The Good Ole Days Are Now!

The 10 signs that I've become a Londoner (the joie de vivre version)

2011-12-19T21:07:00.007Z

I still admire the city I live in, how handsome and charming it is. It never ceases to amaze me, just turn around the familiar corner for some quirky discovery, be it a pretty Victorian mansion, ethnic restaurant, or a view of the City's skyscrapers from a most unexpected place.
I still feel overwhelmed with how much goes on daily in this city: exhibitions, premieres, musicals, openings, concerts, demonstrations, seminars, public lectures. Sometimes, I just have to stop reading mail-lists with yet more new announcements: I just don't enough hours a day to visit all that takes my fancy!
I avoid the Tube except for emergencies and "long-haul" travel. Buses are the most civilised means of commuting: you get a seat, a nice view and another free city tour. Most places in Central London are easier to walk to anyway, especially when you are versed in the quintessentially British idiosyncratic shortcuts through buildings, back lanes and car parks.
I take it for granted that no street is straight here (save for Oxford Street and Edgware Road) and getting from point A to point B can take any amount of turns and changes of direction. That has helped me reconcile mentally and emotionally with the irrationality of existence.
I have finally discovered where to go shopping for affordable stylish clothes. I can't buy garb on the Stateside any more, in London it would look like peasant's pajamas.
I spell the British way by default now. My Microsfot Word yet needs to learn that too.
I got used to the "hard-core/fuzzy-edges" English attitude to appointment-keeping, project management and weekend-planning. I allow a bit of leeway for everything and that, in fact, makes my life much easier and enjoyable.
The sight of the Shard lit up at night excites me no end. I think the Gherkin is iconic. The Royal Festival Hall is still an abominable monstrosity on the outside but I love the interior.
The East End accent does not baffle me any more. Now I find some North American accents completely incomprehensible.
The sight of London from the airplane's window makes my heart melt. It's good to get back home!

Idols and mobs

2011-11-24T12:00:00.000Z

Every time I see someone engrossed in reading a newspaper with a picture of an orange lady with glued-on eye-lashes and inflated boobs being peddled as a role model for the nation thanks to her uncanny ability to climb from one highly affluent cock onto another, well, I just cackle a bit. Earthlings are peculiar critters.

Work hard, play hard

2011-11-24T11:58:00.000Z

The 'work hard, play hard' slogan is utter hogwash because it glorifies slaving yourself into the ground in exchange for retail therapy and party drugs.

Online gay dating websites

2011-11-24T11:53:00.000Z

just mere commodity markets of temporary body part appropriation for purposes of physiological gratification?

Relationships and finding partners

2011-06-25T12:49:00.003+01:00

According to my shrink, and I totally concur with her, all people's relationships are games, over the rules of which they have no control, being jerked around, like marionettes, by blocked out memories, shards of past emotions, reactive patterns of behaviour sitting beneath their conscious mind.

So when people look for love and relationships, they simply chase invisible shadows in their minds, projecting them on reality. It is a pure accident if a real person fits the bill, because the criteria are hardly known to the chaser. That is, unless they've been through a successful therapy.

Human race vs. chaos

2011-03-13T17:07:00.005Z

Human beings are the only force in the Universe (if you don't count God) that is working to counter entropy, the natural way of things to fall into chaos. The formidability of this task only really strikes you, when you think what cosmic forces we, mere thinking mould in a far-flung corner of the Universe, are against in this.

Lifestyle choices: Brahmacharya

2010-11-21T16:55:00.000Z

The word brahmacharya is understood broadly in yoga as "sexual continence," which can be understood as being applicable as appropriate in different contexts (e.g., faith in marriage, celibacy for spiritual aspirants etc.), in more extreme terms (complete celibacy) or in more specific terms in relation to preserving and sublimating male sexual energy rather than losing it through ejaculation.

In yoga, the term brahmacharya tends to take on a connotation of disciplining the use of and preserving sexual energy. Brahmacharya is discussed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as one of the 5 Yamas, the foundational commitments for the practice of yoga. According to the Yoga Sutras, the end-result or fruit of Brahmacharya practised to perfection is unbounded energy or vitality.

Brahmacharya can also be interpreted more generally in a variety of ways, such as:

* generally striving for excellence in all domains of activity and relationship
* pursuing 'virtue' however defined. Brahmacharya understood in this sense is similar to the classical Greek concept of arete (excellence)
* clearing underlying personality conflicts and centering oneself and ones spiritual journey in clear, well conceived and sustainable values (that is, thinking of Brahmacharya as an ongoing practice of 'clearing' analogous to resolving personality complexes and conflicts in psychotherapy)
* refining one's 'energies' (prana/chi/aura etc.) in relation to other people generally, to become aware of more subtle energies and to take one's energies or 'vibration' higher

Pre-logical, Logical and Supra-Logical

2010-11-18T17:43:00.005Z

There are three types of minds:

pre-logical, corresponding to our animal interioir section of our brain. That's how animals think "likes are alike", "A=B=C=D", ...
logical, that lives in the frontal lobes, we acquire it from the civilising effort of upbringing and education, that's what science uses to understyand the visible world
supra-logical, of the "God operates in mysterious ways' fame, is accesible through spiritual development, it allows to understand the inner struicture of people, things and events.

At this point of the developmet of ourrace, we thinkthat logical, scinetific is the

However there is a higher

Why is God a Him?

2010-10-22T09:21:00.000+01:00

Human mind due to its limitations can only think in human categories. We need some kind of pronoun, so we use He, for the sake of convenience and also due to our own tendency to associate the qualities we see in God to maleness. Although I don't think that God would have primary or secondary sexual attributes, do you?

In touch with your feelings

2010-09-26T15:12:00.006+01:00

It sure is fine and dandy to be in touch of your feelings. It is great to express them,not suppress them.

But do you know if they are your true emotions or just a script (reactive behaviour pattern, or demons as they used to call them) sitting in you and jerking you around. You think that you are so in love and can't live without this person, but in fact it is that whimpering little boy or girl in you that your Dad did not hug enough when you were small so now you are looking for just anyone who will satisfy that craving, fill in that void inside you. You pick on on those clues - that you are not even consciously aware of - choose you victim and pounce down on them.

You sure be better off not giving voice to that trapped negative emotion, because it is not you and it won't be you speaking if you let it speak and, in all likelihood, it won't be saying anything nice! So keep a lid on it and work it out on your own. Don't bring this voice to your nice relationship meal!

Relationship is like a meal

2010-09-26T14:43:00.011+01:00

'What we look for in a relationship?' a friend asked me today.

For me it starts at the other end: not what you are looking for in a relationship but what you have to bring to the table and share with the other one.

It's like a meal: you share nice stuff, not your waste. You also need to find someone who will like what you have to share. You also would not like someone who brings their waste to the table. It's perfectly alright to want to have nice things for your meal, right?

It should not be the other diner's responsibility to gut, scale and cook your fish - bring a nicely seared medium tuna steak! Cook your own contribution well, don't assume cooking the other's offering as your responsibility, although you may want to help if you see they are struggling.

You also may want to make sure that what you bring does not cause allergies or indigestion in the other. That's what we call caring.

You don't need to bring the same stuff, we all are different. One can bring the starter, the main and the cheese, the other - the soup, the wine and the dessert. What matters is that you have a complete meal that both find satisfying.

When both parties understand these ground rules, it makes for a perfect relationship. I would think this all is but wishful thinking if I didn't know a couple who are exactly like that: Dusko and Mack, I'm talking about you guys, you're such a beautiful couple inside out! In the last two years, they have treated me to dozens of wonderful meals and now I know the meaning of that.

Games we play in relationships: narcissist and co-dependent

2010-09-26T13:22:00.020+01:00

There is a very old Russian joke: What is a perfect couple? - A sadist and a masochist.

How very true: they must be inseparable, both fulfilling each other's needs. On the flipside, it is a very destructive relationship, akin to that of a dealer and a drug addict. They are stuck in pressing each other's pleasure buttons: the need to abuse and the need to be abused (remember that Eurythmics song?), the need for money and the need for drugs.

There are millions of couples around us like that, maybe even us - not as dramatic as the sadomasochist couple but very similar in essence. We all tend to take account only of our actions and emotions without examining the cause of them, be on the effect side, like my favourite coach Phillippa Mole says.

A very common pattern is a relationships where one party is narcissistic and the other is co-dependent. The latter wants to be loved for all wrong reasons: for example because they were emotionally rejected by a parent and now they try to re-create that relationship and make good for what happened in the past but this time around with someone else. There is an element of thriving on rejection in that, because all too often, what the co-dependent is striving to recreate is that very unhealthy relationship with their parent(s). Despite aspiring for love, the codependent subliminally (because all this happens as all parties involved are jerked around like marionettes by their unrealised behaviour patterns and urges) does everything to be rejected once again. In other words,s/he falls into the same script, because it was never brought up to the conscious mind and analysed for what it is.

In terms of transactional analysis, the co-dependent's script is "I'm not okay, you're okay". No surprise then, that the complementary party to this would have the "I'm okay, you're not okay" script, which is that narcissistic person who thrives on rejecting love and emotion. The underlying cause of that can be a previous trauma (emotional rejection) or an inherited pattern from an "I'm okay, you're not okay" parent who was perceived to be in the winner's position.

I have seen people for whom this (the narcissist script) was a self-defence mechanism against low self-esteem - they would project their insecurities on others, thus justifying their self-worth. Although they may appear to be riding the high horse, in fact, they are perpetuating a loser's script.

Deep inside, a narcissist would crave love but on the outside s/he would find pleasure in denying it to the other, just like someone before did it to them. That often leads to a "bad cop/good cop in one ball" script, where the narcissist alternates attracting and rejecting the co-dependent. That, in its turn, attracts the co-dependent because it fulfils their both urges: for love and for rejection. First s/he get a hope of love and then s/he gets the huge emotional kick of rejection. That scenario keeps both parties interminably busy with pressing each other's "pleasure buttons" (and pleasure is not joy!).

It is a very detrimental pattern because the energies here are wasted on re-confirming the neuropaths of deriving pleasure from negative stimuli: neediness, trauma, rejection, and emotional deprivation. Both parties thwart each other's emotional and all other kind of development because essentially they are busy recreating negative scenarios from the past over and over again.

How do you break from that? It is hard to see beyond the surface of what we do and are when we are embroiled in the very midst of a eddy of emotional bonds. Like I said before, we tend to look at the surface of things and events without trying to see what they mean. When you see that something in your relationship does not work, especially if it repeats time after time again, sit down and ask yourself why, or even better have someone else do it for you, a good therapist, for example - so keep asking yourself why until you get to the bottom of things.

Eric Berne's Games People Play can provide a good insight into how it all works. Also have a look at the Obssesive Love Wheel and see how much you can relate to it.

So is there a hope? Sure there is: a healthy relationship is like a good shared meal and is realistically attainable.

What is happiness?

2010-09-26T13:01:00.009+01:00

There is that (very beautiful) Russian lady Professor at Stanford University who is conducting this well-funded research on what happiness is. Hm, how very Russian, indeed! She has been all over TV in the States and, in her opinion, or so I gathered, happiness boils down to these:

gratitude
contentment
the ability to step outside yourself for others' sake
humility

How very true. However in her research, I see no separation between joy and pleasure, which are very different. Pleasure is a sensation, fleeting as its nature behoves it. Joy is a more sustainable state of mind and is the gate to happiness.

Wisdom and humility

2010-09-26T12:38:00.001+01:00

We all are on our own quests, different for every one. It is impossible to make decisions or dispense advice to others as per to what direction they should go in life or how they should improve themselves, or what they should think or do. God operates in mysterious ways and it is not up to a mere mortal to know what the other person's goal and meaning in life is.

Unless, someone comes and asks you for a piece of advice or help. You can then share whatever wisdom you have acquired for yourself, and that will be just your contribution to that person's making their own informed decision. Our own experience really matters just to ourselves. Hence the eternal problem of parents and children, when the latter won't listen to what the former say, because really we all need to gain on our own that empirical knowledge, which is true wisdom, as opposed to intellectual knowledge, which is just acquired wisdom, that we may agree with because it sounds logical but can never internalise because we have never actually experienced it.

See, humility is an indispensable part of wisdom, without humility wisdom is but spiritual arrogance.

Material and spiritual planes: are they in conflict?

2010-09-26T12:15:00.004+01:00

Funny, someone told me just that the other day that I really sound like a monk who lives in the mountains on a different plane of existence. To which I replied that I may embrace lofty views and spiritual pursuits but I still enjoy my tailored pants, swish shoes, fancy dinners, nice travels and of course, some cock.

Those two planes of existence do not conflict with each other at all. Au contraire, they just influence each other in a very profound way and they are not separate, they exist in the same time and place, like the material surface and the spiritual depth of events, things, people and their actions. They both are important, they can't exist with one another, but just on their own they are quite meaningless too. Embracing both gives you true wisdom.

When you just see the material, you miss out on the meaning of what you see, because the meaning of things and events is never on the surface. But if you only see the meaning but never embrace the material, you end up with spiritual arrogance, that denies the beauty and enjoy of God's creation. Both extremities are detrimental.

Optimists and pessimists

2010-09-13T14:21:00.000+01:00

It's funny: people who bitch the most about life are those who are most afraid of death, while those who love and enjoy life, don't really mind leaving this world when the time comes.

Pity and compassion

2010-09-10T13:23:00.004+01:00

Pity is a very destructive emotion. Everything done out of pity eventually destroys both sides.

Compassion has nothing to do with pity. Despite the origin of the word: con-passion (felling together, felling for), it is only true when clear of emotional involvement. The latter knocks you off your peace of mind and bogs you down in the other person's misery. Compassion is an understanding of the other person's plight that, in its turn, triggers the will to help them. Empathy is this case would be detrimental.

Clever, smart and wise

2010-08-28T10:51:00.005+01:00

You can be intelligent in three major ways or, if you are lucky, a combination of those.

Clever - bookish knowledge you've picked up from school and books. Applicable strictly in the related field, or - with caution and moderation - at cocktail parties.

Smart - streetwise prowess learnt at school of life. Helps you deftly navigate the vicissitudes of human existence, but fails you variety of profound ways, e.g., won't spare you the midlife crisis and won't make your life any meaningful

Wisdom - lesson you have learnt observing world and your own mistakes. Gets only better the more you work on it, addressed the most important questions you may ever have.

Joy and pleasure

2010-08-27T13:59:00.004+01:00

The difference between joy and pleasure is the difference between exploring the infinite depth of wisdom, love and growth and chasing the infinite numbers of ripples and waves of nice sensations. In philosophy they call those two qualitative and quantitative infinity. The former is ever-lasting and the journey is toward God, the latter is never-ending and the journey is toward a trap.

The infinite source of true love

2010-08-11T12:58:00.005+01:00

Talking about corruption of words: we say "I love him", "I love ice-cream", "I love my mother", "I love my country". For one very confusing word love, Greeks know a few. Two of them, agape and erotos stand for unconditional and sexual love respectively, while philos describes just simple liking.

We all always have an infinite amount of agape, it's like an ocean of love inside of us. We only need to know how to discover and channel it. It takes finely tuning your mind to the vibration of that kind of love. The task would be much easier if, gliding superficially on the plane of life, we would not get caught in the ripple and waves of erotos.

If you dive deep inside the agape ocean, leaving behind the fascinating waves of sexual lust, you experience a much more powerful and lasting kind of love. It takes some courage and dedication to leave the easily accessible and so exciting waves on the surface, whose nature however is to come and go, never stay.

When you find a person who is also in touch with the ocean, it is a never-ending trip of swimming through the warm embrace of water with all the wonders of the sea coming your way. It is amazing how the right people are send to you, when you are ready for that kind of experience. Once you are there, it is effortless, you don't need to chase and ride the top of the wave to feel love, because love is everywhere around you and fills up the inside of you too.

iceland volcano ash europe mayhem

2010-04-23T20:14:00.001+01:00

When Iceland's economy kicked the bucket, it asked that its ash be spread all over Europe.

Volcano ash cloud over Europe

2010-04-19T00:36:00.003+01:00

So the whole hoopla that gets all air traffic in Europe grounded is because one planeback in the 90s flew RIGHT OVER an erupting volcano and got into trouble. Yet another clear case of governmental knee-jerk induced by the mass media hysteria.

So Ricky Martin is gay

2010-04-19T00:34:00.001+01:00

+BIG YAWN+

Last time I checked, news means something new, unknown up to now.

Why are egoistic people attractive?

2010-04-15T10:07:00.006+01:00

There is some bizarre attraction in egoistic, self-consumed people. We are drawn to them like moths to the light bulb. But how do you deal with them without ending up getting hurt?

I am still on my learning curve but this is what figured out: always keep in mind what you can and what you can't get from them. You can't hope for a true involvement because egoist's main relationship is always with themselves. Enjoy what you can and don't hope for much. They are never relationship material. Once you've sussed out their nature, keep your emotions in check, don't let yourself tumble for the wrong person.

alexander mcqueen suicide bipolar

2010-03-11T12:49:00.003Z

What I find most shocking Alexander McQueen's suicide one month ago is that out of all the people who flocked around him and claimed to be his friends, no one bothered to be around him when his mother had died. His diagnose as bipolar was even in his Wikipedia article, yet it occurted to none of his alleged friends to be next to him to help him tide over the rough patch. All it would have taken was just a phone call or a visit by someone who was actually concerned with Alexander's well-being.

By some strange twist of fate, his muse and fairy godmother Isabella Blow, who also killed herself a few years earlier, was also bipolar. They were supposed to be bosom friends