Human Face of War

These days, the talks of war are all over the news channels. Both sides claim fighting against evil and calling it their responsibility to save civilians, but the fact is that, it is a power struggle of those who are already in power. We live in an era that public opinion matters and nothing is more appealing to public opinion than humanitarian aspect of a campaign. What is coming from syria are the pictures of destroyed cities and disfigured human bodies and of course, humanitarian aid is needed. Unfortunately, instead of aid and forcing both sides of war to negotiating table, there are talks of expansion of the war under pretext of humanitarian intervention. We can expect to see soon larger scales of the current pictures that are coming from Syria.

I have difficulty to determine what is the relation of honor and savagery but at times of war, those who are louder in their claims of honor, greater are their shows of horror. If honor is having conscience then there is no honor in any war, as conscience is the first casualty of war. I am sure, most people are sad about the ongoing civil war in Syria and the intensity of this sadness will increase, if God forbid, this war expands to bring in big powers, but I get surprised for those who are getting excited, as if they wish to see the homes of Syrian people turn into dust and their bodies go into fumes. May be, I am unrealistic (no time in history was a time of peace) and that is why, I tried to be realistic and tried to see if war has a human face. I painted an Asian woman face (women are considered as symbol of beauty and peace and Asians are at the moment most peaceful people). I don't know, if it means anything to the affected people and how realistic it is to ignore the ugly faces of war but I dedicate this paint to all those who are suffering and will suffer from this war. This is all I can do for them :(  

Change

Write It

I kill most of ideas despite of great urge to write them down, simply because of bad-timing or lack of proper way for expressing them. I could overcome both of these problems, if I had a way to not speak my mind directly. But I am not that skillful. I just pour out the words that are on top of my mind, hoping that others can infer what I mean but that is a wrong expectation at my end. I am not blaming the language for my shortcoming, instead, I get comfort when I read that, even skillful writers had problems with language:

"Eugene O'Neill was an American dramatist, ....while, in Europe, O'Neill, received a cable on behalf of Jean Harlow, explaining that Miss Harlow wanted her best available American dramatist to write a screen play for her. Would O'Neill please cable back, collect, confining his answer to twenty words. O'Neill cabled: " No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No O'Neill." - Bowen -

But Jacques Lacan doesn't allow me to be in my comfort zone for long as he tells us that unconscious is not structureless as Freud was suggesting. Instead, it is structured like language. I have trouble digesting this notion, particularly when I consider dreams as a medium of communication between conscious and unconscious mind. Language are structured around verbs, nouns, punctuations etc, but I haven't found anything similar for the dreams. Conscious mind is no doubt structured (we all familiar with those theories out there) and if we take it as reference to compare it with unconscious mind to have an idea of its structuredness (As Lacan is suggesting), we don't see the kind of clues that conscious mind provide us, e.g, identifying patterns, and creating patterns communicable. Language is as a product of conscious mind is the greatest evidence of its structuredness. In comparison, we don't see any such product to communicate our dreams in a meaningful way and that is why we do not take them as our experiences. It becomes more understable when we see that at times even conscious mind becomes hard to be expressed (get blocked: but thank God, that it doesn't require any password, key or things like, otherwise....:)

" Once Robert Benchley had been trying to start a piece but couldn't get it under way, se he went down the corridor to where a poker game was in progress, just to jolt his mind into starting up. Some time  later, he returned to his room, sat down to the clean sheet of paper in the typewriter, and pecked out the word, "The." This, he reasoned, was as safe a start as any, and might possibly break the block. But nothing else came, so he went downstairs and ran into group of Round Table people, with whom he passed a cheerful hour or so. Then, protesting that he had to work, he went back upstairs, where the small, bleak "The" was looking at him out of the expense of yellow paper. He sat down and stared at it for several minutes, then a sudden idea came to him, and he finished the sentence, making it read "The hell with it," and got up and went  happily out for the evening". - Nathaniel Benchley, 1955- 

Spiders

For long, I was battling spiders around my apartment and didn't like the resilience they were showing. Everytime, I see them hanging on their nets waiting for their preys, I was imagining them to be air-fishers. Like fishermen, they constantly repair their nets and wait for their preys and the small insects on their nets appear as trapped fishes. May be, to them, air looks like ocean (the only difference is the proportion of water to air) filled with fishes swimming in them (insects flying in air). Last night, however, I had a change in my thinking and started appreciating them when I saw a very large mummified mosquito in one of the nets. 

The large mummified  mosquito: Since my childhood, I was scared of syringes and now these guys are trying to haunt me but hey, spiders are here, so watch out. You might get mummified :) 

I said, well, spiders is not all that bad that I was thinking. They are older residents of the earth (Their history goes back to 400 million years) and I am a new comer (history of primates goes 80 million years) and now I have to accept that spiders might be more wise than me as scientists have also proved that, "with age really does come wisdom" (Notch...notch.... that is bad news). It was the first direct evidence that spiders actually protecting me from large mosquitos and I have to be in peace with them as sign of my gratitude to their valuable service. I wish, I could have a cap with a large spider net that I could wear at evenings when I go for a walk in the park. I bet, it would keep away mosquitoes who are eager to swarm over my head and force me to listen to their orchestra. 

The Cat

It appears that, at times, writers go wild in their intensity of expressions. At least, I can claim it by R. W. Emerson's following two quotes, "Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."... Well, I agree that God's handwriting is the most beautiful, but when He writes things that hurt us, we might need to rethink our ideas of beauty. 

Cats are irresistible to some people (some of them are really charming) but to some they are plainly, proud and unpredictable creatures. Unlike cats, flowers are irresistible to all (there might be rare exceptions).  Emerson says, "Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world."... What if it happens that you like both flowers and cat and one day discover that the flower you brought home has actually killed your cat? The God's handwriting had hurt you but then you learn that it wasn't the fault in God's writings, but your ignorance that caused this tragic event. You find that stargazer lilies that you brought home to add a charm to it was actually poisonous to cats. As I mentioned in the beginning that at times, writers go wild in the intensity of their expressions. Not all beauties are harmless and that is not a misspell in God's writings but an open invitation to learn so that we do not hurt ourselves by our mere ignorance.

Consciousness

Accidental Rediscovery

Tonight, it was full moon. While we were returning from nearby park after our walk and talk evening session, we took a different route to our way back home to have a change. We noticed that frogs had swarmed the walkways. So, we had two different explanations for it. The frogs are frequent in this street because of the closeness of the street to some nearby pool that we aren't aware of (actually, the street is on higher ground than our routine route). The second explanation was, the frogs are frequent because of some sort of connections with full moon. So, the easiest and most convenient way to test our hypotheses was to search, if there were researches in this regard. As soon as I reached home, I googled it and I found this report on BBC (Amphibians mate under full moon). So, it turned out that full moon works as a biological clock for amphibians, just as spring season works as biological clocks for flowering plants. That was an awesome thing to learn and I couldn't stop myself, but to share it. 

The 6th Sense

Nothing makes sense except in the light of origin (more true than biology) and that is why we see the legends of origin everywhere without any exception, folk stories, religions, philosophy and science. Although we hear the claims that it is just in modern time that we have become anthropocentric, but humans were always anthropocentric as they couldn't have any external brains to borrow for their thinking and understanding. It is just the subjects of interests have changed over time. If I make it personal then I can only trace my origin to my childhood (that is as far my memory can take me) and that is where to look back to make sense of everything. The first time, I heard about about sixth sense was from a sufi lecture mystifying it with all those breathing practices. I thought, let it go as it appears something external that comes from inside (hard to make sense of it as I hadn't it since my childhood). But from time to time, I feel (as all others express from time to time) that there things that you can't understand and instead you have to feel them. They might look stupid and you might look out of your senses but they are real. They look stupid because they are beyond common senses and have to be felt. Take for example, a poem that touches your heart. If you look at it, its verses might not be in proper order with no logical connections, but because it syncs with your feelings, you might feel great to read or when you might enjoy listening it. The social norms contain our emotions and since childhood we are reminded everyday, what is accepted expressions of emotions and what are not. That is why emotions are mostly pressed or least expressed part of us (you don't feel comfortable to express them). In other words we trade our originality to the accepted social norms (means we mostly fake ourselves in order just to look normal). The most funny part is that, despite we know it, still we try to press others by constantly reminding them to be in their senses (and so we could assure ourselves that we are good learners of social norms).

So, originally, we get five senses plus emotions that are ASAP contained by everyone around us. But there comes times, when we let these emotions free for brief moments and become truly emotional (brief moments of originality) and those are the moments that we really feel that the sixth sense is not something that comes by sufi practices or breathing exercises (As they appear to be something mythical and are just to impress others. If there was something as sixth sense that everyone should have experienced it somehow. As emotions are something common and looked upon as something dangerous that is needed to be contained, so naturally, it is one of the senses that we do not let to develop and use it). It is already in us and it needs an external force to give you enough courage so you could face, the social pressures of norms and become brave enough to be truly yourself even it is for brief moments. Now, I don't look to sufis for the sixth sense but to artists, poets, actors and writers whose whole work depends on emotions (sorry, 6th sense). These are the group of people who have more originality in others as they have learned it how to master their emotions partially rather than suppressing them.  

I Might Go for Beef Steaks

Now, that beefs are grown in labs and the possibility of mass-production is close enough, the cows might also get the opportunity to enjoy beef steaks...