On Time or Christmas is all around

“I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.”

Albert Einstein

OK, today it is TIME itself that makes me wonder. Here I am, dead tired at the night of the year when all is asleep. All I want to do is rest for a while when life is full of schedules that just go on and push, completely insensitive towards the human part of people. Somehow only we, the glorious human kind, pretend that winter is not slower than summer, only we try to ignore the obvious natural biorhythm that tells us to lower our speed, ponder for a while.

It is hard to articulate thoughts on time when time is being so ... relative.

When I was younger that 14 I remember how time would never pass. Every second took eternity for it's short life and there were so many seconds to live through. Christmas to Christmas was getting longer the closer Christmas got. And the dinner before opening the Christmas gifts was the longest dinner one could ever imagine going through.

And then something shifted. All of a sudden now I am surprised that we are already in another December, facing yet another Christmas. My 21st Christmas on this Earth, in this life.

I guess that this shift comes from my eternal efforts in living HERE and NOW. Doing that my seconds no longer seam as eternity which would eventually make it bad. On the contrary, they seam to be specks of time that I get to live through. And every new second is great because it can remind me that I am not dead. Yet.

It has a lot do to with death. For as I told somebody the other day, you really, honestly, even realistically, can not know which one of these moments will be the last one for you. You can not know when the lights will go of for you.

Which makes me be happy for all the new seconds I get to go through.

This beautiful thought about loving each and every second of my life gets less present at times like these, when I am so full of life that I could just throw up right here and now, when I'm lying in my bed, thinking about the ballet class I didn't even refuse to go to. My body just stayed in bed and I joined in on the party of slow reading and extra sleeping. When my thoughts are running around, completely free, with no one to take care of them and clean the mess they make. When every moment of the day is so heavy for the lack of sleep I am experiencing. When I am so clumsy that I break stuff and hit people and door frames because I don't even bother to estimate the distance... Then the second stops being a blessing and becomes a race, a countdown.

Which makes it, funny enough, pass slower.

The attempt to make it more clear follows.

Living in the present is a practice that makes life actually pass more quickly. And with more satisfaction. I mean, it makes ME feel like that.

But why is that, I don't know. What did figure out goes somehow like this.

The Past is memories.

The Future is hopes, expectations, ideas - basically thoughts.

And the Present is HERE, in my bed, with my computer, and NOW, at the moment, with each letter I time into my computer my pressing different keys on my keyboard.

The Past and the Future are inevitably a part of who I am in the Present. Which does not mean that I need to pay extra attention to them.

But if time is relative (which I know nothing about actually, and now I am sticking to my thoughts on spiritual part of human life) then the Past, the Present and the Future are actually the same moment. They all are here and now.

They are I.

And my ability to be here and have a memory and an idea.

So basically, whether I want it or not, I am only ever truly connected and experiencing this second. This one present second.

Then I try to ask why would I ever want to run away to my past of my present? When anyway they are here with me all the time. Whether I want it or not.

And to go back to throwing up over the schedule, over the house, over the commercialism of art in a way.

Somehow this all helps me to remember that all I ever can do is my best in each and every second I spend on this Earth. And my best changes influenced my all these things around me for if I live here and now my experience of here and now becomes so much more intensive. I have more strength but also I get more tired. And all of that I do for love.

So I finish for I need to go back to the schedule.

(No hard feelings... ;) )

“ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of a genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.”

Albert Einstein

On Living or Do you remember Mrs Dalloway

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

You can always only do your best.

And sometimes this is so hard. So amazingly hard.

Because your best is just so small compared to everything out there.

But somewhere, somebody is watching. And caring about what you do.

And at that point your best changes the world.

It is so much about support.

It is all about support.

I think it is not only the world of art that holds so much expectation, pressure and pain. We fight all the time. And bite and work and sweat and learn new things and the more you know the less you know. So hard to deal with this.

And seeing others that don't care nearly as much but still get by, day by day, just hurts so much.

And who can actually say that “they” don't care as much, who am I to judge!?

Living calmly, centered, healthy and with the Universe.

This life is not made for living this way.

And still I want no compromise.

I need to be reminded because I forget.

And to remind myself is so hard.

So I search for support.

I search for support all the time.

P.

Sex,Gender,Sexuality or How I enjoy bending the Rules

“The category of sex is the political category that founds society as heterosexual.”
Monique Wittig, one of the opening quotes of Gender Trouble by Judith Buttler

The process of socialization is making us apply the role of men to all human bearing the gift of a penis and the role of women to all human bearing the gift of a vagina.
What I want to imply here is that Sex is not Gender. (And later, Sex or Gender are not Sexuality)

So many things this could lead into.

One is born a child with a Sex - with an organ implying that later in life this child will or will not grow a beard. But somehow the Society decided, somewhere down the long line of history, that the same organ will decide for the child (opposite to the child making the decision on it's own) whether to wear pants or a skirt, whether to wear his hair long or short and whether to have intercourse with another man or a woman - all notions that concert the Gender and Sexuality - and not the Sex.

To break it apart even more.

What's in the name?
We like to name things. We like to give names to things and then we like to expect these things to do as they were named. And it is this expectation that makes me go - “Well, fuck that.”
The constant burden of expectation is something we keep dealing with all the time. There are numberless examples in my memories that I could name now - only you could too and would do it better - scenes from school, scenes from the dinner table, scenes from meeting the elderly, the more important, the more beautiful, the more smart, the more - it seams that everybody is a bit more that you are at any given moment in time. And space for that matter.
And it only becomes far more personal when it comes to finding what does it mean to be your Gender and choosing and expressing your Sexuality. Because what Butler states and I love is that Gender is PERFORMED. And I would even dare to pull it as far as saying that WE are the PERFORMANCE of ourselves in any given point in time or space. For everything that I do is an act of my will that I manifested in time and space by my body - and this is the same line I could use to explain what I do on stage when I perform my dances.

To go a bit back at this point.

So the child has been born. It is given it's sex by it's organ which makes it a HIM* or a HER*. The it will be raised to live up to his or hers gender. He will learn to act as a BOY* and she will learn to act as a GIRL*. And then the boy and the girl will get all messed up in the fight called puberty when they will both start to find out their sexualities. In most cases they will realize that they only feel attracted to the person of the opposite sex thus becoming heterosexual*. Some will find themselves as homo*-, bi*-, trans*-, a*- or simply sexual. And specially since these are still considered as minorities in the world of sexuality - performing those might become even a bigger deal than performing your heterosexual role that is, by now, so familiar a role. And all of these sexualities have expectations of their own - and to be accepted you must follow the rules of whatever country you want to join.

(* names...)

Which finally leads me to popping the today's question.
What happens when you don't find yourself fit any of these categories?

For one, you start not fulfilling the expectations of your role which is always difficult to deal with - on the side of the individual - because the Society has a way of dealing with things it can not recognize and the system will have Society back up and running in no time.
It is like in the villain text - the Society is the one holding the Power. Questioning the Power makes the one holding it feel threatened and creates the need of eliminating the source of the problem. Which is, in a way, only natural - depending on who is the one holding Power and how did he gain it. (ex. Monarchy vs. Democracy - Hetero vs. Homo)

But that aside, I want to focus on the individual. Finding out who you are is more important (for me) that fitting the grid. Even though it sometimes calls for fighting the grid. Because the grid, the rigorous Society will search for ways to test you, to put you down and make you become silent and “content”. It will promise you the world in order to come and join, it will make you work for that so hard, but in the crucial moment it will not let you voice out your thoughts but will cage them for as long as is needed - for your thoughts to become the thoughts of the grid.

But my argument here is that there is space for all of us. I guess what I want to say is that there is space for Individualism inside the Society. Because the Individualism is not against Society most of the time. It only reacts when attacked, to protect itself. And in fact, it is more silent and less demanding that Society itself.
The same goes for expecting me to be a heterosexual man that acts accordingly. I am a man. Obviously. I like that my hormones make my body grow a beard and I like wearing that beard. But I also like being a feminist. And why would one exclude the other?

So.

Basically, it is the fight for the Freedom of Thought-Speech-Act.
And this is a fight that will only grow more louder as the Society starts going through a change. Because Individualism is growing stronger. And yet another sexual revolution is upon us. We are going to learn to name things for what they are. Sex being Sex, Gender being Gender and Sexuality being Sexuality. And we are going to deal with all the new possibilities that naming things properly will put forth.

And I am not saying that it is not a lot of work - but it is work that will make us work better together. It is work that promotes compassion, acceptance, equality and support.
Ideas that have a history of trying to be fully employed. But have not been able to do so, and do it ever so fully. Not yet.

P.

To do it or Not to do it

“Look for God. Look for God as the man with his head on fire looks for water.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, “Eat, Pray, Love”

I have been looking for God for so long. Then I met him and we became friends. Then I started to see how my life is changing. I have been becoming calmer, safer. I didn't feel lonely anymore. And I have started to ask questions about what I want and how do I want to do that. Was I happy or was I said. I was trying to write this huge article on pleasure but that will have to wait because NEWSFLASH, my faith in myself got tested today. So tested.
And it survived and is still alive and well.

It is usually the moment when I feel that I have learned something new in my life, something spiritual, most often, and got it into practice - that the feeling get's tested. Immediately is usually when I get a stone put in front of myself - as if life is saying: “So you think you can dance. Let me see you dance, then!” Well, today I did my dance. My decision, which was supposed to be the smallest and the most quiet turned out to rock my life. When I was caught leaving a class and asked why I didn't say “Because I'm tired.” but instead I said the real reason which is implying that I know a thing or two about rhythm and dance, that I am making a decision for myself in a place I was not supposed to be making decisions for myself. It implied that I had a wish and that I was going for it. (The article I gave up on for a moment is precisely about making a wish and feeling worthy of making the wish. Then going for it. Or not.)
In the face of a theater drama performance about me being like this and like that and where did I get the idea I could make this decision is where instead making a run or agreeing and letting go of everything I believed in - I stood up for myself, calmly, and with pride.

I was calm. And I said what I was thinking about. And I was calm.

Surely you can imagine what are the consequences I have to deal with after receiving a sentence like “If you ever wanted to make an enemy of someone, well, now you made one.”...
But let me ask you - aside the discussion - “enemy”... “enemy” ... I don't want to make an enemy of anyone! But I do want to be able to express what I feel.

I am not the most literate today and basically what I want to get across is that this moment is hard. This moment in which you make a decision and go for it and even when you could run your life into a hard, brick wall - makes so much sense! Being calm makes you firm and this makes the other person crazy, so now I have an enemy, but I stood up and I had a point and it feels great!

I was talking about responsibility! Now I can connect to that - this is the point when responsibility tends not to feel good. It doesn't feel comfortable. I could jeopardize my place in this school, for a start. Which is basically why all the rest of my life works (school gives the certificare, the commune takes the certificate, gives out a viza. school gives scholarship, scholarship pays apartment. and so on...)...

But is all of that worth being in the school where a teacher makes an enemy of you for making a statement, a decision, a wish?!
Well, I will answer this one for you - NO!

What is compassion or On the villain

"To me, Yassi was the real rebel. She did not join any political group or organization."
Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

Thinking about who is the villain led me to understanding the words I read in this book - Nafisi describing the villain being a person without ability of compassion. The person who can only see one way and then digs and throws bombs without ever thinking it over.

I first started thinking about the villain not so long ago when I asked myself how can some people be so stubborn. Remembering how many times I was called this way, I saw that there is a difference to the ways stubbornness can be performed.
Let me go this way. Originally I would call one stubborn when one is not giving up on the idea no matter how much others try to change one's opinion. Then I dug a bit deeper and asked myself why would one want to push his way so much.
Next thing I conclude that basically there are two possibilities.

Firstly (and more often) one has an idea or a stand. Let's say one is fighting for more floor work classes. He or she at this point can only see that he or she is not satisfied with the amount of the given classes that are on the schedule and he or she is really firm in trying to change this. He or she goes off and starts fighting. He or she does not react on feedback and is only protecting his stand when challenged. The arguments tend to be simple and they tend to illustrate one's one point of view.
Secondly one has an idea or a stand. Let's say one is fighting for more floor work classes. He or she at this point think about the reasons he or she is interested in having to spend more hours being on the floor, he or she is considering how floor work is influencing the physicality of oneself and what kind of influence it will have on one's body considering one's spending more time on his feet at the moment. He or she will consider what is the greater influence of the floor work on one's, for example, career. After all this consideration one is going to consider the say of the institution appointing the classes to him or her, he or she will consider then is the institution the right institution for oneself (maybe there are other places in the world appointing more floor work by default) and then he or she might even think about writing he before she every time they are mentioned. Lastly she or he will even consider that the classes that are holding the majority on the schedule at the moment actually have a say in the floor work department and make more sense considering the floor that the actual floor work itself.

Having said all this - I think I made my point and will move into adding the First and the Second the notion of Power.

I mean, I understand that when you have power you have to make choices that concern a lot of people, in the institution, for example. And that hopefully you gained power by experience, hard work and knowledge. (And love.) This way of gaining power would make me have trust in the person, institution responsible for making the decisions.

OK, now I also see different combination's - the First being in power, but the First being the follower (and getting the idea - trying to gain power?) and the Second being in power, and the Second being the follower - and the different combination's of them together.
In the ideal world all would be the Second but in the real world how do we deal when encountering the First.

Simple situation - a group of people working of a common goal. They talk, they consider, they move forward until one decides that the group in not moving in the direction he (or she) finds worthy - here we get to the point of conflict.
We have the First that is looking forward to gaining power over the group (for whatever reasons - that's another story) and the Group, the combination of weaker Firsts and Seconds - and a stronger Second that might already have a bit of Power (since more experience, knowledge -or love- could have made the group instinctivly give him more say in the matters of moving forward). Basically the conflict is between the First, the Second - and the Group supporting an opinion over the other.
Politics.
Why I find this interesting in because the First tends to start fighting because it is less Democrativ, less Compromising
and has less possibility of Compassion to see that the common goal is Common goal and the one making the decisions is the Group instead of the individual - he seeks of Power - and this is maybe actually a text on Power instead of Compassion. But to get back to the Compassion.
One of the reasons why I see the Second being trusted by the Group is because the Second can think for the Group. He values different opinions and is able to consider them all, pick the most suitable one and then point it out - which would possibly be recognized by the Group and would lead into this whole mess because the First would get jealous because the Power is not in his garden. Because of the lack of more than one thing, the First starts to fight and he starts to build his Power with repression. What he counts on (or not, because he can't see it) (or she) is that the more Liberal Second is going to give in to the argument for it does NOT benefit the Group's moving forward. The Second's Compassion, Liberalism makes him weaker in the face of the Hammer Power.

Which finally leads me to the point of the Second finding it's way (to settle the gender argument) to Power and Lead.
Nafisi is describing countless moments of women fighting for their rights, Women against the Veil.
But the one in Power is the First, it is the Villain. It is the one pushing his own ways and the one with no Compassion - even as much to consider the fact that our sex organ does not give us more Power - unless me make it that way -

which in the end leads me back to the notion of Gender.
But Gender is here ( in my mind) all the time, so let's finish the Power of the First and Second.

Hopefully I will now go back to something I might have mentioned before.
At the moment the Second can ether adapt to the ways of the First and fight the fuck back
OR
it has to consider another way, a way much harder to deal with, for it implies all of us taking our own responsibility for ourselves. One can come and make a revolution for a better world but the First's will still exist in 50 years if we don't teach the notion of Responsibility.
Because even if the First would consider the ways of both the First and the Second - and then consciously choose the ways of the First - I could live with that because it would mean that I could make my own choice and move away - if I wouldn't like being with a First.
But somehow I feel that if all would be able to see both and make a choice - that all would choose the Second. Which would inevitably lead to a better world. A world where people make choices and answer to them, being good or bad. And of course not all can make good choices all the time but then the bad choices would be more clear with teaching us something - the one who makes a bad choice and bravely takes the effects of it and another who witnesses the process and can make a conclusion.

And wouldn't that possibly be, not necessarily an ideal world, but a better world for all of us to live in?!

P.

On Building Walls or What good will that do?

“It is the East and Juliet is the West!” followed by “Juliet is the Sky and I am the Sun!”

Nature Theater of Oklahoma, “Romeo and Juliet”

Seriously. Vulnerability.

What does it mean to live your life full on? To breathe so deeply that you get dizzy? Look at the Sun right between it’s eyes? Swim naked in the wildest of the oceans?

What does it mean to be free?

Freedom is my next question.

What does it mean to be free?

Back in school I was made to read books. I was made to read books from the list of literature that was considered appropriate. I had no problem with “Anna Karenina” or “Romeo and Juliet”. But there were so many books that would just make me go dull. Books that were obligatory and I just had to go through them. I felt so sad when I had to spend time on reading books that didn’t make me interested, I would feel like I was not picking anything up. Not a single word. No emotion, image or idea.

Then there were subjects like physics. It was not physics itself that was the problem. It was the endless hours I would have to spend sitting in a classroom full of people talking, the poor teacher trying to be louder and get some order in the room.

And then there were sentences like “You are too young to understand that”. This one is still very painfull for I tend to be the youngest in the group.

The day I graduated from high school (it was middle of the summer, a year before my generation would go through the same process) I took my diploma and took the tram home. I showed the diploma to my parents and got kissed by both of them. Then I asked if they would let me celebrate which they gladely accepted. They were very surprised when I picked some books from the shelfs, went to my bedroom and spent 3 days eating and reading whatever I wanted to read!

And at that moment I felt free. I felt so free. Because I was the one making my own decisions. I was making decisions on who’s thoughts were entering my head, on what form I was reading and who the characters were.

The part about making decisions I love the most is that I am the one taking all the responsibility. I am the one who will be influenced by my decision – and it will be good or it will be not so good – in any case I can say I did it and I can take “the blame” – for both, good or bad.

After making the decision it usually goes good and this good is the best GOOD in the world because you, or in this case, I – made it happen.

And then the questions came – How will you do that? Isn’t it hard? What if it goes wrong? But that’s so far from here? Wouldn’t you prefer to do something else?

Which leads me to the question of protection of the person asking the question...

Basic Thoughts on Life or Why go through all the trouble

“If you really love me then let's make a vow. Right here, together, right now. OK? OK.”
The opening scene of Me You and Everyone We Know by Miranda July


The simplicity is one of the things that counts. Why? Because simplicity implies honesty. Why?
OK, thinking composition and being annoyed by the chair I am sitting on. The internet is not working properly in this bar, and my home will be internet-less for 5 more days so guess I just have to deal with it.
I am sitting here and thinking how to start? Where are all the ideas now that I actually decided to try and share my thoughts with the unknown. It is catching the moment of inspiration and letting the chain of thoughts run for this is how I like to write. I myself rarely read what I wrote. Somehow I like to let it run out and have somebody else continue the chain. This is why the idea of blogging hit me as interesting a couple of days ago when a friend came along and said “Hey, I got offered to write a blog for a Swedish radio station or whatever”. Obviously, he is Swedish.
I, on the other hand, am Croatian.
But to continue the thought, blog blog blog. So here I am, writing my first post.
Then I was thinking what do I have to say in my first post - and that was painful. Life, death, all the great love stories, rain, Rain, ... But how about the start itself?!

One of the questions that came across my mind while thinking about joining the blog community was commitment. Can I actually come and become a regular, posting a text once a week and be persistent - considering all the reading I want to do, photo taking and the biggest challenge - the busy busy dance student schedule. Because commitment is one of the ideas that I ponder about a lot lately. The other being responsibility. To take you through a composition workshop idea - How does a process of creation start and becomes realized. What are the possibilities? So the way I would work is mostly having an idea, an image, and then working on making it happen. But then I got a task - go and create a theme, a movement phrase, for example. And stay with it. See how it evolves and where does it take you and how does it grow.
Basically, commit to the process instead the product.
And then I started to work on it. I couldn't start being surprised how pushy the guy (leader of the workshop) was in making me go through the process until I found an interesting thing. The first day of the workshop my dancers for the week made their dance phrases and I decided and made a structure and it all functioned well. The other day I came back and said to my dancers to bare with me and forget what we have spent a lot of time on and start again working only with their movement. A couple of hours later we had 2 minutes of raw material that made my eyes fill with tears and yesterday, Friday, late in the afternoon, just before finishing off the week the material brings us to an end, to the end of the piece and we have ourselves a little history.
And then I go and say yes, this is it, this is it.

Commitment is a heavy thing. But it makes sense. Like being in a relationship, you can put up walls and protections of all kinds and live a happy life. But how happy that life really is, then. Going through with commitment, on the other hand, makes you constantly revalue your opinion and your beliefs for the sake of the other and for the sake of you mutual respect, growth and life.
And I find that a good thing.
It keeps you up to date.
Keeps you fresh and alive.
And this small victory makes it worth the while.
...
There are more thoughts now on making some of my statements more specific ... but hey.
The first post is only the introduction, right?!

P.