all i need

is not you.
think of you still.
i can not forget, and i do not want to forget.
if i forgot i would lose the lesson. i want the lesson.
you made me want to learn again. thank you.
all i need:
ink and ethics.

lexikon der ethik and ink
Originally uploaded by intutum.

announcement: the next adventure

yesterday i decided, on a whim, to go on my next adventure for which i can find neither rational nor irrational reasons to enter: i had not planned it and i am burning to do it. it is a novel written during the month of november. the idea is not mine, this comes from something i read on blogger knowledge that had me asking "why not?"

it is not that i do not have enough on my plate, and it is not that i am lacking in writing projects from fiction to serious stuff that i am also rather keen on doing. nope. when it rains it pours, i am drenched!

this one is going to be written in a blog, possibly as a blog, possibly not, it all depends on what i do with the narrator and the character relationships. i have until november first to figure out what the story line is, so this is what i call, just do it, and do not think. the working title is SCHEMATA. it may or may not stay on the blogger server or it may or may not be powered by blogger. i would rather have it be on the "intutum" site and powered by movable type. i just do not know that i will get my "sieben sachen" together and have it all ready on november first besides the truck load of stuff that i have to finish by the end of the month.

the motto for this writing folly is "quantity, not quality" and this feels like it might be one of those induced breakdowns, sink or swim type of affairs.

schemata

each time i look back at my life i always wonder how i managed to do what i did. i don't feel like an hero, i feel like a fool. although some people would like to accuse me of trying to control everything around me, i end up questioning the accuracy of the perception of one making such a non-postulate assertion. control is something that i may wish for, which i have no handle on. it is not that madness reigns, i just wonder why i enter all these adventures in my life. it is only now that i begin to address the question of what it is i want, although this is a question that i have often asked myself and for a long time. up to now there has been much too much noise, whatever the source of the noise, it has been there, it has been distracting, and i have given in to any and every distraction that smiled or frowned at me in any way imaginable.

and to think that i have just began... it is indeed fascinating.

göttingen

got back from göttingen today.
why does the place ruffle up my physicist's feathers?

i does, and i do not know what to do with it. all i can think of is that sentence that i was told about 3 weeks ago, and i feel a totally irrational desire to give CAS a good going in the next six months.

work

i am having a fun time with my work these days. yesterday i spent the day at the supporter forum and today i will be at the best practice forum, all at the invitation of one of my clients; not surprisingly the theme is innovation.

yahoo offline

libs [offline 21:04:30]: Priminha querida...tenho andado muito muito longe da internet! How are you sweets? Miss you lots!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am trying to get used to this new way of life but it is not always easy...working long hours and without much time for anything else! I don't even have time to look for a place to live but I am waiting for a studio flat in same building where my friend Lita lives! Leave me a message here as I shall try to get back to you very soon! take care ...lotsssssssssssss of kissesssssssssssssss to my priminha querida

intutum [7:01:37]: i have been thinking of you!!! good to hear that you are alive!!!!
intutum [7:04:15]: all is well, i have been busy like crazy and still am... and that is indeed good.... for how i am doing check on www.bordeira.blogspot.com ... there i write almost everyday how things are going, it is only for friends and family.... send phone number and email address... love u tons... and miss u even more. work is also a great therapy... i hope to soon be able to visit u in london, when u have settled in a bit more and i have done the editing of the book for which i want to find a publisher in london... love and all that good stuff

this is the script of the last interaction with one of my cousins, it reminds me of a new jangled telegram of sorts happening through yahoo. to me it is great to open yahoo and find offline messages from somebody i care about.

luxury

i have neither a television, nor a dishwasher, and the toaster does not work well, but i do live and work in great luxury.

it has been a long journey from the days when my office was in london and my bedroom in berne, and to get to the office i had a two hour flight. of course that flight was sometimes a bit longer when the client happened to be in melbourne, australia. these days i can roll out of bed and start working still in pyjamas. it has it advantages and disadvantages, and it is one hell of a training in discipline!

how do i feel about all of this?

do i always have to feel something? i am tired of feeling.

status one the thumb: much better, but still not ready for a real left punch.

Hometown sketches #1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Hometown sketches #1 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreika/373782/

this is an incredible picture!

what is wrong in this picture?

what has happened to the indentation on this template?

it has gone wild, very wild!

non linear

life is full of non linearities. i confess to be totally hooked on them!

fools, friends and family: is there a difference?

conjecture: inference from incomplete evidence.

inference: the act of passing from one or more propositions, statements, or judgments considered as true to another the truth of which is believed to follow from that of the former.

"inference." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (18 Oct. 2004).

is inference always linear?

i am getting into that state of mind which i can only call "altered," this is what deadlines do to me. i like it.

rice pudding

that is how i feel today...

not much in terms of either coherent speech or formulation is to be expected from me today.

i am learning through physical pain, something that i do NOT like, the great functionality and evolutionary genius that is an opposing thumb. i am also learning that it is not a suspicion of mine that i do a lot of things with my left hand, i use it often, be it to open the tap or to unscrew the toothpaste tube cap. status on my left thumb injury: swollen and painful, can not make a punching fist without considerable discomfort. a physician friend told me last night over dinner that if the pain goes away in one week, it is not broken. with that knowledge and the fact that i can sleep rather well anyhow, i know that there is no reason to rush to the hospital. still, i like bitching about it.

my downstairs neighbour was in the laundry room when i went down to check on the laundry that i had left in the machine yesterday, he had dried my clothes and folded them. i told him that one could marry him. he replied that in principle he is available for marriage. this amusing dialogue between a rather gay male and myself led us to a discussion of the merits of allowing the state in one's relationships. i am more of the opinion that one ought to eliminate marriage all-together in favour of a family law that regulates legal issues between blood relatives and accounts for the fact that pairings are more often than not rather fleeting. ah... but i also do not want to go into any detail on this now either.

i need a nap.

one of those days, the morning after

the morning after my appearance on tv... i am not sure i want to face looking at it. the subject was crap, the discussion no better, and to my surprise i contributed to the mediocrity of it all. if anything at all gets me depressed, this did it!

it is the second day of Ramadan, and i am suffering because last night it got late before i went to bed, and the whole bit with being in the studio was really out of my routine in additon to it being the first day that i was fasting. i could break the fast during the taping... so it went even longer and no in the traditional way. i am getting old, i need my routine sometimes. (ok, i am saying i am getting old, i know i am in a black mood)
this means that i went to bed way past 1 in the morning, and then ate somewhere around 6, tried to get to sleep again and at 8:30 i was out of the house again. why do i do this. today i feel like just crawling back to bed and forget that there are people out there and that i said i would go to this event tonight, and bring a desert. why do i think i can do it all? why did i have to go to the dojo? i went because i had said i would when i had forgotten that i would be fasting. in not going all out in my effort, i hurt myself thus adding injury to insult! i could kick myself for this one, but it is ok i am already suffering.

life is good, but sometimes i screw up.

mixed toilets, changing, shower and locker rooms

much may have been written, and i have read little of it, of what relevance the locker room socialisation is one's life.

1. almost everyday i experience our dojos' women's locker rooms which are separated from the men's locker rooms by nothing more than paravent-like walls open to the ceiling and that allow conversation between the women and the men while showering in same sex privacy.
2. on the rare occasions in which we use other facilities and the locker rooms, i have managed on several occasions to walk into the men's facilities by mistake.
3. long ago, when i was in the age of summer school and summer camp for kiddies, i ended up in one of those places in montreal, canada where the toilets were mixed. yes, the boys and girls used the same toilets, it was not unusual that a girl and boy would wash hands next to each other. i do not remember anything unusual ever happening either.

in the present day situation it is for me always a special treat to have a conversation while showering with somebody on the other side, or to just spontaneously ask something that comes to mind. i find this situation rather advantageous to good communication. the mixed situation does allow for respect of the differences without polarisation and i would advance that this is a very positive socialisation force.

my guess is that i have been thinking about polarisation and the building of fronts. is this something humans do automatically out of comfort or habit, or both?

found it!

ready to catch him should he fall

google strikes again!

and other times i forget

i once read a novel, no best seller of any kind, but a rather touching story of two men who have to deal with their relationship in somewhat conservative but modern london. now i wish i could remember the title of the book or the name of the author. i come up blank on both. the title goes something like "... should you fall." or was it ready to catch him, should he fall?
yes, london, london is one great social experiment with many failures and many successes. of the two years that i spent officially having my office in london, i never ever contemplated the idea of moving there, i was living in berne. somehow the city always got on my nerves and at the same time i could be pretty calm about it. i remember one day sitting in a grid lock for several hours on the way from london city airport to the office on picadilly. it was really, just sit and enjoy the view, everybody was calm and there was a bomb threat. but then, i also never drove myself in the city, there was always a chauffeur who drove me around in a jaguar. yes, my life is really rough sometimes. "tant pis pour vous!"

now, i am itching to go to london again, one of my cousins just moved back there again, another is visiting and i am having an attack of "me too." just yesterday i thought that i would be getting my ass to birmingham on the 22nd, then last night i got a call in the middle of my sleep, and we agreed that it would be hannover. i am ok with hannover, it is time visit gauss' grave again. (gauss, the mathematician is buried in göttingen)

it is "should you fall" that resonates inside my head... while i am editing the article for the WIPO. weird! one thing has nothing to do with the other.

but then there is "fool on the hill" and i totally enjoyed that one, either it was because i read it while i was at cornell or it is because in those days i was having an overdose of my own hormones and i then did anything to prevent myself from climbing the walls. i recently read some of the stuff i wrote during that year... i am not sure i am ready to deal with that yet.

remembering...

what did i do before there was google and vivisimo and hyperlinks?

i was thinking of photography and i was thinking of something a friend of mine once told me about a situation i was in. unfortunately i have not seen him in a while, we have this habit of getting busy with our lives, and then although we think of those far away, there is somehow always something else which seems more urgent. i gave him a call now, he sounds like i remember him, his daughter is now 12 and they may be visiting this sunday.

i have also found myself thinking quite often in the last few days about another friend, he is now in chicago, i last talked to him on the phone in july. he and i spent 2 weeks together during what was his first trip to europe and for me were 2 weeks of conferences, one in antibes (france) and another in vienna (austria). sometimes i think of our interactions during those 2 weeks... with amusement and awe. how lucky can i be?

most or all what is working in the background, and it feels like i am asking something, although i can not formulate the question, is the content of another writer's mail to me a few days ago. i have sat on it, pondering, wondering what it is that she means. uhm... i suspect that soon i will be going to paris and london. a man has to travel, at least that is what Amyr Klink says.

why do we remember?

work like a servant, live like a millionaire, love like a fool

if you asked me what i came into this world to do, i will tell you: i came to live out loud.

Emile Zola

life is full of surprises

my whole weekend was a surprise, and today i surprised myself too!!!

strange, there is nothing that i want or need to write about this one.

besides the unusual friday program, the more routine saturday morning, i was at an aikido stage here in berne on saturday afternoon and sunday monrning. came home on sunday early afternoon tired and content. i had an article overdue for the WIPO and it was not until 4 this morning that i started to work on it again, it was done by 10.

what needed to happen, did happen. the universe has a way of always delivering the right lessons at my door step, i am just not home all the time.

actually i do not know what happened...

events happen.

1. i wrote a letter, wrote something about how i felt at the moment. mailed the letter.
2. weeks later i read a copy of the letter that i had mailed, and was indeed shocked by the intensity of what i was writing, immediately felt like a total fool.
3. the letter was a thank you letter above all, but not only.
4. the addressee reported being touched by such letter, i was thanked for it.
5. my observation is that we caressed each other's egos. for those of us endowed with strong egos which have had us by the nose a few times, it is indeed rather soothing to have it caressed without expectations. no stress.


there are surprises in life, at least my empty and insignificant life is full of them.

this morning and early afternoon i was at the "swiss science forum", and i left early. the event is ok, and i sometimes just get a tad tired of all these intellectuals turning the same old junk around in their heads and producing incoherent speech. somehow tiring and amusing at the same time, i got what i wanted and then left. it was perfect!

one year ago, i was not where i am now. where am i now?

how did i get here?

ok: got up at 6, coffee, zazen, ran errands, had coffee again with a friend, then lunch...

i feel good, tired, and have 7 hours of work to do and 4 to do it in!!! you have heard of time dilation, haven't you?

no regrets!

there was butter in my lunch...

and now i regret it!

my intestines are giving me hell. (i was sure that is what you wanted to know when you asked : how are you?)

sailing

sunday was blissful. a group of 12 went on a sailing trip on the lake of thun. it was picture book, postcard, national geographic panorama all around. the wind was nothing to brag about, i had my fun sailing the boat to a top speed of 5 knots (loooool) and that was the fastest we got her to! (no i can not sail, but the skipper let me at the rudder/tiller --or whatever it is called-- anyhow)

from all the eye candy this visual junkie produced and which you can admire by looking at the slide show you see that i was in good company.

the feelings thing, it was good. plain good.

no, that is not it either

you thought that i was going to bare my soul here? nope. that is not it either.

still this thing with the feeling does not let me alone.

here i am thinking of my taxes, tax declarations, and all that good stuff which involves giving the government some money so that later they can pay for my trips to istanbul and other good stuff, like roads and trash collection. i have however a problem with the trash collection thing. in bern one still has to put a stamp on the trash bag so that the garbage collectors will take it. no, i don't have a dog and don't pay dog taxes.

back to the fucking taxes! yes, that is how i feel about it. i am as social an animal as any other, and i have no issue with the basic idea of paying taxes, however when it comes to my own declarations... i'll do just about anything to get out of it.

yes, there are some good stories to tell about me and the local tax office, slowly i am looking at it as lessons in modesty. i am actually starting to like the people at the tax office, they have tremendous understanding for the chaos in my life, and the utter mess in my accounting.

saturday: katas, shopping, laundry, and ...

woke up really early, before the alarm went off at 5!

so i am excited about something that i thought would leave me totally indifferent, it does not, and i am not going to tell you what it is. it ain't sex, it is something better.

i am feeling good, however when it comes to managing all the stuff on my desk, i feel that i need to hold my breath and just dive into it, if i do NOT, it will chew my head off. obviously, i am talking about taxes.

after a few years my saturdays in berne are starting to have a certain routine, and then maybe not, the next two weekends it may all be very different. the "usual" which is something rare with me is starting to be to go to karate kata training in the morning, then shower, shopping for fresh food, and do the laundry. exciting, ain't it?

today, if i could sing, i would sing "i feel good"

a letter to: family, friends, and fools

that is to whom this blog is written for, i am in the category "fools," thus once more this is for me.

when in the spring of 2001 at the trafal beach, near quarteira, i screamed out loud and cried finally recalling that dream that i had forgotten long ago, that is, my longing to spend more time at that beach and my need to write, then my life took one irreversible turn and started getting back to my dreams, my life, my joy. ever since that day, i have produced one breakdown after the next, never did i question my resolve. challenge has been not missing in my life, not within the past three years, and not in the past odd forty years since i was born.

they say that it takes a lot of discipline to work from home, i know they are right, and i know that there is nothing i enjoy more than producing what needs to be produced to reach one's chosen goals.

what often gets in my way are these uninvited guests, my feelings, and often i really do not know what to do with all of it. i have decided to warehouse them right here in this blog and in doing that let you know my answer to that question "how are you today?"

your comments, rants, and feedback will be read and appreciated.

keep in touch