunt; my grandmother's sister, who was the eldest of her 9 brothers and sisters and who had the entire family story saved in her memory passed away on a hot summer night.

How does this have to do with the opportunity of my life? Simple. My mother's hope of me, and my own 10 year old dream is to put my family history down on paper as solid and documented as can ever be. That history that is so rich and so intertwined with my own community's and city's and country's history is attached to everything I am and everything that I hope to at some point become.

And I feel as though those generations of stories and anecdotes crumbled and fell in those moments when I heard the news. It all just flew by too that I did not get to mourn properly or to contemplate and reflect upon all of this... I tend to go blank and reaction-less when death's stench reeks and hovers around my soul... I only realise much later.

Another very humane habit that requires some scrutiny is being "too late".

How late is "too late"?

I prefer to believe that as long as the loss of a life is not included in the story, then it isn't too late at all. There is always time to catch up. To pick up. To fix up. There is always time... Only as long as one decides that is is already late enough.

What people need to start learning - and especially yours truly - is that its unhealthy to postpone and it is even more unhealthy to give up on things.

I shouldn't have to give up on my doing something amazing because those around me think I should focus on available resources. I shouldn't have to give up on my need to feel accomplished because people tell me I need to be more grounded. I shouldn't have to give up on world peace (only with a completely and utterly made-over definition of "peace") because of the fact that it has become a ridiculed concept. I shouldn't give up on reaching the people I want to reach just because they live half way across the world. I shouldn't feel like a total waste of space and breathing air only because a boy my age on TV managed to become a swimming hero never to be forgotten.

And most definitely I shouldn't have to give up on writing my book because of the passing of the most beautiful and brightest and most colorful woman I have ever known... She would have scolded me bad for giving up; she would've told me she is unimportant, that she is just one of God's creations, and that everything I need I would find in the rest of His creations.
No one should... It just needs a bit of effort and a plenty of support. Or maybe its the other way around.

No I don't want to battle from beginning to end; I don't want to cycle, recycle revenge; I do not want to follow death and all of his friends.