Jazz at Lincoln Centre ! – St. Regis in Doha
Another great night of Jazz at Lincoln Centre in Doha with Richard Johnson Quartet and Brianna Thomas !
Aşteptare!
“Cred că toţi aşteptăm pe cineva, persoana potrivită, momentul potrivit, aşteptăm să se întâmple ceva, acel ceva de ani de zile aşteptat, să apară şansa pe care ne-o dorim în profesie…aşteptăm. Dar să înţeleg că, defapt, noi aşteptăm arbitrul care să ne judece, să ne indice dacă am greşit, să ne confirme sau infirme drumul bun?! Aşadar ar însemna că aşteptăm ca cineva din jurul nostru să ne spună cine suntem, ce trebuie să facem şi mai ales să ne spună ce viaţă să trăim?!
În acest caz ar trebui să ne scuturăm şi să ne privim mai bine în oglindă; cum să permitem altcuiva să fie noi?! Cine suntem noi, atunci, dacă aşteptăm ca altcineva să ia decizii pentru noi, să răspundă la întrebările adresate nouă?!
Nu mă împotrivesc aşteptării, dar o văd ca pe răbdarea necesară pentru momentul potrivit. Să avem răbdare dar să acţionăm în paralel, să învăţăm din greşeli, să fim atenţi le ce ne înconjoară şi să mergem mai departe pe drumul nostru.
Să nu uităm de noi în această aşteptare ci să ne descoperim , să ne lăsăm suprinşi de ceea ce ni se oferă şi să facem din aşteptare un mijloc de a zâmbi frumos vieţii.” – (by Mite)
Omul !
“Putem numara stele de pe cer din nebunie ori din plictiseala. Uneori din ambele motive. Insa de cele mai multe ori uitam sa ne numaram si pe noi… singura stea… singura planeta, singurul soare care conteaza !… Privim Universul cu o ciudata neincredere, de parca nu am putea concepe ca mai exista si alte lumi, si alte realitati, si alte locuri in care alte forme de oameni iubesc, urasc, ucid, traiesc… Astfel ca, realitatea ne izbeste necontenit cu partea ei ascunsa in umbra: Ceea ce nu vedem ne vede. Ceea ce nu simtim ne simte. Ceea ce nu ne lipseste ne apartine. Treptat, insa, lucruri pe care nu le vedem devin vizibile iar lucrurilor pe care suntem obisnuiti sa le avem incepem sa le simtim lipsa. Natura noastra ne spune ca omul este un sistem dinamic in care o infinitate de lucruri pe care le avem face schimb de materie si spirit cu o infintate de lucruri pe care nu le avem. Atat timp cat va exista un echilibru in acest sistem va exista si armonie. Insa omul este o fiinta haotica ce va tinde sa-si asume rolul cunoasterii si va claca in fata noilor infinituri de necunoastere pe care le va intrezari. Omul nu a fost creat pentru a fi fericit ci pentru a oscila intre nebunia descoperirii si plictisela de armonie. Fericirea este doar momeala ce-l va tine in cursa, pana la sfarsit….” – Octavian Paler
Reflections on Self – Who am I ?
Who am I ? … I will never believe those who say they found the answer to this question. For if you ever really search for an answer, you will find that it is impossible to ever know as you are never the same, you are in a continuous change. You are what is around you mixed with what you make of it. And you are always different. Even if just by a very small fraction, you are always different from whom you were a minute ago. Our brain can process 1 million bits of information per second while we can be conscious only of about two thousands bits per second (this is debatable, numbers may vary, the idea is important ). That makes it even harder to ever know who we truly are. The only certitude of who I am is now, when I feel my fingers pressing different keys on the keyboard, trying to express my thoughts in words, pressing my back against the chair, sipping some water to wet my dry lips. This is who I am now. But after I finish this? After my brain processed few more millions bits of information and after I become conscious of few more thousands of the same, I have no idea whom I will be then!
People might think they know, and often people say they are good, they love thing, they love others, they don’t like one thing or another…they have friends, they enjoy reading….and this is who they are. But is it really true? For example…being good !…if you were ever put in the extreme situation of having to save your dearest ones, your children, your life by having to murder another innocent person , would you do it? There are people who will do it without blinking , most of the people will do it but will be marked for life , and very few people who will not do it. But would you do it? You don’t know. And if you would do it, would it be a bad or a good thing? Whom would you be then? A cold blooded murderer or someone full of love (for his close ones)?
I hate bitter taste…and often it makes me gag…but yet I love coffee without sugar, and I don’t know what else that tastes bitter I would like as I didn’t try everything out there. Can that be me, the guy who hates bitter, but yet he likes few bitter things? if that were true and I was that guy, that won’t define me very well. I do or I don’t like bitter? I don’t know…I know I don’t like some things I have tried already that were bitter and that is all.
So my answer to this question is – I HAVE NO CLUE ! All I can do is educate my mind for my inner self to know who I am at every given moment. Not control my soul, my heart, my body or my instincts with my EGO, but be as conscious as I can of everything that my existence throws at me and have faith my subconscious self will make the best out of everything else. I can stop trying to control everything and wake up every morning to start a fresh new day, with new challenges, pleasures, disappointments and whatever else might be and enjoy them all , but don’t hold on to them, as there will be another day coming where I will miss the new for holding on to the old. Love with passion and fall so I can get up more aware of were I step. I can Dream big, I can hope and I can desire.
I am what my life is !
(I hope this makes some sense to you and your comments are always welcomed…just don’t mind my poor writing skills. And just so you know, in the last image I was about 14kg heavier than now )
Destiny !?
I have never been superstitious. My Santa was blown away and destroyed by my cousin’s sweater that I was unfortunate enough to see under that very cheap and unrealistic Santa suit he was wearing when I was about 5 years old. Then god disappeared when I asked from him to help others around me, save their life and take care of those helpless children…and yet every single time I could find that one more is gone. And then the horoscope came and went just like a buzz passing by my ear …the black cat…the horseshoe…and so on.
But then , one day, I have discovered the idea of Destiny. For a little while it look vague enough to believe inn, simple to understand… Just blame it all not on an invisible person, not on a thing , but on Destiny. I can actually admit it did help a bit , at my worst , to find an explanation for the bad, for the good…for my stupidity and insecurities. It provided the comfort I needed while being an ignorant and foolish teen, rebelling against the world . It gave me the excuses I was so badly looking for and validated my poor decisions and lack of knowledge and even the lack of interest for anything with some intellectual meaning.
Thou, in time, and with some more will and self education, with books and other things foreign to this new generation these days, I grew out of believing in this nothingness that Destiny seems to be. But the questions remain.
I does seem that some void, some “nothing”, or maybe the universal chaos, has a way to interfere were we are certain that we’ve planned perfectly, were we knew that nothing can change the outcome and yet somehow, something made it change. Something brings the luck we so badly need sometimes, and then it takes it away just as easy. Sometimes our prayers look like they’ve been answered and ,more often than we would like, they seem to be falling on nobody’s ears.
And what that might be? Destiny? Coincidence? Some sort of god..one of the many hindu ones…or maybe the Christian and Muslim one…Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Ra, …maybe some little devil just playing with his tail to draw us in his little circle of evil?
Us humans, we will probably battle these questions for as long as humankind will exist. We can not help it…The need to be cared for and protected somehow and feel special is embedded deep down in the core of our being, therefore we will always wonder who or what takes such a (in my opinion very poor, but for the sake of this post…) good care of us.
An answer that we might never get. My only hope will be to never stop looking for it. Because on the way we might just find out that, no matter how well we plan, no matter how smart we think we are or how well we can live, control and take care of our life, or our future, no matter whom do we want to love and marry or whatever deity we chose to pray to , there will always be something or somebody, that universal chaos, that dark (or white) energy, that unknown constant that makes its way into everything we do and (apparently …or so some people say ) splits everything almost in half. We get good and we get bad…we succeed and we fail, we have white and we have black, happiness and sadness, we are born and we die. Everything just seems to have its exact opposite other thing that somehow balances all we know, and does such a great job at making this short and amazing life interesting and beautiful, exciting and full of surprises.
(just some older images…and don’t be shy…comment ..you can only make it better)
Sold Future !!!
I’ve been away for a while now…for almost a month I didn’t do much on my blog. Through some accidental events, I’ve managed to get me involved in some electoral campaign for a candidate for the Mayor’s chair. So for almost a month I took part in a messy spectacle of honesty , compassion and vision on one side and stupidity, egos and ignorance on the other side. Lucky I chose the good side (unfortunately not the winning one…but at least I didn’t had to lower me to an intelligence level I wasn’t comfortable with).
It is unbelievable how miserable and dirty the 21st century politics can be in Romania. We fought ,in the 1989 revolution, for freedom and for democracy, for the wright to vote and express freely our believes. I see now that all was in vain. In a community of a bit over 3000 people , in Romanian country side, people are treated by their mayor as a country was treated 22 years ago. Threat and intimidation found a home under the leadership of a 72 yo man that behaves like a tyrant (a stupid one also). Scared people being held from the neck by a gang of cruel, ignorant, stupid and greedy middle aged and senior citizens. I honestly don’t want to say that I am ashamed I am Romanian, but now I see why I just don’t fit in anymore, why I feel like a stranger in my own country.
It is embarrassing to see parents selling their votes, selling their children’s future for a miserable 50 USD. How can these parents look their children in the eyes and tell them they care for their future? Don’t these irresponsible fathers and mothers want the best for their family?
Even worst is that these kind of situations are easily found all over the country. And remember we have aspirations to one day be an integral part within European Union, we like to think about us like a modern state with democratic values. (democratic values my ass *pardon my language*).
I really just feel sorry for the children that, trough no fault of their own, are caught in the middle of all this and see their dreams and aspiration blown away by the stupidity of the political class, by their parents unwillingness and incapacity of gathering information and getting educated and wisely choosing the people that represent them in the local administration and all other political institutions. The same parents are crying they have no jobs, they have no food on their table…but at the same time they vote for the same people for 20 years, for people that got them in this state of survival in the first place.
The images in this post are shot during this campaign. These are children from Rosiesti village in Vaslui, Romania. (the village I was referring to in the first part of my post)
Ages…!!!
It was an amazing experience meeting again with the simple people living out there, in the country, peasants working the land, doing what they do for generations and just moving on with their life. Exploited by the political class, used by the system, forgotten by the society and yet their strive in their small simple world and , through all the every day labor and sufferings, pains and grievances, they have the kindness and the power to smile and stop for even just a moment of their precious time to welcome you into their world .
