For now...

When I created this blog, I made a vow to try and write in it, in average every week. I did my best. Whether it was a story or my observations or thoughts, I had something to say, and I wrote them. Recently I found out that I hadn’t had any posts for about two months. I can make excuses such as I was very busy (and I was, with 4 presentations in November) or I didn’t have enough time (with a trip on the way and thinking about meeting the deadlines; and shopping and packing on the weekends) or I didn’t have an easy access to the internet (which is also true, because back home, having the internet access whenever you want wherever you want, is not such an easy task.).

But deep down I know that these would be excuses. I am at a stage of my life which I’m not happy with myself, with my life plans and specially with my job, and I very much tend to go deep down into myself and get quite.
This could also be simply because I didn’t have such a pleasant trip. Totally different from my last year trip, it was short, very crowded, left everyone not very happy with the plans, and the last week, I got a terrible flu which I haven’t still recovered from.
On the other hand, it’s winter, and a very cold winter here in Canada, with so much snow and the weather around -20C, and the regular winter depression that gets almost every one.
But the truth is, I am not happy. I am happy with my life, and with some of my choices, but I am extremely unhappy specifically with my job and with what I am doing right now. I haven’t used some of the opportunities last year to leave my job, and now I am stuck with it, in an unstable way, and very unhappy.

I don't like to complain and whine all the time, and this is the state in which I am now. So I may not write in “the Alchemist” for some time, hopefully until I can find myself back, and I can find some excitement and happiness back again in my life.
I need health, some insight to show me what I should do, and lots of luck. I hope this is just a transition state and goes away as the cold of the winter always is replaced by the warmth of the spring…Let’s hope, let’s hope…

Helia, don't let them judge us...*

I have been presenting a lot lately…my research results, that is!

But it was not only my work related research results. Three out of four were, three weeks in November, in different conferences. Then there was one, which was very personal, sort of a personal vow.

You see, I had a favorite Persian author in recent years. I had read most of his books, watched the only movie which was shown from him, and had hiked alongside of him and my father in my early youth years; when hiking with Mr. Alchemist had not started yet! He was a true master of Persian words. There was even a funny story about him, when he was a university student, he had written a text in the old Persian style, and had convinced his teachers that he had actually found this text on a piece of paper inside a book in the library. Everyone was fooled by his strong style of writing and had believed the story.

I loved his books, his characters and his words. So when he passed away – strangely, because of a brain tumor which made him unable to write or even to speak – I felt responsible inside to give a talk about him, and I did.

But this was not the whole story. This made me think about something else. While I was going through his books after a long time again to prepare for my presentation, I found out that I have changed, and so now I have some contradictions with his ideas. The same ideas which 10 years ago while reading his pieces made me nod and think to myself: “Yeah! Right… I know what you mean…Exactly…”; now seemed different. I couldn’t accept some of them. They made me object inside.

I know this is certainly because I am not the same person as 10 years ago, but then I thought, am I allowed to think about this person’s beliefs as well? I mean, he was a writer; a strong story teller. Now that I love his stories, do I have to judge his beliefs and thoughts too?

There are so many of these examples out there. The amazing poet who doesn’t have a good reputation in his relationships with women, the great singer who supports this or that political party which are not in parallel with our beliefs, or the perfect scientist who is not successful in his marriage. Are we allowed to judge them?
There is another side to this story, which I have also seen very often: those who are good/great in one subject and think that this makes them eligible to make speeches and theories about everything else in life. Like the mathematics/physics/chemistry genius who thinks everyone should hear/consider his opinions about politics, or the classic example, the elderly who think just because of their age, they are eligible not only to advise the right life style, but also for royalty respect!

All what I mean is, I don’t think doing well in one aspect of life, makes us equally well in other aspects. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s fair to judge people not concentrating on their specialties, but considering a general figure. Although I know it’s very difficult to get to this stage, believe me…

But whatever his beliefs were, I’ll always remember his stories, and some of his quotes, “Happiness, is not the lack of sadness. It’s having the sadness in life, and dominating it.”


*PS: The title is another quote, from one of his books. One of the most romantic books I have ever read in persian.

A getaway, even if for a couple of hours...

Some people get drunk and some get high to forget, I watch movies…

I also watch movies "just for fun", but I have recently noticed that I use watching movies, as a getaway from whatever is bothering me. Not that I tend to turn my back to my problems, in fact, I am someone who jumps in, head first. On the other hand, there are always issues which bother you, annoy you, scratch your safety and security, and yet you cannot do anything about them. You are sentenced to wait, and god knows how much I hate waiting to see what happens later without being in control.

I guess this is why some people need something to distract them from the problem, whatever it is. So they become workaholics, shopaholics, alcoholics, or addicted to whatever gives them some kind of "forgetting temporarily". This becomes some sort of escape, an opportunity to forget, even if for an instant, or for as long as the effect stays. These are mostly very destructing activities, and can seriously damage body and/or soul. The common downside is that you have to face the problem again. It won’t go away. You have to finally deal with it. Either solve it, or let it be. But you can never turn your back to it, forever.

Still, every now and then, we might try some of these getaways. For me, it’s watching movies, or reading books. Both can distract me from my surrounding annoyance. Especially if they are fictional. You see, a more serious book or a documentary still attracts me, but it engages mostly my "serious" side. I need my inner child to be entertained. So it’d better be/have a storyline.

Those books, as well as for some movies make me forget what time it is, where I am, what I was doing at the time. Sometimes, I literally have to shake my head to get back to real life. But even with a storyline, not all the books or movies are engaging. Some always keep you at a distance, "Hey! This is not real, this is a movie, this is only a story. What? Yes, there is some smell/noise/scene going on in the background. Did you notice that? I guessed so. See? You still have your nerves in your surrounding world. Told ya!"

But there are few books or movies (or few episodes of some TV series, for that matter), which literally "swallow" you inside. You forget any surrounding parameters, not hearing any noises, not smelling or seeing anything else, you become part of the movie, part of the book. You go behind the eyes of one or some of the characters, and you start to live in that world. You get lost in between the pages, the frames, the dialogues. For 45 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours, 5 hours, or as long as the program/movie/book lasts, you forget about everything in the background. Then, you’ll have enough time to deal with your problem later.

Problem is, since I have grown up, less and less movies and books engage me with the same intensity as they did before. Maybe I should add this to the list of all the sharp and deep senses which we loose alongside of time, "smarties" smell less and less chocolaty sharp, the last bite of sandwich bread does not taste as delicious, less stories make me get lost in their world.

Still, reading an engaging book, watching a smart movie, or an episode of a well made TV series, helps me forget about what bothers me at the time. Then, I’ll have time to get back to it later… "Tomorrow’s another day!!"*

*Scarlett O’Hara, "Gone with the wind".

The spell of the mirrors...

Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors…

I am standing in a room, full of mirrors. The room has the classic-cube shape, with the walls covered in mirrors. I can neither find the door, nor remember how I entered this room in the first place. It’s as if I was brought here when I was asleep, or even maybe born here, but never noticed the mirrors. Whatever the reason, I am now surrounded by mirrors.

They are somehow different from my memory of a regular mirror, which should naturally reflect my own image. In each, I can see my own image, but somehow changed, tiltled, alternated. Thank god they are not scary, or too fat, or too thin, or bald! They are just…how to say it…different.
In every mirror, there is a me. Cooking in a kitchen, typing behind a computer, marking some papers in a classroom, feeding a baby, waiting in a long queue for a bus, in the middle of a conversation, shouting and waving hands (this one seems angry!), trapped in traffic, sitting in a cottage looking at the flowers, in the middle of a party…
As soon as I look at each one of them in their mirrors, they pause whatever it was they were doing, look up, and stare back at me through their mirrors, seemingly deep in thought, and then back to whatever it was they were doing…

OK, now it’s getting a bit scary. I have missed the sense of which one is the real me, and if I don’t focus on myself, I can mistake myself with any of the other reflections in the mirrors. They can all be me, and yet I am myself. I am the one who is looking at all of these mirrors, freaking out. I should leave this room. I cannot recognize myself in any of them, and yet, they all look familiar. The thing is they are not necessarily “me” who chose any other path on the way. Some of the reflections, I have no idea where they are coming from…I’m freaking out. I should leave this room.

I walk around, touching each mirror. They are solid. They don’t move. There is no button or key around any of them. I try to break them, they don't break. I’m frightened, lost, frustrated, desperate. I sit, close my eyes, and lie down. Maybe this is a dream, a nightmare, and I can end it by opening my eyes. Let’s count to ten; one, two, three,…

Opening my eyes, I am still in the same room, with all the mirrors and all my reflections. But there is some hope. Looking up, I see the ceiling. There is no reflection in the ceiling. Just the sky, bright and blue; and the clouds, puffy and white. Maybe there is an escape after all. I take whatever I can find in the room, piling them on top of each other, making a tower to go up toward the ceiling. My hands are scrached and my back hurts, but I am going up, up, up… and then to the ceiling. It’s made of glass, but I take one of my heaviest books and hit it hard…so hard that it breaks with a loud crack, and the glass sparkles around everywhere. A nice breeze blows in. Finally! I grab myself up the side, and look outside…

Everywhere is filled with cubes, covered in glass and mirrors. Every mirror is a wall between each two rooms. The life is going on in each room, reflecting in some mirrors, and observing other reflection of it’s own. Each image is slightly similar, and slightly different from the other reflections. Every now and then, in each cube, people pause, look up, stare for a couple of moment into the mirrors, and go back to their lives. Apparently this was not a nightmare afterall, it was the life itself...

And I’m on the top of the roof, looking at the infinite number of the cubes, and amazed by so many different reflections, so similar; yet so different…I’m not scared anymore.

Me, Myself, and I

"Self" has been described and discussed vastly in different fields. Philosophers, psychologists and sociologists have defined the word, explained the concept in details, and analyzed it with different approaches. Many people in a broad field of sciences, from Avicenna to Heidegger, have worked on it.

I am no philosopher, but I have my own theory.

In my opinion, "Self", as well as many other physical materials, can be described as having the dual wave-like and particle-like property. Now I’m not only talking about the small components of body, as in the organic ingredients, which can in detail be a composition of atoms, so electrons and nucleus and hence smaller particles, which can have that dual property. I am as well talking about the good old "Self", the one who sits behind our eyes in our brain, and senses stuff. The king of the kingdom. The one in whose eyes we look while looking inside the mirror. The one we are alone with at night right before going to sleep and review the day’s events once more. The one we make promises to, while making the New Year’s resolutions. One’s own Self.

This so called "Self", although is not definitely mere matter (and I’m not quite sure if it is some sort of energy, or just a result of different interactions and synapses inside the amazing brain), can in my idea have both properties of a wave, and a particle, with different quanta of energy.

I describe it in this way. I am the same person in this body since I was born. Sure I have grown and changed, but this person who is typing these words, is the same person who once was 4, 12, 20 or 30. The same person who almost was drowned when she was four, hated her new school when she was 14, read like crazy in odd hours of day when she was 19, and fell off the bike when she was 30. The same person who chose a wrong path on an important turning point in 17 and still regrets it, took the right path in another turning point in 25 and is still happy about it. I am the same person. I am a whole.

Still, I cannot believe I am the same person I once was in my early 20s. I cannot believe some of my choices back then. It’s as if someone else made those choices. Someone else has lived that life; someone else experienced those events. It’s as if at some points in my life, quanta of energy have knocked me off my state at the time, sending me to another level. Whether it’s a higher level or not, I cannot judge necessarily (although one can argue that "being happy" can be a good scale to measure the level of the state) but still, I can say for sure that it’s another level.

One specific experience that sometimes can mark these different states, is meeting an old friend. When there is a friendship that has reached to the expiration date, and you meet that friend after awhile, there are moments that you cannot believe you were once so close to this friend and actually had a pretty good time together. What has happened is simply that you both have changed, and the change is not only in your new high-lights, or her nose job. It’s something in different levels of each one’s state. Something that makes you disappointed, when you both look deep into each other’s eyes, while chatting from here and there, unable to find the other one’s familiar Self…It’s not only the disappointment from not finding the old friendship, but a horrible feeling of being torn into parts in time. The more the change and the farther the friend seems, the more painful the feeling. "Who the heck was I back then?" won’t leave you for quite some time…

But it will pass. The continuity of the life routine will ease the pain. One, gets quanta of energy again, changes levels, and continues to be the same self over and over again, experiencing all those ups and downs, in one whole life…

Dark or white chocolate, or ... maybe none?

Early in the afternoon, nice breeze through a window, two big mugs of freshly steeped tea. After a pause in front of the fridge, I pick one "Kit Kat-dark" to accompany with my tea. Offering it to Mr Alchemist, he tries one stick, and he hates it! I love it, and we break into a discussion about why we feel so differently about the same thing. He thinks that this dark version of Kit Kat, or any dark chocolate for that matter, is not sweet enough as a chocolate is supposed to be, in fact it leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth after one eats it. He says that’s the main reason why he dislikes dark chocolate. I love dark Kit Kat, or any dark chocolate for that matter, exactly for the same reason.

I’m talking over the phone with my father. It’s more of a discussion rather than a chat. We are discussing over a family-relations subject. Somebody has told a lie and expects everyone not only to accept it, but not to investigate it anymore. He believes it’s just some type of a game, which shouldn’t distract him from his more important issues in his life. I believe although there are important issues in his life, but so many of his obstacles originate from this childish game, which he should notice and care about.

I have two friends, both with kids. They have both been treated the same when they were kids themselves, meaning they were both being punished physically for their bad behaviors. Now after becoming adults and having kids of their own, for the same concept, they have concluded two different conclusions. One of them punishes her kids physically ("It was the same for me, and I turned out to be fine. I know it was for my own good back then, and now this is for the kids' own good."). The other one doesn’t even touch them when she is angry, worried that her touch may not have the same "gentleness" as her regular hug and care.

You can find thousand and thousands of these examples in your everyday life. From the smallest issues like selecting the pistachio over vanilla ice cream, to the bigger concepts of politics, ideology, or society. This could be seen as different perceptions (Hello my friend MH!). But my point is, who can decide what is good and what is bad for a whole bunch of people? If the results for me is totally different from my father's, my brother's, or my friend's, who can say that having 12000 calories per day will have the same effect on our bodies as it has for Michael Phelps? Who can guaranty that walking up and down the stairs for 30 minutes straight which is good for my chubby friend, does the same for me, and won’t hurt my knees? Who can say that this ideology or that social concept works for all the people? And more practically, aren’t we observing the result? Which nation is totally/totally happy and successful? I’m not talking about the surveys based on one person or a group of people’s perception on happiness and the conclusions, I’m talking reality. What makes the Danishes the happiest nation in the world, may not work for the people of Zimbabwe.

Maybe if we observe more, an unbiased observation without any prejudice, then coming to a pattern and then deciding upon that pattern helps us much more than deciding upon one person’s belief, or a group’s ideology, or a nation’s way of living. Maybe then we can come to some general rules to be happy and live happily, or maybe not. But at least we may come to the conclusion that we accept our differences and live by each other, without the urge to convince the other one to accept our beliefs.

Maybe the world turns out to be a better place after all…

The salesmen in the swamp...

The frogs were selling all sorts of stuff in the swamp.

"We have power, fame, and ultimate happiness. We also entertain you, tell you what’s going on outside. Let us show you how the outside world really is. Ask us. It’s easy; just know that everything comes at a price. Pay the price, and we’ll be happy to serve you."

"How much is the price?" asked someone.

"Just a tiny little bit of your soul, and we don’t actually take it forever, it’s like a rent. It won’t hurt, we borrow it for some time, as long as you listen to our stories and buy power or fame or simply a comfortable life, and then you can take it back. Think about it, with such big souls that we all creatures have, there wouldn’t be a problem if we get some of it only for some time..."

...

"….and they are really buying things from you?" asked a lady frog in their huge luxury house in the middle of the swamp.

"Of course, what did you think of me? I am not only selling them stuff, but also even images. They are all under the water and cannot get out, or they’ll die you know. So I am telling them whatever I see from the outside world…and you know your husband. What would I tell them?"

"Your own version, you smart frog. I know you, and that’s why I like you, even though I know about your flaws. But I believe in you. But what about the other insects who know what’s going on out there? Mosquitoes and flies are not our problem. They give anything in return of the favor that you don’t eat them. The butterflies are our main problem."

"I know, I know. I have thought about it too. At first I tried to get friends with them, which you know didn’t work. They stubbornly don’t give me any bit of their souls. But then I tried to get mosquitoes and flies to lead them to the good old spider on the far end of the swamp, and for the rest of them who don’t get trapped, I use my "soul-changing" trick, not on them, but on the swamp’s residents. Everything works better when we work from deep within them. That’s why I take a tiny little bit of their souls. I shape them as I want, and return them. They won’t notice it that after awhile, my lies look like the reality, and nothing bothers them any more. They just won’t care about what is "really" going on out there."

They started laughing, such an ugly laugh that one single small lotus behind their backyard, shrank in a heartbeat, and sank in the water…

...

But it was not completely hopeless yet, as the salesman frog wasn’t noticing or considering the small little caterpillars who were everywhere on the leaves, listening to their conversations, watching the trapped butterflies, getting friends with the nicer flies and talking to crickets, waiting for the day that they could fly away from the swamp, and experience the real reality, with their souls intact. The smart frog was smart, but couldn’t see them. They were there, waiting for the day of metamorphosis...