Of all the composers, through all the ages, I find myself most at home with the music of Edward Elgar.

That said, I m a huge fan of the virtuoso that is Liszt. And the French romantics with works for piano are a blissful indulgence I cannot recommend enough. Never forgetting of course that a note from a Saz resonates with me deeply. And yet Elgar's life and music feel close to home. Hearing the unfiltered melancholy of his compositions is like glancing at a mirror. Smiling back is the version of myself I only wish I could be. I no doubt favour music which possesses strains of elegance, imbued with an authenticity that is much missed in our modern lives. The simple calculus of modernity optimises and builds with increasing complexity and capital megaliths for our consumption. Imitation and minor adjustments are at the heart of its ethos. This too is reflected in the history of music. All arts are after a reflection of the means of expression of a given society in time. Nevertheless, there are moments of calm. Not a break from tradition necessarily but a moment of order in the cacophony of chaos. Elgar's music is that for. None more so than the Cello concerto in E minor.

The significance of music in our lives is a wonder of this world. Somehow from a simple set of frequencies we can craft colourful stories. Stirring emotions and creating thoughts that are ineffable to human language. It's why entire cultures can be shaped around the stories of only a handful of instruments. It's why Elgar resonates with me and my life as an Alevi, gliding across the streets of the broken society that is London, as he did with the aristocracy.

The story of Elgar waking up from anesthesia, to complete the main theme of the cello concertos 1st movement, reflects another point I've learnt from this life. That genius, is not what is conscious, and that if we are willing to let it flow freely, can work its magic even under the most strenuous of circumstances. To create, beauty.

21.09.2021

Sometimes the fruits of our labour are worth showing to the world. Not always, in fact not most of the time, but, on rare occasions, I think we are all permitted to open up and present to the world the toils of days and years gone by.

However, once more we need remember, I return to my instrument for the hours I lose myself in practice. I say lose, not because it's time lost but because it's time spent being lost and exploring. I'm lost as a tourist is in a new city, lost like the billions of molecules of oxygen are in the room within which you sit and read these words. Being lost is fine, provided we understand where our real home is, who our real home is. In music as in life returning home is what makes a song complete, whether that's on the street red flag at hand, at a desk staring at a jumble of maths or playing the Bağlama with and to those that understand.

Regardless of our discipline, there comes a time when you are inclined to express yourself. To voice yourself. To frame the events of the past period and share them with this world. If for nothing else than to have said I did speak, and this was what I had to say. I did wonder for most of my life, if it was worth speaking when there was nobody listening? After all why would there be. Somehow, I find myself doing so regardless. You see people speak to be heard first by themselves. Not others. And here is my voice.

07.11.2021

Pictures speak for themselves. Such a weird phrase when analysed with the ruthless rationality of modernity. And yet, a phrase we accept without blinking an eye. Talking of speaking and pictures, a short musing on the philosophy of language and of course, our old friend Wittgenstein.

It can be frustrating, when talking to someone, or arguing, to eventually realise that you both were talking about different things. Yes, using the same words, but with different definitions. In the end, you feel like you get nowhere. Like running on the spot or paddling against the stream, the energy you've put in lost to the environment. Wasted forever, like crying in rain.

My only realisation to share is that yes, some things are difficult to communicate. Whether with pictures or words. Some things appear ineffable - when we forget that language, as with life, is in the living. Our words come to life when we live them, with others, together. In his later life, Wittgenstein, becoming more of a philosophical materialist, realised that language gains meaning and definition from use. But not when used alone, when used collectively, with others, friends, comrades, humans.

So, be with others, talk with them, regardless of where you are, when you are, what you are. Share and bring those words to life, so that they may shine a light on all things beautiful.

04.12.2021

I still find it funny that İstanbul just means 'to the city', such is it's grandeur, that you tell people your going to THE city and everyone understands. I don't disagree with the name. It fits, names generally do though. Weird that. How reality matches the words and ideas we have about it. Or maybe not so weird when looking through the rounded lens of Marx at such topics.

Speaking of which, in February 1929, Trotksy came to THE city, exiled, he stayed for 4 years. I can't say I know much about his stay there, living on one of the citys islands. Wary of movements in the shadow, knowing the threats looming. Yet producing colossal pieces of work.

But I see İstanbul as more of a gateway. People pass through it, quite literally when going from Europe to Asia or vice versa but also more generally. We don't go to gateways, we go through them, like borders. Only border guards, representatives of the state and status quo, stay there enforcing some rule or toll. Gateways can become walls o so quickly, where they commit the greatest sin of all, attempting to kill movement itself.

It's what makes today's İstanbul ... weird. Sort of lost. I can relate to that. Feeling lost. Like a flower in a river, being thrown from side to side, yes sometimes the river calms, but still moves downwards. To where the cycle will start again. On the plus side, the river is entirely made of red wine, and so while lost we are headless, the smallest of victories against the forces pushing and pulling us in the currents.

23.01.2022

I like the works of Khayyam. His poems, the one below in particular, strikes a chord. Whether it be by accident or necessity, the principles for which he stood and his philosophy, is someway entangled with my own. A mathematician, an astronomer, a philosopher, a poet/bard and of course a wine connoisseur (always red). Khayyam left a mark. Not through the sheer will of his character and charisma, his religious views would have had him killed if not for the times he lived in. No, Khayyam stands out for something else, for being unashamedly himself, for being principled and resolute in theory - even in the face of armageddon. For using history as a guide to action. How very ... materialist of him.

Khayyam had his hands in a number of pots. Stirring them with elegance. I find myself in a similar position, but the pots I'm attempting to stir have gone cold, the contents unfit for consumption. Knowing I could be better. Do better. Stir faster. The knowledge of that shortcoming stings. Like the whip of the wind on your face as you stumble down regents canal at 3am. And yet, we keep stirring. Having realised no grand meal will be served by my hands, I'll stir for the sake of stirring, for the beauty in the very act, in and of itself.

Thinking has rarely done anyone any good. So instead we take what we get. And like Khayyam, like Epicurus or Spinoza whom came after, we look to the now, live for the now, sober or not, alone or with someone else, we keep stirring.

Ezel sırlarını ne sen bilirsin, ne ben.

Bu muamallı kelimeyi ne sen okuyabilirsin, ne ben.

Perdenin önünde benimle senin dedikodularımız vardır;

Perde kalkınca ne sen kalırsın, ne ben.

01.03.2022

İt's set then, all that remains is to cross the i's and dot the t's. I'm soaked by a wave of melancholy in realising the page I'm reading, no the page I'm writing, is the last. For this chapter atleast. İts been 10 years since I first saw the statue in the picture. A decade. That version of me is by all means dead, but the functional form retaining his memories, his name, persists. Shall persist. İt's customary to recall all the people, events and experiences. Those are mine to share more sparingly. And while the memories piled high, one constant remained, that of not understanding and not being understood. But really this chapter is about one city, London. A focal point in the chaos. A fixed point, around which the world moves. All clocks in synch with its rhythm. All of time at its feet.

Here's a weird one, time. I say it's been a decade, 10 years, 3337 days, etc etc. But it's worth thinking about time. What is time ? something abstract or reflections of particular processes we observe. We say time flows. Over what? Maybe, time flows over the what ifs. Maybe, time flows over the should and could haves. Time flows over lives not lived. I think this is why people attempt to find solace in believing in a multiverse. Believing that a version of you out there got what you didn't. Found some peace. Found love. Pfft. All of which is a fantasy. There are no parallel universes. We seek laws of order in the chaos. But the chaos can only be understood if you speak it's language. İf you let time flow. Over you. What is time? Just your preferred way of ordering reality, of ordering events. Events happen not time.

There is beauty in not knowing what comes next for me. Maybe a period of nothing. Of course I possess not the ability to predict the future. And I care not for it. Events will happen. I will change. 'Harekete kimse mani olamaz'.

10.10.2022

Let me explain. After a couple of days wandering the streets of old Venice, I can only recall one or two moments for which I said this place is real, real people live here, it exists. Otherwise, while floating through its narrow streets, one comes to realise, Venice isn't a real city, Venice doesn't exist.

Consider an open world video game, your character moves around an eerily alive landscape, and yet you know it doesn't exist. You realise this when you come across buildings that look like houses but of course aren't. you realise this when even though it looks like you can go somewhere you can't. You realise this when everyone else around is also a player, connecting in from a location across the planet. Venice gives the exact same feeling.

Not convinced, let me try again. Consider a museum. There are artifacts of the past that you can look at, read about but never interact with. There are paintings and sculptures depicting lives long lived, but for which your modern context is foreign. Venice gives the exact same feeling. It's a museum of claustrophobic alleyways filled with backpacks rustling against each other. And we go to Venice for the same reason we go to museums. To see and admire somebody else's immortality project. The previous residents of this city built something to outlive them. In denying death they strove for immortality through the city. And yet I cannot help but feel like they failed. The veil of lies of an immortality project falls the moment you come to realise, that nothing needs to last forever. And that it's ok to let go. To not live beyond your years.

But did I enjoy my time. Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt. And no not just cos I was on aperol. It was the simple conversations with friends old and new. That brought a smile to my rustic soul. And for that I'm happy. For while Venice doesn't exist. I realised I sure as hell do.

03.04.2023

Only been a month but the nostalgia remains in my veins. Like an illness. An infection that causes loud periods of silence as one is paralysed. Gazing into an ether of memories. As with every pathogen, nostalgia too has a mode of entry. A means to overcome the natural defences of the body. For nostalgia this comes with routinism. By routinism I mean the repetition and complacency of the familiar. Causing a loss of self when living in the present. No longer do you become an active agent but a passive bystander in the events of your life. No longer do you swim in the ocean but instead are carried along by the current. Like jellyfish. Thats the analogy for you. Nostalgia sets in when you start behaving like a jellyfish.

İs nostalgia necessarily bad? Maybe not. By all means be a jellyfish. İn full knowledge of the fact that your are neither jelly nor fish. But I have to admit jellyfish are cool and thats where the analogy ends. Being nostalgic isn't cool. Though isn't the main use of this platform to do just that, be nostalgic? And surely routinism is in a sense unavoidable. For most people, during major periods of our lives are we not forced to carry out repetitive tasks. Are we not all in some way Sisyphus. The former king forced to push the same boulder up a mountain for eternity. Stuck in a loop. Unable to escape. Forced to exert every iota of our being, just to take a step forward. Just to remain sane. Just to remain.

I always wandered why Sisyphus had to push the boulder up, why was he never pulling it. You may think both are equivalent. Not necessarily. To pull upwards is to have a weight pulling you down. Something external that you could let go. Such is not the lives we live. Weights are a part of us. Not external. Instead forming our whole being.

The story of Sisyphus isn't complete. Change can come from repetition. Provided one is ready to realise that the gods only forced Sisyphus to push the boulder, not resent the process. And so after a while Sisyphus smiled. İn full knowledge that gods come and go while the struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart

18.05.2023

I think we all are in search of lives that are either simple or serene. We walk through events that constitute our lives like wandering in an art gallery. İn search of something that is simple or serene. Blind to hundreds of artworks. Oblivious of their subjects, flippant of their substance. Having paid to enter , we expect to face either simple art, or art that makes us serene.

İn life, as in an art gallery we take the path of least resistance. Occasionally glimpsing complexity but always rejecting it's beauty. After all who has the time. A simple life is easier. One where decisions are made from before you were born. One where what was, always is, never to change. One where your dreams are a reality for the lucky few. A simple life is easy to describe. It's easy to understand. A simple life, is a menu at a restaurant. You make a choice, knowing full well that their Friday special is just the way you like it. Or have learned to like it. A simple life has simple rules. The simple is safe, is sober, is standard. And as with all standards is emergent from the times it belongs to.

Is this to say serene is better than simple. Is serene a positive state to seek while simple one of banality. Not necessarily. Serene is subtle. It is not the calm in the storm, it is not the peace of a starry night. Serene is a blissfulness not from arrogance but through being whole. By which I mean not wholesomeness as a stoic would advocate for, I mean not the wholesomeness promised by religion. The serene life is whole because of chaos, it fights back but akin to a child flailing its arms at a parent, it can cause you no pain. The serene is not straightforward. It is patient. Has little use for words. And so serene is maybe not for us. For who here is whole. Who here can speak without words. In a serene life, in the gallery of art, one observes every work, not because they have bought a ticket, but because that is the point in and of itself. Humans strive to BE observed. A serene life has the force of will TO observe. And to wonder, in full knowledge that there is no answer. How did we even get here?

06.08.2023

From time to time, we are all allowed to dive into nostalgia. But only for a brief moment. Like plunging into Lake Zurich in winter. Stay there for too long, and hypothermia sets in. Hopefully someone pulls me out of these freezing waters. Drags me back to some warmth. I fall into the cold, to experience the relief in returning to normality. To a warm embrace. Give me that, at least.

This year has been... cataclysmic. One in which new peaks were reached at the expense of a handful of low blows. Maybe then, on average, it was fine. A net positive even. But averages are crude measures. They can be easily manipulated to water down and smooth out the rough edges that define our lives. And yet people like the average. They want to fit into the average. Maybe it's biological. Seeking safety in the majority, in the common opinion, in common sense, in standard practice. Stray too far away from the average, and you can be attacked. But I say the extremes are worth knowing. Worth the acquaintance. Know how far the ruler bends. Know the limits. One should never go to them. But to head in that direction and explore the area around them is...entirely human. Instead of measuring in averages, let us measure in extremes. Let us gauge the meaning of our lives through the extremes that define its shape. Let us measure our year by feeling the rough edges. Because, on a long enough time scale, they will smooth out and be lost. On this matter I'm qualified, as only a Dr of turbulence can be.

Moving to Zürich was a peak (a common feature of the Swiss landscape). I refuse to use the phrase 'discovering myself'. I haven't found anything about me that I did not know. But this change of environment has felt like removing a mask. Breathing again but with a smile. And believe me, I have smiled. It had been a long time since I'd enjoyed summer. This years was beautiful. Hugs to all the friends that made the summer a joy. That made me smile. I can only hope I returned the favour. We don't choose where we are born but we can sometimes choose where we live. I'm choosing. To finally leave some behind but gain others. Friends worthy of my smile. An upside down rainbow.

16.03.2024

I recently found out that the word reverie, of French origin meaning being lost pleasantly in old thoughts; a daydream, is back in fashion. In part due to its adoption in music. The piece by Claude Debussy is now indispensable film music. Funny how that's where the French romantics have found their form. In the background music to scenes worthy of arthouse cinema. Whatever that may be. Could never pin down a meaningful description of the genre. I guess the frequency of Chopin is as good a definition as any. But the point here is this. Our memories even in the state of reveries, become gobbledygook.

I think that the word reverie being back in the lingua franca is no coincidence. I'll explain. We live in a period where truth hides behind filters. Not by accident but out of shame. Where the illusion of freedom has replaced the fight of it. Where tokens are more valuable than their material counterparts. Where living is becoming all the more abstract. Where both the ides of march and their dictators for victims, are revered. Where mediocrity has become a taboo. Where measurements are no longer made with instruments of science but with subjective lenses of the coffee recycling machines we call academics. See in times like this. We daydream. When stuck in a 9 hour cycle of which we own 2. We glance back. Remember. Ticking off in our minds these moments. We get asked to show something of our time here and today, solace is found in the daydream. After that next job interview, we console ourselves with the pictures in our photo gallery. Stored away in a cloud. So that every once in a while we daydream.

Yes, we turn back and remember. And yet, what is it that we are remembering. The over reliance on sight in our daily lives, blinds us to how we remember. States of remembrance are as visual as the melodies Erik Satie wrote to paper. Unplayed music. To anyone without experience, the notes are gobbledygook. So in this hyperreal world, we don't have memories to go back on, we have and do go back to gobbledygook. And yet it still moves us. We still smile. Gobbledygook is nothing to deny. A wonderful word indeed.

20.04.2024

When is a thing ready to be shared with the world? I mean this generally. At what point are we ready to share the things we make, produce, develop. When is it ready for the thing to leave your little bubble and enter the world. Born anew. I mean this irrespective of the perceived impact or significance of your work. I might be being a tad postmodernist but I lament the idea of individuals destined to produce grand pieces of work. To have this perfectly constructed narrative. Hero arcs that culminate in a final victory. All else is left to the dustbin of history. To room 101. I think one ought never be able to say 'yes, it's done, I've finished my work, my masterpiece is ready'. To do so is to commit a cardinal sin. It is to have answered the question of 'why'. I think answering why questions is best left to the gods.

So when should we take the bold leap. To publish that paper, that book. To release that film, that painting, that song. I honestly couldn't tell you. All things both are and are not. Let me explain. We produce works and strive to do so in accordance with a standard. The standard of the time. Now yes some may take exception and go against the grain. But ultimately this too is a product of that standard, of that time. Our standards are not abstract. They are products of our measuring capabilities. Of that time. At that location. But standards are not stationary. While your works are. And so one must bite the bullet at some point and share it. But fear not. While the piece may not change. Interpretation does. Because as Susan Sontag remarked, 'interpretation is the revenge of the intellect on art'. Because that's what art does, it shocks you. Brings the facade crashing down. Reveals what you already knew. And our intellects never evolved to face such absurd honesty.

I don't know if this piece is ready. I don't think it matters. But I choose to share it. As is. Unfiltered. Unmastered. Likewise these words. If I had more time I would have written something shorter said Nietzsche, I'd instead have written something beautiful.

22.05.2024

Have you ever wondered, what makes a good story? What's the playbook for telling stories? Or, are stories one of those human topics that go beyond definition, that break free of rational thought. Like art, like love, like turbulence. You'll know it when you see it. Too broad a subject to explain with logic. I don't think so. What if, all human interactions are acts of storytelling and come in two flavours, those that are planned and those improvised.

Things happen to us. Things we cannot contend with. Things we cannot comprehend. Things without cause. Things without reason. And so, to explain our worlds, we tell a story. And there are only two types of stories, those that are planned and those improvised. Consider this, you meet a friend, it's been a year, plenty to catch up on, a brief story on the current state of life is followed by the main meal of the discussion...telling the stories of old. These are planned stories. These are our experiences, that have changed, as we have, in time. We never give a factual description of what happened, we never can, instead we tell a story. Language lacks the capacity to recreate experiences. Instead, we introduce the subject and protagonists, create a conflict, have a minor resolution before a twist brings it crashing down, only for the final act to save the day. İn general, unknowingly, we like this structure. Not always. But most of the time. Then, we part ways to collect more stories until the next encounter.

Or we improvise a story. The problem with planned stories is that the discussion becomes a turn based game. First you tell yours. Then they there's. Smiles all around. But improvised stories are created in the moment. We do this when we describe our thoughts, our feelings. Spontaneity at it's finest. Improvisation is common in the arts only because it is so in life. İn the stories of our lives.

Both types of story have their place. But my point is this. Appreciating that all our interactions are acts of storytelling, liberates us to enjoy them. Stories won't change the world. But they can make us smile and ponder for another day yet.

16.06.2024

From time to time, to not be liked is a good state of affairs. The motivation for this thesis stems from a reaction, a counterpoint, a riposte against the widespread distribution of the faux positivity movement. İn the commercialisation of all facets of our lives, self-help and positive thinking has grown. Like a super bacterium. Nestling into our subconscious. Unavoidable perhaps. And by no means is positive reinforcement a new phenomenon. For the maxim of individual success has been germinating since the destruction of feudal relations. The simple motto of 'there exists something great, something better, and you too can have it, at a price of 9.99'. Call it what you may. The American Dream.

My aim is not to neuter joy. Nor to cull celebrations. But to be realistic about its nature. To peer beyond the fragile language we use to describe happiness. Maybe that is the problem. The language we use. Eternally doomed to be misinterpreted. Eternally doomed to be with us. A shadow. An imitation. Language, if you like, is an illusion that passes the Turing test. When sometimes we ourselves do not. So yes, maybe it's the inability of language to capture what the positivity movement wants that I'm repelled by. But I think behind their words is a deep rooted belief in an idyllic life. Believing that to be conscious is the root of the suffering. That reason imbues torment. Remember, the first level of hell in Dantes inferno is for the nonbelievers, who put reason before religion.

To me, consciousness is not the origin of sin. It instead is the origin of chaos. All things exist in strife and to grasp at it is freedom. A moment of rebellion. To open the gates and embrace the winds is liberation. As Camus puts it, only what resists us can be understood. Blind positivity fails to liberate man. So to not be liked is to live in tension, to face resistance. Giving us time to reset our perceptions. To shift the weights into a new balance. To see the complexity. Not pass it by as a stranger. For the mirror reflects something unwanted, and so also something worth understanding. And only then, does one get to know themselves. Not for a goal. Not for an ideal. But for a weary smile.

06.08.2024

The idea of cause and effect is fundamental to our perception of the world. It is an invaluable tool in the toolbox of our mighty species. So much so that we can wield this hammer upon all nails that appear before us. Except we don't. When the nail in question is ourselves, when we have to figure out the causal relations that create and mould the self, the you, the person behind the wheel, then, deduction breaks down. The self is the subject given the privilege of a presidential pardon. We all do it. We all ignore and accept as reality the present version of ourselves as detached from cause. Like an immortal Platonic form. Maybe some are aware of the fallacy behind the self. Behind personal identity. But knowledge and belief are different. To know is insufficient and I think we ought to start believing. Namely, that the self is but a frail ship, its pieces constantly being replaced, with Theseus at its helm.

We all like the buzzword that is ego. To ego we attribute a survival instinct. We pin the blame on ego. We scapegoat the ego. We try to kill the ego. But maybe the real culprit is the righteousness of the self. See while a simple maxim is to 'know thyself'. It is but a first step. Little effort is required in reflecting and unveiling the delicate construction of the self. Though knowledge of a thing isn't the same as belief. I can know and track the path through time that led to this very moment. Of me writing and you reading. We all can. But we deny it's relevance. Our analytic brain upon seeing the absurdity, the seemingly chaotic, cannot move. It becomes paralysed. One must leap and believe in the absurdity and mirage of the self. Going beyond knowing, into believing.

But herein lies the paradox. On understanding the causes of our self. It's construction. Its nature. We may start to see that it also does not exist. At least not like our actions do. Yet we cannot avoid being fascinated by it. Taking pictures of it. Answering questions about it. Being identified is liberating only in so far as one believes in the true causes of your desire to be identified.

And so I share some selves of mine.

To test my belief in it's fragility.

03.09.2024

As naturally as a bee makes honey, we humans seek patterns. We tend to overlook this trait. Besides our natural desires, our animalistic instincts, there exist other traits to which we are bound. Like the natural desire for order. When it comes to a discussion of human nature, I would probably disagree with most, no, all of what is said. Politicised anecdotal arguments on human nature are not relevant to this discussion. Instead, let us come to rationalise our rationalism. And judge the postmodern rationalism forced upon us. The new pursuit of order. Of patterns. 

In judging the events of our lives, we look for causes. We look for active agents. We look for a reason. We do so because it becomes nigh impossible to comprehend the limitations of our comprehension. Tragedy must have an explanation. Be it the God Zeus punishing another poor soul. The almighty himself training you for eternal sunshine in the afterlife. The clockwork universe, running its algorithmic laws. Or just rotten luck. That obtuse phantasm which looms over our shoulders. Pursuing such patterns in our experiences is a subconscious process. We are faced with the following task. Upon seeing an event, be it shattered glass in the kitchen or an insult hurled at you from across the street, our reaction is to find the pattern. In so doing, we attribute the pattern to itself, to a result or a cause. The Aristotelean would say a thing is because it is, a Kantian that it is for what it does, or the scholastic student that there was a cause. In essence, each focuses on the past, present or future.  There is temporality in your rationalism. Those who recognise by looking at the past. Those who see the moment. Those who think by induction of future results. My point is the following. Different societies value different modes of rationalism. 

The modernist hails rationality, right? As pattern-recognising machines, the Renaissance modernists replaced the causes of events from the Gods to the positive sciences. A shift, not invention, of rationality. A reductionist emancipation. Science found past causes of events in repeatable experimentation and distilled data. Linking to the past with a new narrative. After all, if I can know anything, it must be history. The onus in prior societies was different. The rationalism of slave and tribal humans was, for the most part, on the future. The storm hit the village because it killed people. You farmed your lands to stockpile for the winter. Notice how none of these modes disappeared, of course not, but their significance shifted. The character of modernity is in the destruction of the rationalism that accepts the moment. This is no coincidence. Other modes allow for planning, maintaining and improving the structures we rely upon. But it should not be a case of picking one and discarding the others. Instead, more value and care should be afforded to rationality that acts on the moment. Riding the wave if you like, we focus not on the cause or destination but on balancing in this small moment of bliss. I can appreciate that the above strays dangerously close to being mindfulness propaganda. But it is not. Instead, can we not re-establish logic in the present tense. To lift one's head up from calculation. To take a breath and see the process as it unfolds. Knowing full well that it will become a blurry memory at best. Our rationality is here to find patterns. But always in events that are long dead. Never in the moment. Always from afar. Always a stranger. 

23.09.2024

It is somewhat of a cliche that an intellectual, when engaging in intellectual discussion, must present criticism. That criticism, more so than anything else, is directed at the present. Be it an institution, a culture, an organisation or an individual. Critique of the representatives of the times is the bedrock for the lifestyle of an intellectual. As a consequence, the intellectual is shunned and disparaged from wider engagement. And so intellectualism becomes an ideology. Treated like a political program, with advocates for and against, public debates, elections. The intellectual in this paradigm becomes a passenger to the hidden variables driving their existence. Their critics and their critiques enter a cycle of reproduction. Trapped in a microcosm. What follows is a waltz between the intellectual and its opposite. And so this, one can argue, is the death of intellectualism. What occurs is instead romanticised contrarianism aimed at garnering attention and reaction by the very forces it opposes. Whereas previously such activity would have been limited to the arts, now such zombie intellectualism takes place in the sciences, sports and even the towering skyscrapers housing societies finest dressed success stories. But this intellectualism is a zombie. Feeding off of the surplus. Brought back to life against its will. Slow to change. Afraid of water. 

What of this text? Does it fall into dead critique? Is it a zombie? Hardly so. For this to be true, I would have to admit intellectualism in the writing of this act. I could only wish I had such confidence. And, those that do engage in popular intellectualism would hardly care for this criticism. After all, the rules of the game are not unknown to them. The music is loud and clear. Producing critiques of our activity in modernity, followed by the backlash, is the game in town. Modernity's products are no secret. My criticism is of these structural norms. Even the act of intellectual critique follows a production line, with consumption driving its allure. All in an effort to distract, from the absurd. However, the real killer of the intellectual in modernity is the exponentially escalating advocacy for speed in the events of our lives today. As of now, speed is at the forefront of the aims and objectives of human activity. In all aspects of our lives. At a time in human history when the medicine has extended our lives, it appears the dominant culture is to live faster, work harder, do more. This economy of scales applies to critique of the intellectual. Neutering authenticity. 

I go back to Magritte. His treachery of images. Wherein he highlights the fallacy of objects and representation in art. Art firmly believes in the reality of its subjects, whereas the truth is that the representation has its own reality, detached from the abstraction represented. And so in intellectualism, I see the fallacy of critique. And instead, hear in that discussion, this is not intellectualism. This is not critique.

08.11.2024

The sciences are no exception to trends. To social acceptance. Even when the subject matter is objectivity itself, populism is beyond none of us. Especially in a time of plenty. Whether it be plenty of people, of options, of actions. The rhythmic buzz of the zeitgeist is salient. Distinct now only for the rapid changes in trends. The melody, however, remains the same. There truly is nothing new under the sun. To be precise, it's not the nature of the science we do today, but the patterns of doing it. The problem, if it exists, is not in trends, in fads, in the popular but is instead in the honesty with which we face it.    

History is a valuable teacher. A great teacher. We remember our teachers. In primary school, acting as the first authority figure in the world, to secondary school, where we could not help but rebel against them. The peculiarity is that we hardly remember the details of what they taught. The broad brushstrokes yes, themes, and topics, but not the details. And through the tinted glasses of the present we never question the narrative. Our teachers are not outside of the stories they tell. They may appear to be above the subject, though we forget that the lesson is planned. Planning requires purpose and, every lesson has one. Histories lessons too are planned. With a message. A particular bias. And yet, history remains a valuable teacher. Maybe this is a way to interpret Hegel's quote, that the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. Because we remember our teachers but not what they taught us. Never the specifics. 

So what does the history of knowledge teach us? In one of lessons we may see the immunity to self-awareness possessed even by the science class. And that science is not a divine activity, abstract, ever-present and existing beyond the individual, but that it comes after the people who choose to do so. And so societal dynamics shapes its features too. An illustration is in order. Take for example Hero of Alexandria. In the 1st century AD, creating the first recorded instance of a machine operating with the power supplied by steam. This rudimentary steam engine was not only revolutionary but simultaneously without purpose. The invention came not through a trend. It was an example of random exploration. Curiosity, given the freedom to speak. Yes, it wasn't in a vacuum. It came from an individual afforded that freedom. Historically, not many people have. But today, more so than ever we do. And yet, we simultaneously fall into fads. Follow trends. And only praise the success stories from the history books that went against the grain. Every idea has a time and a place, like the steam engine during the revolutions that overthrew the first monarchs. To blossom. But for many, it isn't so. See, in some instances, there are the correct places but the incorrect times. Like with Hero. Also, the correct times but the incorrect places. Like the thousands that are condemned by geography. And of course, the wrong time and wrong place, the living ground of the cynic. The question is only the following. Which of these should be punished in the pursuit of knowledge? None of them? And yet we do.

To ask questions that are of no interest to others becomes isolating. One is alienated from thought, not just labour. While such liberties are afforded to historical figures, they are not to those in the present. Scientists consider themselves beyond the capacity to punish the other. And yet we do. We do so when we lose ourselves in what is popular. We do so when we abide by the norms of others. In full awareness that they are as consistent as the wind. Outcast is pejorative. It becomes a weakness. Regardless of the subject, we are subject to the laws that define human activity. And punish the other. The sceptic. Speaking of cross-disciplinary work and yet clinging all the more to our chosen group. Pulling up the barricades on the way in. For the cosmopolitan is not one of us. In sentiment maybe but in action rarely.    

23.03.2025

I would have liked to believe that I didn't believe in fate. And yet, time and again, when made to reflect on time itself, a restless muscle within me twitches every time I attempt to laugh it off. Maybe the very first McGuffin to appear in any story was in ancient Greek mythology, with the creation of the Moirai, or, as we have come to know them, the Fates. These were the otherworldly beings, three women, according to Hesiod, that wove the fate of each man. Such power must have seemed too much. In some writings, their power is at the bequest of Zeus, while in others, they serve all the Gods. But I like their original descriptions as creators, as artisans. Their labour materialises as the tapestry upon which our lives are lived. Crafting the path upon which we wonder. What is most peculiar is that, in and of themselves, they are not interesting, but, they fill in a gap in our understanding. Facing a lack of explanation for destiny, the ancient Greek storytellers produced the Moirai. Primeval forces that determine your life. However, the Fates only become relevant in the face of tragedy. To explain the disasters, the untimely endings, an explanation was sought. In facing loss, a story arose. Maybe that's the true truth. We only come to think of fate when facing tragedy. I think it was for this reason that I didn't believe in fate. To avoid facing the despair of time. However, now fate preoccupies my thoughts at a different level. A higher one possibly. Now, fate is of interest as a means to reflect on time. 

Inevitable - is the word we arrive at when assessing the history of events. It is, however, a type of anthropic principle. The events we observe can only have happened as such for us to be here right now observing them. A cyclical argument some may find. I think quite apt when talking about time. Cycles in time have fascinated us for hundreds of years. After all, our first notion of time arises from the rotation of our planet. The repetition of light and dark. Sun and star. It was this that gave us our first measure of time, and this is circular. The Earth spins on its axis, on an ellipse around the Sun, ad infinitum. And so, as with such paths, you inevitably end up at the location you started. The caveat, as one is in order, is that this is a 2d view of a 4d world. 

Stories are easier to tell by reducing their visual complexity. By squashing away dimensions. Being left on flatland. Though is that the shape of time? I fear such reductions open the path to predestination, to religious determinism, when, in fact, there is a more natural explanation. Time, like the spatial dimensions around you, is subject to perspective. The ordering of letters on a book can be both left to right and right to left based on culture. The ordering of time has such a bias as well. The past lives and defines every instant of the present. Every loss and every victory remains with you. And it places rules, such that when events occur, we attribute it to fate. Because in this sense, and maybe only this sense, fate exists. As the physical realisation of the past. For it could not have happened another way. And why should it? There can be nothing to gain from clinging to the past in such an infantile manner. So, I would advocate for you to let go. Whether or not fate exists. It is not so interesting in and of itself. Like the Moirai. A McGuffin to generate an explanation for the audience. But none is watching. And none should.

24.03.2025

One-dimensional paintings of individuals fail to capture our humanity. The complexity is lost. Even though that complexity is warranted when one is searching for flavour. When yearning for a twist from the cold calculation of their intellectualism. When I turn back and read G.H. Hardy's Mathematicians Apology, I finally see the fractals of his character. The words dripping with melancholy, and that struggle with old age is made apparent as this giant of mathematics turns back, reflects and asks, what was the meaning of it all? Was it all worth it? A life dedicated to mathematics, but did I achieve anything? And he apologises. Justification is provided for the study of mathematics for mathematics. Mirroring the art for the sake of art. Hardy feels the need to justify his work. To justify his life. It is a crisis in faith. A situation we should all be able to relate to. That search for meaning in life. Finding meaning is a test of the individual in modernism. One we may not have asked for but whose consequences we must contend with.

Hardy's book highlights the struggles that people across many disciplines face. Be it the sciences, be it mathematics. The plea is, however, to himself. The rationalisation of his life is to himself. Not everyone will question themselves as Hardy has done. Not many will fall into crisis. Living in eternal bliss. The doubt weighing on him is not universal. To philosophise, after the needs of life are met, is not a place of comfort. It is far easier to stay within your house, lights turned on, heater working, fridge fully stocked. To philosophise requires facing the elements. It is to walk the tightrope. It is to wear a jacket on fire. Crises exist but are easy to ignore. To philosophise, as Hardy has done, to search for meaning, as many do, is to face the silence. The unfortunate part is this, Hardy faces the silence and shouts back at it, managing only a crackle. The problem is an elementary one. He is trying to answer the question of why. And with nearly all such questions, the ill-posedness of it prohibits a positivist answer. You see, we are constantly attempting to tie our actions to that of our group. Humans are social animals, and so all we do must tie back into society. Without the justification for the group, we deem ourselves failures. This primeval drive is ever-present. But it is a contradiction. Our will for exploration is at odds with it. And yet we explore. And yet we invent. And this breaks the why. Rebellion against the why is necessary. 

I should be clear that I think the mathematician's apology is valuable to read. For the mathematician more so than anyone else. And its questions plague my days more and more. In times of inactivity. When we do, we rarely think. And when we think, we rarely do. An apology, however, is too far. We are afforded our work in the material reality of the society within which we reside. For those alive a millennia ago, it would not have been the case. Maths, for math's sake, did not exist. Requiring a given level of development. It is more a matter of fact than an emotional plea. The state of affairs. But I think one can find a thing they want to do. Sometimes, the choice is a priori, sometimes a posteriori. Such is the state of affairs. To be relished in the moment. To be done. Not thought of. After all, the sin of humanity was to think, in revolt against the gods. So from time to time, we might find it better to live without sinning. 

28.03.2025

Mathematics is necessary so that man can recognise and change the world. But mathematics is also necessary by virtue of the magic inherent in it. To speak of magic may seem like an exercise in the hyperbolic. A misrepresentation of the work done by mathematicians. Individuals are driven by logic alone. Because magic implies deceit, implying the supernatural, mere entertainment. Undoubtedly unsuitable with logic. But the meaning attributed to words changes. Incommensurability, as Kuhn put it. Identical words have different meanings in different paradigms. His example, worth repeating in my opinion, for illustration, was with the word gravity. Gravity is a word used by both Newton and Einstein. But it takes on two fundamentally different meanings before and after 1915. Where once gravity was a force. Instantaneous in action. An invisible string binding all objects together. Now, gravity is space itself. It is the shape of the fabric of reality upon which we glide. Moulding the path as we traverse it. And so too with words like magic or mysticism. Once, magic incited wonder, awe, and curiosity. Now, it is confined to fiction. Divorced from reality. So why make a connection with mathematics? I shall try to justify the idea. For it is no mere poetry.

While binaries may be open to criticism, for the sake of brevity, we call upon one now. Those who believe maths is beyond humanity and those who believe it is a construct. For the prior, maths is an eternal reality. In existence before and without the need for humans. More real even than humans. Humans come and go while mathematics is truth. A fact of the universe. Such a view is spurred on by, as Wigner put it, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences. Our tools for understanding, our maths, can describe the effects of gravity from solar systems to galaxies to, seemingly, the entire universe. And likewise for the microcosmos. The counterintuitive actions of subatomic particles are captured in the predictions we can make. And so one is driven to ask why? One is driven to ask how? The answer may be in the eternal truth of this precise activity that we call mathematics. This sentiment is however not new. The Pythagorean cult itself believed in the perfect reality of maths. And here is where the second camp appears. For the Pythagoreans rejected the irrational. Unable to accept the "new" tool, the "new" concept of irrationality in numbers. Those that did would be the progenitors of the opposite side. The side that believes maths is a human activity. Created upon a reflection of the world around them. Humans see, observe, interact, and build concepts. Stacking new observation, upon new observation, to move from objects in the real world to numbers in their minds. Abstraction is a powerful tool that elevates our productive capabilities. But the foundation is observation. The absurd effectiveness of mathematics stems from the reality that mathematics is a tool to describe reality. Akin to the baby that fails to recognise itself in the mirror. It would be a mistake to do the same when looking back at mathematics.

The reason for my drawing out of the dichotomy is to find space for magic within mathematics. The first camp would believe that the magical quality is corporeal but an ever-present soul, borrowed from the platonic realm of ideals. The latter group sees the magic as a result of human creativity. Our capacity to create. To combine elementary blocks, incrementally, until a transformation produces a thing greater than the sum of its parts. Produces a qualitative mutation from quantitative differences. And so the magic of maths is the human spirit for creation made real. Taking on a life of its own. A child that has left the cradle. One that can surprise its own creator.

And so if we take a step back to reflect on this craft. We are peering back into ourselves. That magic is the ineffable story of humanity, made manifest in the discipline of logic. To understand the world. As we have always done. As we always will do.

21.04.2025

Moments of silence are as rare as they are pure. And contrary to what you may be led to believe. They always were. 

Akin to the tides, our individual preferences shift. For the most part, our moods oscillate about the same positions. Every so often turbulent, ocean currents bring angry waves crashing onto the shores. Bouncing the water off rocks. In even rarer cases, becoming a flood. In even scarier cases, a tsunami. The point is that it is rarely still. And our opinions on new devices and new apps are the same. What once was a must transforms into a bore. What once was necessary fails to pique the interest. And a similar reaction is and will happen with social spaces online. From your favourite forum to your favourite video or photo-sharing platform. Were they once stood as objects of envy, they now steal from our time. We feel how the hooks. A commercialised trend grasping for your attention, for no other reason than to have held it, like a toddler. Narcissistic. And so our opinion changes. Shifts to rejection. Seeking refuge from the noise. We again seek the silence. Revelling in its beauty. The problem is that this too has become commercialised. And even worse, commodified. Moments of silence are now sold to you. Traded and bet on. But absolve not the consumer of all guilt. What is being sold is an idea. One that is made to seem rare. One that symbolises purity. One that is sold as new. I lost belief in originality a long time ago. And so with silence, we are sold its benefits. A digital, social, chemical detox. Oh, how ahistorical. Oh, what a comedy.  

To be clear, I am advocating a break from the action in favour of inaction. To wait before crossing the street and observing. Attempting a thought without it being fed to us. Pausing the laughter of the podcasters momentarily, removing the headphones and just doing...nothing. Looking at the empty space before you. Where there are videos or flashing images. To do nothing. Not to become Zarathustra. You need not become the philosopher king.  Never that. The tranquillity of silence speaks for itself. The silence does not bring you perfection. It brings you presence. Yes, a form of meditation. But without the cult. I try to fall into silence. Not always freely. I too am a consumer of silence. In museums. Though art rarely silences most people. De Stijl of Mondrian does for me.

My point is that realising that this is worth doing happens in waves in our lives. And that this has always been the case. If living in serfdom, the silence would elude you by different forces in your life. Ones that grind your bones. As felt by slaves. And people thereafter. Trends change, but we do not stop falling into them. Our dopamine receptors could never resist. And so fall into the silence. If for nothing else than as a moment to be. 

22.04.2025

Even on momentous occasions, there is nothing new under the sun. By whatever means you measure the passage of time, in whatever calendar you mark your events, outrunning dejavu seems all but impossible. You, of course, realise immediately that this insight is anything but new. Barely an insight. Just a sight. A thing that everyone sees. As clear as day. It's why the circularity of time has been a prevailing icon in cultures across the planet. Whether it's the image of the snake that consumes its tail. The phoenix rising from its ashes. The spiral motifs adorning the Maori people. The idea is hardly new. And by no means complex. To use it in art or cinema is considered cliched. Such tragedies frequently befall art. 

With time, however, we can see why such a view is overly simplistic. Overly reductionist. Yes, old habits die hard. And yet, upon reflection, the renewed event is not quite the same. To understand this, we have two approaches. The first is to speak in the language of entropy. A classical approach from 19th-century physics. To posit that while all things remain, are renewed and repeat, their "quality" changes. Yes, I repeat the same mistakes over and over again. But each time it feels worse. The weight of each previous case accumulates. Piles up. To have erred in such circumstances grinds you down. And the quality, the texture, the experience of each failure changes. This line of reasoning has its shortcomings. Entropy only increases in closed systems. One is unable to interact with the whole. Isolated. Systems upon which no work is done. Work is the currency of interaction. And so too for humans. To avoid this reductionism, we instead turn to Hegel. Within Hegelian dialectics, yes, we repeat events. Time has a circularity to it. But only if viewed from directly above. Any spiral, when viewed from above, is just a circle. Lack of a third dimension misses the point. The spiral does not simply wind around. It goes up too. So here, when I repeat my mistakes, the conscious agent no longer does so in the same way, for we have moved. In time. Upwards. And the mistaken man at the top of the spiral is no longer the same man who took the first step. I have changed. Gained height. Climbed the steps of the spiral. Heart rate now slightly elevated. Muscles flush with blood. Breathing slightly harder. The mistakes I make now are different because so too am I. The conscious agent, standing further up in the spiral, can see more of the landscape. And so the mistakes make sense. Where once I made them in blind ignorance. Now the burden is lifted in that I can see. Maybe it's not all in my control. Maybe this time it's not so difficult to recover from. 

I write this having entered the circus of a new decade in life. Thirty years is a long time to spend erring. There is nothing new under the sun. Even at the dawn of a new decade. For all things repeat. But a dialectician knows that while we are doomed to repeat mistakes, we are not doing so blindly. And with this knowledge one can laugh. Not out of cynicism, but from having gained the insight that all things repeat, with an eerie silent boredom, and to have viewed the ever-increasing landscape as it does so is our prize.  

16.05.2025

I have, for as long as I can remember, been fascinated with zombie movies. It goes without saying that like everyone else I spend my alone time at home watching movies and TV. Rarely on an actual TV that is. The magnetism of personal devices are too strong. That communal activity of watching with others, in a space other than the bedroom, is a fuzzy memory. Such has been the evolution of life after a pandemic. And once habits are set in. Once the weight of routine descends. You are smothered into repetition. And so the habit of watching movies is as predictable as the tides. Though zombie movies in particular intrigue me. Somehow, regardless of the absurdity, be it of the underlying causes of said apocalypse, the decisions of our protagonists, the sequences of events that fall in place with god given precision. The zombie apocalypse, nevertheless, frightens us. And so the question is, why? Why, of all the onscreen monsters that antagonise audiences, should a zombie be scary? 

For other abominations on screen, the fear is a realistic one. An evolutionary one. The out-of-control dinosaur, large ape, or lizard. Reflecting nature's natural predators, stronger, faster, and larger than us. The threats our ancestors survived. You are made to wonder if you could too. Or take the xenomorph from outer space, or any alien equipped with technology far beyond our own. Depicting the invader, the unseen threat, the coloniser. Their victory on a large scale is inevitable. But maybe we can take one out. Pleasure in the small victory against a wave of unparalleled power. How about the vampire? Sucking on the blood of the masses. The aristocracy through the lens of multimedia. Immortal beings surviving by taking from you your very essence. Your labour. Their greed on display in their dental features. And then the werewolf. When man is unable to contain the inner animal. Ripping through him at night. Blinding him temporarily. See, all these monsters have a simple precedent. And yet the zombie, not so. For it is not the undead that I speak of. Rising from the graves to haunt the living. Such fears are present in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The oldest written story on record. No, instead, I mean the zombie that arises from infection. Be it biological, chemical, or mystical in nature. 

The fear of zombies comes from the following. We are not so sure that we aren't one. It's easy to know if you are a vampire. A glance at your surroundings, history, and social relations reveals as such. Or the werewolf. The consequences of which are glaringly obvious. But not with the zombie. The zombie has lost control. Has no special abilities. It is but a host for a desire. To consume. And what is it that the zombie consumes? What does it devour en masse? Brains, and by extension thought. All the zombie wants is thought. To think. To be conscious. It desires emancipation. At the cost of death, it seeks liberation. The irony, of course, is that it never can achieve its goal. It never will be able to think again. At least not on its own. It has been made sterile. The body moves but you do not. 

We may wonder further, what is the message here? You may exclaim, consumerism! Though consumption of what? The capacity for consumerism is limited to a handful. However, instead, democratised and globally consumed are the very devices within which the monster is portrayed. The zombie is created in our interaction with the medium of movies and TV. Our success at entertaining ourselves to death, has done just that, killed thought and created the zombie. And so this monster strikes fear, not for the possibility, but for the reality of our situation, and of their existence. The zombie movie isn't fantasy, but a caricatured documentary. All facets of life are made banal by the medium, and today we are in search of brains. Consider this, the news itself, let alone movies, has desensitised us to death. Knowledge is for gameshows, where acts of memory recall are rewarded in cash. The news has lost its relevance to you. And so we are left to believe that nothing changes. Which is why we seek thought. Through no fault of our own, we are infected. And now, it is the era when zombies roam the Earth.     

12.07.2025

The cultural critic has technology all mixed up. Whether it be the written word, photography or powered flight, the critic misreads their meaning for humanity. And none more so than the automata in our hands, computing to fulfil our needs, like the slaves did for their pharaohs. With our devices, we create tombs on the interwebs for later generations to admire. As with all tombs, they serve the dead practically and the living psychologically. As with the pyramids, our digital constructs are immortality projects. The critic sees this, but focuses on the product, rather than reflecting on the process. On content rather than form.

We assume that, what has arrived is alien, bringing that which was missing. Adding to your life. Supposing it creates out of nothing. So if technology does not add to our lives, what does it do? We overlook the insights we gain about ourselves. We fail to see the amplification of ourselves by the new technology. I only emphasise that technology has, by extending our nervous systems, displayed our innards. Take travel. By all measures, today, more so than ever, the individual can cover massive swathes of land. Upon boarding a plane, after a couple of movies, we emerge in a novel environment. However, travel is no longer associated with the journey. To travel is the activity we conduct at a location. Which is what? It is to see, to feel, to listen and to speak to those there. Whether it be in a yellow town in Andalusia, the bustle of Tokyo's metro or a humid patch of the Amazon. The technology reveals to us what is fundamental. Travelling is about interacting with something new. Interacting is at our very essence. It is what we crave. We travel to be with others. As McLuhan puts it, all that we have done is create a global village. 

Consider now a contemporary technology. That which steers our digital lives. The algorithm. Not any old algorithm, but the optimised algorithm. Optimised, that is, after the machine has completed its learning. A schooling on human data to train the algorithm. To uncover what intrigues you, without us having ever known. From the algorithm, we have learnt something that we, of course, all knew. Anger is potent for creating engagement. The tantrum thrown at the age of two remains in us all, albeit tempered with civilised language. Anger persists. Love is quenched with ease. Anger consumes acres. And what of frustration? A powerful drug to call us to action. Algorithms reveal how our capacity for anger is our greatest weakness for manipulation. So, with rage, we tweet, with rage, we post, with rage, we comment. The internet may have extended the scope of our physical sense organs. The algorithm has increased the scope of our endocrine system. 

In the face of rage bait, there are solutions. Popular thanks to the very same algorithm, we find the path of the stoic. Teaching the regulation of emotions. Transforming one into Zarathustra. To be a stoic places the individual in the big chair, with executive control. The zeitgeist adores the stoic. I instead advocate for the quasi stoic. Grasping the inevitability while avoiding the manipulation of emotions. Instead, see your emotions dancing to the tune of the algorithm. And feel not the pressure of perfection in action. Be conscious of distractions. It is, after all, there at all times with a few lines of code revealing as such.

24.07.2025

It would be great to have someone to blame for the curse of knowing. Take them to the courtroom. Lay out the evidence. Bring up your witnesses. Wait for the jury's decision. Enjoy the sigh of relief, the release of tension when the clerk reads out the guilty verdict. It seems, at least on the surface of it, that after we start to know, as consciousness blossoms, we are instantly doomed. Plagued by the repercussions of acknowledging our finitude. Plagued with dilemmas that accompany our every action. To be conscious, to know, brings with it a curse. The same argument, you may realise, is told by Christianity. That of our sinful lives. Humanity was unable to resist the allure of the apple. Of a brain. Of knowledge. One can argue that the revolt against religious despotism in the Enlightenment, an act that made sacred self-acquired knowledge as opposed to royal decree, was our acquisition of the curse. At least some do. The Arthurs and Friedrichs of the world. Even though the nihilist blames knowledge. What use would knowledge have been to us, had we not the means to remember it?

It is both remarkable what we remember and how little we do at the same time. Consider Guy Pierce in Nolan's Memento. A victim of perpetual memory loss. So much so that on the quest for retribution. He had killed hundreds. We pity him more than hate. Owing to the tragedy of a life without memory. Where social ties, woven like a spider's web, are washed away by the sadistic child holding a water hose. And so, given the illness of a memoryless life, our capacity to remember is remarkable. Imagine waking up tomorrow and living your day without the knowledge of who and what you or the objects around you are. Mortal perils lurk around every corner. Not knowing what can be eaten or drunk safely. Not knowing what can harm. A modern household becomes impossible to navigate. It is remarkable, you see, the myriad of tasks we complete thanks to our memories. But we also missestimate our memories. We imagine that our memories are gospel. Unchanging. Or better yet, data in a computer. Factual. That our subconscious remembers all the words spoken at the birthday party last week. Or from last year. Such a thing would be impossible, of course. It is not the logically well-defined quantities that we recall. Instead, our minds store the experience as a whole. As Monet paints his water lilies, we recall the events of our lives. The weight of the book is far more important than the words. 

Even the facts learnt over the years. To be shared with friends. At work. These live on a far shorter circuit. They require refreshing. It is why, in whatever profession we may be in, leave for long enough, and the expertise evaporates. Our wisdom is but a few months old. Our expertise is but a child. Requiring constant care. The intellectual side of your existence is the least mature.   

So the curse, if it is one, of knowing lies not with the whole of knowledge, but more so with memory. Though, would we give up our memories? The nihilist who complains about consciousness, or free will, who flippantly curses the enlightenment, are they willing to lose that which grounds them? It is easy to forget the role memories serve. It is easy to forget how we change memories to serve. To serve our desires. To serve the stories we tell ourselves. Now, I would wish to end with positivity. But these memories are but observations. One doomed to be forgotten. All I want to note is that frustrations with life rely on our happiest possessions. I hope you see the irony. The curse of consciousness, hidden in the apple, requires a garden, flourishing with the infinity of life's moments. 

01.08.2025

It pains me to see it, but there are a group of people who consider all of human history to be the history of war. Conflict, for them, is the reality of humanity. Wars were waged, are being waged, will be waged. A perpetual clash between armed men, serving a higher cause. I, of course, disagree, but that is a story for another day. If for nothing else, taking human history to be just of war ignores the vast amounts of time spent by people simply doing nothing. Even if they were drafted. Spending a year or ten abroad. Violence was momentary. So, that view looks down on your life when there is no friction. It spits in the face of your boredom. Denigrates it to make you feel ashamed. Let alone what it says about women. So no, human history is not one of wars. And to say so glorifies war. Instead, a feature worth highlighting, one that is ever-present in our lives, is the trenches.

Many people are familiar with the term "trench warfare". In the First World War, it was, after all, the dominant form of battle. With the disadvantages of charging on open ground, trenches became a necessity. Here, each side would dig into the Earth a tunnel, stretching out for hundreds of meters. Easily defendable. Seemingly safe from assaults. Creating stalemates. Victory no longer measured in soldiers killed but meters gained. It soon became apparent that the Earth does not contain trenches. Such openings quickly flood with water. To create the disease-ridden image of trenches that we are all too familiar with. The wounded and dead lie side by side along tight, soggy corridors of mud. The living walk in fear of mortar shells raining in from the heavens. The when and where of the next wave is a gamble. The days are repetitive, sleep is rare. Dugouts exist, and yes, they are safer. You evade the snipers. You evade the void of no man's land with the sacrifice of light. To freedom.

Trenches are not solely in the history books. As we fail to see that we live in trenches to this day. Not everyone. Maybe not even a majority. And maybe not always. But it is so for some. Some live in a trench. Waiting for the next wave. Waiting for the next round of explosives. Carrying the extra weight of soaked clothes. Never enough sunlight to be dry. Dreading the winter where the whip of the cold air is a mercy for the wounded, for those bleeding out, for those with gangrenous limbs. Life can feel like a trench. Like a state of constant conflict, without agency. You are not a gladiator in Rome. But a dispensable private in a megalopolis. Witnessing the passing of countless brigades. You try not to think too much about when your luck will run out. You keep moving along. In a straight path. Without liberty. Life for you is binary. Either left or right. Out or in. Knowing that you will have to brave no man's land one day. And knowing full well that even if facing the "enemy", you have neither the will nor the desire to attack. 

Trenches, however, are not natural. They are made. By man, as all things are. By the stratum that deems it a necessity. Deeming the ends to justify the means. The trench is an outcome of business class men with first class ideologies. While the grandiosity today may have decreased in size, the foundations for their existence remain. And we are made to trudge on. 

Events may place you in a trench. I can only hope that your duty ends early. That you are sent back to the banal normality of life. Minor injuries to boot. To live out your days doing nothing. As was intended.    

02.08.2025

As bewildering as the idea of a multiverse may be, the features of living in a reality with multiple universes, are overrated at best, and misrepresented at worse. Of course multiple undersells the story. If it were to exist, what must exist is infinite.