My answer to the question - II - the recipe

(continued)

42
42 is a reference to the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy where someone built a machine to compute the answer to "The question". The answer was 42. After this they had to build a bigger machine to compute the answer to another question: 'What's "The question"?'

By saying that my answer used to be 42, I was just saying I used to think that "The question" was non-sense and "The answer" absolutely irrelevant.

By using "used to be" I was assuming I was back into believing that the question was valid. But the big new book is under intense study. It's Gilles Deleuze and his Thousand Plateaus. He is convincing me that the question is indeed irrelevant. Is he? Or is he just reformulating the question? I still don't know...

Recipe
For now, I'll post a recipe that you can use.

- 0.1 Non-applicability
I'll ask you to detach from your reality, to get absolutely crazy (in a psychiatric way). So, you'll most probably not want to follow me, but rather watch me on this freak show.

- 0.2 Courage
"You need guts" said Nietzsche.

What I say, and this is where I think Espinosa fails round, is that, there are no inner born forces whatsoever. We are all about reaction. You are a sum of reactions, nothing else. Espinosa defines happiness as the control of exterior forces (affections) and the nurturing of inner forces (where freewill can be born). I see him annhilating himself. I guess this is simple Nietzsche: Espinosa is a nihilist.

What I do not agree with Nietzsche is about his pseudo power.
But let me keep it simple, I think you don't "need" any guts. You are a reaction, and as such, either you are a reaction that does it, or not. Don't try to change yourself (regarding this "will"/detachment subject).

I never knew why I always had these guts, this tendency for detachment. But, generally, I see it as a problem more than a virtue (I'm not agreeing with Aristotle, and all that "virtue is in the middle" stuff).

- 0.3 - Control Warning
The game will always be around control. Generally, I'll tell you to be in control or to let it go.
The most important rule is: however many times I tell you (I'm talking to myself here) to lose control NEVER leave your safety rope back! This is a very important warning, otherwise you'll lose the game (this is Deleuze talking).

- 1.1 Destroy your references
Be multiple! Play with yourself, do not be yourself, go around, change, come back. Kill yourself! Love! Insult! insult what you love. Love what you insult. Destroy your references. Lose control.
Do you truly believe your references are bullshit? That's not enough!
Do you truly believe All references are bullshit? That's not enough.
You will only be ready when you understand that everything everywhere in and out of you can be _TRUE_NON-SENSE_ (you should end up thinking about word meaning, and if you think with words, and words have no meaning, oh baby, get ready).
Then, start believing everything again. And repeat. And repeat. Until you master the process (Deleuze talks about desubjectivation and designification).

- 1.2 Body
You are an organic machine. Lose control. Jump. Fall. Overstretch. Do it as in 1.1.

- 1.3 Emotion
You are an emotion machine. Lose control. Love. Hate. Overlove. Overhate. Do it as in 1.1.

- 2.0 Other Axis
References/Body/Emotions are only some of the possible axis you can play around!
You should lose control about anything inside and around you.
But define axis. As I understood (most probably wrong), Deleuze calls these: plans of consistency.
Try understanding where are you... and memorize the spots or stages!

- Setups
I'll call these memorized spots "Setups". Points in your plan of consistency. As if you were drawing yourself a roadmap. Your roadmap.

- Time Evolution
After building your roadmap, I would have only one question for you: what are you up to today? Find new stops on the map? Go back to old routes?
Do as you will and enjoy the trip.

(to be continued)

On the next post of this series I will try to explain and make what I just wrote a bit more real. The following posts will be of one of these types:
- Practical consequences of all this (Sartre wrote novels to do this)
- Connections between what I wrote and the names I mentioned on the first post

My answer to The question - I

Today I'm gonna write something decent I said...
Do I wanna share something about me?
Do I wanna tell a story?
Do I wanna explain something?

I'm more into explaining lately. Ethics is the theme: I have found the answer!

Regarding Ethics,
I've read Espinoza, and he is good.
I've read Aristotle, and he is bad.
I've read Russell, and he is awful.
I've read Nietzsche, and he is amazing.
I've read some random Indian philosophy, and it is average.
I've read Sartre, and he is a genius.
I've read Hesse, and he is good.

The question is "How to Live?"
This post series is my answer to this question.


Chapter I
A couple of years ago, my answer was 42.

(to be continued)

Kimmo Pohjonen, Keko

This is me, this is mine.



Check Optikus for different style.

The Bhagavad Gita

Krishna gives Arjuna 4 approaches to life and deliverance (i.e., samadhi):
- bhakti yoga, the path of love and devotion;
- karma yoga, the path of selfless work;
- jnana yoga, the path of knowledge;
- and raja/hatha yoga, the path of discipline or force.

Glenn Gould

23/09/2008: Glenn

Pantera - Baudelaire

Let's all get some Baudelaire! It's been 10 years I can't really go around Nietzsche's ideas... Baudelaire is the incarnation of some of Nietzsche's ideas. The inversion of the (wrong) dichotomies between good and evil and between Apollonian and Dionysian are everywhere in Baudelaire's poems. This is just the start of his giant book:

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.

English translation (taken from wikipedia):
If rape and poison, dagger and burning,
Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs
On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It's because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!

This is a farewell to the most beautiful _non classic_ songs ever. Who said it has to be beautiful? What's beauty? Fuck off! Play it loud and bang your fucking head!

23/09/2008 - Pantera - Walk

Alfama

After travelling so much... I don't really feel Portuguese. I see Portuguese people just as I see Brazilians, or Timorese, or Indians.

Nevertheless, and in complete contradiction, there's something that I can't really share with most of the Portuguese people I know, that is, Portuguese culture, that is, Portuguese poetry and Portuguese music.

06/09/2008 - So, today's most beautiful song ever tastes like bread with sadness: Amália singing Alfama

Runners up are Saudades de Coimbra:


and my old time favourite:

O mundo é um moinho

Ouço a música e um soluço de choro, um só. É um choro de beleza.

Viajar deu resultado. No início cantava Preciso me Encontrar. No final cantava O mundo é um moinho.

E no final estava em paz com o mundo, o moinho. Agora que comecei a trabalhar sei-me parte desse moinho, mas não sinto. Os sentimentos ajudaram-me a entender. Agora não tenho tempo para sentir. Tenho-me divertido a produzir. Estas duas componentes são ambas partes fundamentais para o sorriso.

No entanto, receio que a beleza que ficou da viagem desapareça da memória, e as memórias de viagem se apaguem, e os sentimentos. E esta vontade de chorar de beleza. E esta memória de beleza do Brasil, Índia, Timor, Colômbia, se vá. Aí terei de repetir tudo. De partir em viagem outra vez e voltar a encontrar a paz...

12/07/2008
Today's most beautiful song EVER is O Mundo é um Moinho, Cartola.
Today's runner up: Preciso me encontrar, Cartola.

traveller hangover - the peace is gone

Now that I have started working, and all the common enemies of happiness have attacked me, I feel the peace (gathered during the trip) being swept away... (it's been only 3 weeks I have started working)

Today I need to write somewhere (HERE) that
I HAVE FOUND THE WORLD
I HAVE FOUND MYSELF
I HAVE FOUND INNER PEACE
I HAVE FOUND PROFOUND HAPPINESS

But this is already PAST PERFECT. I am now struggling to keep these things inside me, but they are just not compatible with modern life. I have to adapt, or runaway again.

Well, for now I WANT TO REMEMBER THE PEACE I FELT AS A TRAVELLER.

the world is a mirror of our inner battles

I have written somewhere in South America that "If El Che had read Freud, there would have been no revolution".

Yesterday I discovered Ghandi has already said this in other words:
"The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts - that is where the battle should be fought."

My ideias: someone else's ideas.

Celebrating Life ... and Death

Exactly one year ago (my mother could remember the date) I was rolling down a cliff on my way to non-existence.

Today I want to celebrate life and all the beautiful things this "extra year of existence" brought me. Do you feel la folie?

(couldn't find a video showing Savall playing it)

made of feelings

Tonight I'm a feeling machine. It's like a scar all this traveling left me.
I do try to think but feelings get in the way.
Feelings bring questions, and questions bring more feelings.
Tonight, deep inside, and made of feelings, I'm an hurricane.

The travelling took me deep inside and now it's time to cover the wound, made of feelings. And the covering, made of feelings, is more important than the digging.

In the National Galery, London, there's a couch in front of a master piece. I spent half-an-hour seated on that couch and I still wanna go back there. This sunset is made of feelings:



(this is a travel post, I'm in Paris)

Silent Poetry

In piolho (louse), a very famous coffee shop in Porto, someone told me about this guy whose favourite hobby was to recite poetry to his friends. And so I tried, with a theatrical attitude, to express myself... (very literal translation)

Que eu, desde a partida,    (that I, since the departure,)
Não sei onde vou.           (don't know where I go)
Roteiro da vida,            (script of life,)
Quem é que o traçou?        (who has drawn it?)

A olhar da amurada,         (looking from the ship stern)
Que triste que estou!       (how sad I feel!)
Miragens do nada,           (sights of the nothing)
Dizei-me quem sou...        (tell me who am I...)
           Clepsidra, Camilo Pessanha

After a few tries I concluded I was just having a lot of fun and I was spoiling all the poem's poetical content.
A poem is alive when, after reading it, our inner voice stops and the poem lives by itself inside us.
Reciting a poem is like an exhibition. The exhibition that theatre and cinema have to deal with... poetry does not. Poetry is silent.

(many poems by Pessanha survived because the poet himself recited his poems by memory to his friends who later transcribed them)

Klaus Nomi

Sometimes, I do feel that I would have a gothic-extra-terrestrial inspired look, if I was to express myself through clothing, (I wish I could sing) just like him: