Time comes and goes and it doesn’t really come back. Philosophing much? Mayhaps.

Philosophically speaking, I have nothing to write about.

And not just philosophically. The past months have proved to be very interesting for my self-development, as I’ve been putting myself through some new situations and I learned some new things, maybe 2 or 3 even about myself. There’s no use in detailing, because no one really wants to know about an individual’s private life that much, unless I would’ve reinvented the wheel or anything as cool as that. Besides, this is also something else that adulthood brought me, I don’t need to tell the world everything about myself – and that might be either a sign of sanity or a sign or a newly installed insanity. Time will pass and it shall tell.

In the meantime, here’s something my 4 fans might be interested of: I started writing on my book. It has already at least 13 possible beginnings and, same as many things I have started in my life, it might not see the day of also getting an ending any time soon.

Good news is that the past months helped me find a lot of new music, which brought a refreshed playlist on my phone and in my head.

And, I am preparing for an awesome holiday, which is the reason for my today’s joy.

So there it is, my awesomely normal life. Blessed by the sounds of great music.

Sometimes, thinking and rethinking about a certain idea is not necessarily the best solution. Over-thinking decisions might just take the right moment of action from before your eyes and then, all of a sudden, you are left with an over-thought decision, that you missed the opportunity to actually implement. 

So this belief makes me realize there are times when I feel that I act based only on my instinct. There are many times like this, after which I have the impression I might have just made a huge mistake, but then I calm down and start breathing through the infinite dosage of optimism that lies in all the pores of my body. And if there is anything anyone could say about me, is that, as much as I love perfection, I am a terribly messy person. Apart from my work e-mail, where I have arranged everything like an OCD patient who's refusing treatment :D, my wardrobe is messy, my desk is messy, my hair is messy most of the times, my thoughts are messy. Yet, in order to fit the definition of a true messy person, I can find whatever I need and fast, no matter how messy my search territory is. 

Take a leap. Take a deep breath and take the risk. Jump. You might not rotate in the air like a cat, but you do have a chance to land on your feet.

A few moments earlier I surprised myself while drawing on the bed with my index finger, repetitively, the sign of infinity.

We, Romanians, have an expression: doing -insert stuff here- like a goose goes through water. 

As an explanation, water goes away from the goose's feathers, so it's not affected by the wet walk.

Yes, I know, I am not even close to being old, so I don't have quite an extensive life experience. I probably, hopefully, have more years to live ahead and time and opportunities to gain more and more experience, so I am now speaking again as a mini-beginner. Or as much as the mini-adult that I managed to become.

Truth is that the recent years made me experiment situations with which I hoped I would not have to deal with, at least for a while, so I managed to change some of my perspectives and tried to look more at the big picture, rather than focusing on the small issues.
Then again, I see people around me going through life like the goose I was mentioning at the beginning. More and more I am forced to digest that "ignorance is bliss" saying, as I see it tends to become a habit; and like all habits, embraced by many, I am sick to the stomach when I think it will in the end become something more than normality itself.
I see people worried about clothes, carbs and diets, I see poor people on the street about whom no one gives a damn while walking past them, I see rich kids spending money they will never know how it was earned, I see animals killing dogs, I see lovers hurting people.

Some weeks ago I was having a tea in a tea-house and at the table next to mine there was a couple. Since the tables are very close to each other, I managed to enjoy their 3 hours conversation - even if I know that paying attention to people's discussions is not polite, but I was simply hearing more or less everything. 3 hours later I was still amazed, but happy they left. I couldn't indulge more talks about, food, Coke Zero, going to the gym and so on.
Ignorance is bliss. But at least they seemed to be happy.

One of the good things about flying so often is that I get the chance to quickly go through the magazine offered by the Airline company. 

The very good thing about these magazines is that they offer details about nice places to visit or events that are happening in the city you are heading to, from concerts to exhibitions, from modern to classical, etc. When I have business trips I don't even bother to waste my already poor sight with that, since I usually have 0% time to actually visit anything, apart from the hotel, the meeting spaces and the sightseeing taxi-tour to and from the airport.

But for Vienna it is quite useful, as here you can always find something to do, so I started a list in which I wrote down from the magazine, about things to do and see while in Vienna. Every time I get the chance, I go and cross something from the list.

A nice name that draw my attention was the so called Salon der Angst, an exhibition held al Kunsthalle Wien, where I eventually went last week. According to the booklet, "Angst" is a German word, which in English could be translated as Fear-Anxiety-Worries. I used the 3 words altogether, since the English booklet I took from the exhibition tried to sell "Angst" as the very German word that cannot be translated into English as just one of them.

Now, I am merely a freshy in this contemporary art thingy, so I will avoid making comments on the exhibition. All I can tell you is that it was worth the time and more information & pictures can be found here. But I will focus on a simple piece, that draw my attention more than others, especially after I read the text, which made me think about this Angst in a very diversified way. I couldn't say it better than the author of the Wall, so you can read below the description of what the artist wanted to express through such a simple idea as a Lichen Wall.

The proposal of a surface - Lichen Wall (Zin Taylor, 2013) 

"The spots that collect on a stone, these things know when they arrived. They're thousands of years old, remembering what came next, and next, and next. It's their job, it's what they do - they're lichen.

Foundationally, Lichen is a four-layer organism. The first and last layers are identical fungal hosts, the middle two a paired algae. Composed similar to a sandwich made of two elements, ham and cheese or peanut butter and jelly, the planar units of bread (fungus) contain a dialogue (algae) within its form (lichen). The forms can be small and repetitive, oblong or circular. they can be pools of colour, like a stain referencing the action that made it so, or cauliflower patterns traversing a surface with colourful growth, blanketing the host with a field of their thoughts.

Red, pink, rose, orange, yellow, lavender, blue, green, black, grey, darker grey, white, whatever happened, whatever that organism "saw" was absorbed, producing these colours. A field of spotted colour shifts hues according to the events, actions, gestures and forms, passing before it. Sometimes these spots are turned into paint, a memory-paste rubbed onto a surface to depict a person's impression of something. These are subjects that exist only in the mind, that can't be photographed. What exists in your mind? What secret thoughts control your actions? What have you painted today?

Photographic examples of lichen, in particular the scattered patterns produced through centuries of build-up, strike a fortuitous relationship to visual representations of 1960's LSD culture. Projected light shows, presented by Liquid Light Groups, were one of many aesthetic elements employed to visually define psychedelic culture of the 1960s. Light companies, specializing in live performances utilizing liquid inks and overhead projectors, routinely lent a visual complement to the progressive/psychedelic bands playing at the time. San Francisco's Brotherhood of Light performed at San Francisco's legendary music venues Fillmore West and Winterland Ballroom. Other groups of the area, with equally enigmatic names were The Single Wing Turquoise Bird Lightshow Troupe, Little Princess 109 and Light Sound Dimension (LSD).

This cultural activity of the late 1960's marked a period in history when, both institutionally and recreationally, investigations of the unconscious were actively facilitated through the exploratory use of psychotropic drugs. During the 1969 music festival Woodstock a now infamous public announcement was made to a collected crowd of a half million people urging them to "avoid the brown acid" as the effects weren't as expected. A mixture of chemicals, designed to produce elated psychological investigations, had been mixed wrong - the brown acid was the harbinger of the nefarious bad trip. The effect enabled a seemingly negative experience for those who had ingested this particular item of hallucinogenic facilitation. Stanislov Grof, a Czechoslovakian psychiatrist, has conducted extensive research into the bad trip phenomenon. This form of LSD induced psychosis, or psychedelic crisis, produces disturbing hallucinogenic experiences for the recipient. The manifestations can range from feelings of vague anxiety and alienation to profoundly disturbing states of unrelieved terror, ultimate entrapment, or cosmic annihilation - cerebral effects descriptive of elemental angst. Grof, as a founder of The Faculty of Transpersonal Psychology, believed an analysis of this state would lead to generative breakthroughs in the treatment of an individual 's psychosis, in particular the unresolved psychological tensions triggered during the course of the experience: bad trips generate positive material.

The bad trip philosophy predicates that the imaginative results of angst are generative towards analytical thinking. What does a bad trip look like? Let the mosaic field of lichen be a background of alternative possibility. The portrait of a slow-growing micro-biotic organism, never dying, always watching, absorbing, reflecting these thoughts as a colour palette scattered along a surface - a wall playing host to a myriad of thought."

So what does your lichen wall look like?

I should be doing 3 other things instead of writing here. But I will politely invite words like "should" and "have to" to gently go towards having a cup of lava in Hell. And I will write here. 

I started my yesterday evening with a visit to the doctor. 

I cured my follow-up bad mood with shopping for dresses and with drinking ginger-mint tea with a friend, in a hipster cafe, downtown Vienna. We talked about different things, like we always do when we meet, like the first time we met and talked for 3 hours, while the people around must have thought we are old friends.

We talked about happiness, adventures, family and friends, we joked about the future, loneliness and uncertainties and we ended up travelling with the subway, on our way to our homes, with him making fun of me for taking the tram for 2 stops instead of walking. 

As if walking alone in the night is my favourite thing in the world. 

But I did it. The tram was coming in 12 minutes, so I decided to walk, even if I somehow feel afraid of doing it, after almost 10 years since that bad memory occured downtown Bucharest.

I liked it. I walked 80% of the way 2 metres behind a tall brunette guy, who was walking a small cute white dog, which was turning every 14 steps to look at me.

This morning I decided to walk a little instead of taking the tram. I was already late for work, but since my schedule is more or less flexible and my colleagues + manager are the best ones anyone could wish for, I considered there's no need for me to be stressed on such a rainy Thursday morning.

Now, Vienna is not the greenest city you could live in, so most of my way to work is full of concrete and artificial things. 

As I was listening to my morning playlist, I found myself smiling while I realized that since autumn came and the leaves started falling, I guess no one bothered to clean the sidewalk  in my neighbourhood. This is how I found myself walking on a carpet of leaves in all colours......

........realizing I finally learned how to enjoy Autumn. :-)

There was once a short story about freedom, which was obstinately bitch slapping people in their faces every time they forgot how she tasted.

I don't know the whole story, since I am too tired to think of writing it now :-). Like from all good stories, all I need to remember is the main idea, so I won't waste time recreating the fantasy in between.

So since I whispered the magic word (=tired) and thanks to stalking my favourite stalker, let's just close them eyes and think of dreaming, while falling asleep on this:

...that created that damned grey.

As I'm flying quite often lately, I obviously have time to think about different things - even if before I had the opportunity of doing nothing, I of course wasted that precious time doing something.

Different things, such as: starting from the idea that a person denying their roots denies a part of their identity and ending with a whole speech, that I forgot as soon as the plane hit the ground.

Or: listening to weird music during a late flight, when the aircraft is just partially illuminated, leaves you space for even more over-thinking and over-analysing. 

Not thinking at all from time to time would be a welcomed relief, but we shall have time for peace later on.

Today I found this video, of a guy who crashed with the plane in the Hudson river.
Initially, I was just curious to see what it would be like to go through such an experience, but after listening to the guy finish his speech, I realized I am already considering the first 2 things he mentions. And I did this even before I got to go through such a shock...while for the 3rd, I already know I will be a kick-ass parent. So, happy Birthday to me, seems like I am not old for nothing. :-)

I 

Some music in my headphones, if you please:

I dreamed about becoming a dancer since I was 8 - 9 years old. 

But I didn't tell my parents about it, nor did I push myself enough to do it. So first time I stepped in a dance class it was already too late for me to be able to make a career in dancing. 

Note to self: If I ever get to have children, I will encourage them to tell me what are they dreaming about. Most of all, I will encourage them to dream and to never stop believing that dreams do come true, even if sometimes the necessary workload might be more than what other dreams would require. 

I lost so many things so many years, just because I was afraid or to shy to ask for them.

Now I still look at videos like the one below...like that 8 years old little girl used to watch a Russian ballet show on a black and white TV, dreaming that someday she will be the most graceful swan on the lake. :-)

Combining states of mind with colours, sounds and tastes,
I wish you would have seen how the clouds were laughing that day,
When all I wanted was that the day would end
And the evening would slowly drown in the night,
So that all of this could pass by and create
Just another piece of this long lasting dream
And fantasy, created along the
Different ideas and similar past experiences,
But you weren't there,
When my mind
Was creating
Those laughing clouds.

I'm pretty sure Beth knows how to explain this to you better.

Recently I developed a passion of discovering people, piece by piece, as making people open up to me and trying to fill up their darkest corners with rainbows made me feel better in times when I needed it most.

But by recently, I am of course talking about the past years, as no passion develops like a summer rain. Or at least it shouldn't.

And by people, even more recently, I discovered I am no more comprising analyses over the individual in itself, but actually referring to the mass that individual belongs to. Sometimes my mind refuses to understand why would a mass of people act in such a way, when it is clearly the wrong direction, but after that my brain immediately switches off this theory and reminds me it is just a difference of perspective. I often say that having a different opinion than mine doesn't mean that either of us is necessarily wrong, because it means it is simply a matter of accepting different views over the same topic.

Then again, watching a mass poisoning itself with whatever is easiest accessible literally makes me sick. It also makes me think that reading about crowd psychology is just a waste of time, because there is nothing left to do here other than to analyse, without having a real chance of improvement.

....over me.

...but the crowd called out for more.

Like that time when I wanted to get some sleep and instead I had a billion thoughts, rushing altogether through a tiny gate inside my brain.

Or like that time when I had maybe too much to eat and I felt sorry for eating that much, but promising  myself I will surely taste that again.

ARK from grzegorz jonkajtys on Vimeo.

The past 3 days brought me in different states of mind. 

I had Romanian, Hungarian and Thai food. I tried sweet tastes, but I also had the chance of eating what was probably the spiciest food in my life.

I had a sweet-sour taste in my head, then I laughed and simply enjoyed the moment. 

I had a fight with him, then we had a resolution. I actually had a fight with myself, but he managed to take me out of it and we had a resolution.

I met new people, then watched them getting in a train and leaving. I will probably never see them again, though they seemed like they were nice.

The past 3 days gave me the opportunity of trying some new things, but also some old things in a new way; I had some beginnings, but also felt some sort of endings. 

I could say I had quite an activity and that I can't possibly complain about anything. So I won't. The past 3 days were how they were supposed to be.

PS: Today my good friend, Tudor, launched his book - which you can buy together with the "Romania Libera" newspaper.

speaking of which...the past 3 days I had all these experiences, but one thought came constantly in my mind: I should have been home.

As I was saying, beginnings are killing me. 

As most of the times I seem to balance (heh) between the 2 extremes of everything - though never really finding that perfect balance - I also realized in the meantime that endings are not such a great thing for me either. 

Thus, introducing the core-girl. 

This core-girl actually loves beginnings, after she of courses pushes herself off her mental-couch to actually begin something. Anything. :)

And this core-girl knows that beginnings can sometimes be difficult, but also that other times they happen to come out of pure, blind luck. Beginnings can be surprising or anticipated, quick&painless or slow&idiotic. They could require deep mind mapping or just a simple bright idea. 

Beginnings can also be perfect, though most of the times they are full of flaws - which is actually perfectly normal. Practice makes it perfect. As also ambition, determination, courage and belief might help. But that's just speaking again about the core. (sorry, can't help it :>)

Speaking so much about beginnings and having the word "perfect" in my head for already some time now, I thought I should finally begin that "perfect" series I've been dreaming about. 

And how could I start, if not with...those perfect beginnings.

We all had that perfect little beginning, which we wished it would never end.

Even if we speak about taking the first bite from a Sneakers bar or hearing a song which makes you believe music must have never existed before it, I think we experience thousands of beginnings during our lives, but to which we don't really give a close look.

It might probably make our days better if we just took the time to actually enjoy every little thing around us. Like that hedonist you must have in your Facebook friends' list, who is always posting pictures, quotes or status updates about happiness and whom you must hate, at least from time to time, because someone like that is not real. Or is just an ignorant to the rest of the world. 

But leaving hate aside :D... (damn it, I really had a positive idea about this.)

(there it is!)

I love having the first piece of a plate of home-made cheesecake. Wearing a new pair of leather shoes. Finding a new song which makes me feel like my ears&brain have been lied to before it was created. Meeting a new person who smiles as much as me. Meeting a new person who is 120% built of enthusiasm and ideas. Basically, meeting new people and discussing about nothing&everything. Discovering a new place, a new taste, a new image. Listening to an old song and finding a new meaning for it. Driving someone else's car for the first time. Reading a new book of an author you've read and known by heart by now. Buying a small thing which brings a big smile on someone else's face - and mine, automatically. The first snow of a winter. The first day of school / at a new job. Getting a brilliant idea out of nothing. Doing things I wouldn't have done a year ago. 

The core girl, sad of realism and infected with optimism. :)

PS: see if you can spot your perfect beginnings.
PPS: I love "PS"s. And apparently, making playwrighter comments, as if I am writing a theatre play - apologies if these are disturbing, feedback regarding this possibly annoying style  is welcomed. :)

...year after year...what have you found?

I was talking yesterday to a friend, trying together to figure out what is something she likes a bit more than just much, in order to turn it into a hobby.

Half an hour later of me suggesting things and she saying no to the very idea, I gave up.

So after this powerful discussion, she still has no hobby after work and I am now left again with many ideas and no time to turn them into reality. I would do more than one thing I like at the same time, but the "British scientists" apparently keep saying it's still not possible.

So how is it, then?

Is it alright to chase more dreams at the same time or should we focus on one and die trying to make that happen? Is this world small enough to try to be good in only one direction?

By dreams I mean rabbits / opportunities / targets / goals / beliefs, called them as you wish.

PS:

That's what he said. 

That's what he said on a night when I told him that a part of me is disappointed. And that a part of my soul is stuck in my throat, asking "why?".

I know what is the reality now, though some years ago I was dreaming of changing the world. Making people better, improving the quality of life. Actually doing something.

When I stopped blinking like a deer in front of the headlights and realized that impossible things do exist, a small part of me died with the thought. A part of my childhood's specific enthusiasm died and made space for the coldness of the dreamy realism I am suffering from now. 

I am sorry, World, I eventually failed in believing I can make you better on my own. I was looking at what the human animals around me are doing and realized that the remaining enthusiasm will eventually die, piece by piece.

So I changed the strategy and I am now working on myself, on making myself better and perhaps inspiring others to do the same. If we don't start with ourselves, then I am sorry again, World. Perhaps our generation has to die and make space for the new enthusiastics. 

But you should know, World, I will at least die trying.

Girl, you're glamorous, famous, notorious, dangerous...and he's the crazy one, you say. : )

Many things have been said about perfection by now.

The main idea is that we already know perfection doesn't exist. Then you might ask yourself, why is M still writing about this used idea?

It doesn't exist, ok. Yet, I write and you're reading about it, as you and me continue to wish for it and to aim for it...and it's great to have a purpose in life. 

So, you see, I share this purpose with you, my imperfect readers. : )

I'm happy to know that perfection still hasn't been defined in a 100% certain way, since one's perfection is surely not like another's. 

Thus, my stubbornness created a belief in my mind, which keeps telling me everyday that perfection can be achieved in the end, even if it means I have to take baby steps.
I know that every big thing has to start somewhere and needs time to grow. So I'm patient. For this purpose, I own quality-patience. :)

This is where I will start my "perfect" series, where, step by step, perfection will eventually be created. 

You'll see. : )

I have many ideas for creating perfection. 

But beginning things always kills me. even if I've said before that I love beginnings. I do love them, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach is always nice...but it still creates a hole in my soul, killing tiny bits of it every time. It's like losing brain cells you know you will never get back.

Having this said...to be continued.

I'm a true-blue romantic. But sometimes I embrace reality with my cruel soul. 

Many people have seen both sides. And I fear both of them, in equal measures.

I learned that sweet&cute coincidences are coincidences and nothing more.

Because if we start seeing something repeatedly, it may be sweet and cute, but it means nothing to the untrained mind. To the trained mind it means just that it has been trained very good in that aspect.

Rehab is for quitters. I miss smoking and I'm a hypocrite for telling people to stop smoking.

I will give myself an additional year before I will stop feeling guilty for telling people to quit smoking. Until then, I'm still in probation.

Speaking of which, tequila is back in my life. :heart:

Let's take "I will always", but let's just say something about "I never" and a little bit about "I love you".

I equally hate and love the above 3 dangerous words/foolishnesses.

Yesterday evening I dined at a restaurant who is now high on my favourite places' list.

Best sea food and desert I've ever had. I'm starting to fall in love with Cuba.

"Nothing is more powerful than the human spirit."

"Life is about creating yourself."

So do something good, while you're at it.

Returning today from Ljubljana I realised I haven't thought enough above my friend, Paris, in a while.

I will never forget you, Paris. But Paris, you see, we will meet in another lifetime, when we will both be cats. 

We have to.

Hit it, Gary:

Your guitar still brings the chills down my spine.

You either have it. 

Or you don't.

50% chances for you to make it, which is still not such a tragic case, one might say.

But it's not enough. 50% chances are never enough for you to be able to touch the stars from the floor of the small room you've isolated yourself in by now. They can merely help you grab a stool and stand on it, but your hands will barely even reach those shinier 65% chances. 

One might also say that 65% chances do sound better than the 50% you had before grabbing that small stool in the corner. So you listen to one's voice and now you get the courage to go even higher. Thus said, minutes later, you're standing on a stool, with a broom in your hand, stretching your body towards the ceiling. 

85%. 

Not bad, not bad at all, I'm quite a bit impressed.

I might dare to say that you do look a bit ridiculous, you know. ;-)) 

A grown up, standing on a stool, holding a broom, stretching like a kid for the candy on the top shelf. :-) 

But you're not hearing me anymore, do you? 

Of course you don't. Now there are only 15% chances between you and your desired 100%, so you forget in a glimpse about my annoying voice...now you're thinking only about what you should do to get your remaining 15%. 

You take a look around, but there's nothing else in your tiny room. In your tiny, isolation room there's just a silly grown-up, standing on a stool, holding a broom, reaching to the lamp. 

So the silly grown-up decides to jump. 

50% chances to fall, 50% chances to make it work. 

Oh, Alice...

You go get them 15% chances, girl. :)