My Mind Room

Thank you

2009-11-07T23:19:00.009+02:00

I knew what were your concerns, your favorite songs, the books that you liked, the food that you enjoyed. I knew what were your beliefs because you talked a lot about each and the reasons behind each. I knew well who you were and how you would say and react to my thoughts, my deeds and my flaws but not any more and this gives me pain time to time. I don't know you anymore but this does not mean that I don't understand you because I well do.
And about that pain, let me tell you something, I can live with that pain, because I've just done it until today and I can go on like this for tomorrow and the days after tomorrow and the years after.You're living your brilliant life and that matters and believe me, this does the very same on me that a painkiller can do. So, thank you and no worry, I'm doing just great, in fact my very best. And you just keep living and being alive.
Yours,

Beh...

Spinning around

2009-11-06T00:07:00.009+02:00

"There are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around, and you don't care where you're going, and you don't care where you've come from, because all that matters is speed, and the hands holding your hands"*.

It's almost 10 years that there are times when friendship feels like running down a hill together as fast as you can, jumping over things, spinning around... There are times and times.

*Matthew Tobin Anderson

And dance

2009-11-01T02:16:00.004+02:00

We went to one of the performances of Holland dance festival last night. It was a three part program. The first one was interesting, I enjoyed the second part and I tried so hard controlling myself from laughing out loud at some points of the last part. Fell free to think that I don't understand art at some level ;). We have one more program to go.

Prescription

2009-10-25T22:31:00.004+02:00

4 words to feel sane at some point: I do not care.

Warning! You might find this boring

2009-10-23T18:17:00.003+02:00

Now, it looks like a happy ending little story when I say that studying for the exam went fine and I think I did the exam fine as well. Yeah, it would look just perfect if I would only write this happy report but I have to add that I have a problem whenever I have an exam. It's not a big problem and as some might say it's not even considered as a problem but when you don't live your daily life like before, feel stressed out big part of the time that you're awake and feel not relaxed when you're asleep and see only dark sides of matters just before taking the exam and five minutes after you've done with the test you feel normal again, well you might think that you should think. I know where the roots are coming from, I can write stories of my years of studying for entering university and also how I graduated which I'm sure if I do that then you will say:"Yeah, now you have a problem". I'm not going to do that but I'm looking at the reasons so that I may be able to find a way to feel less stressed out when I'm having an exam. But how, I don't know and I'm secretly glad that I have to to deal with it.

Are Better Brains Better?

2009-10-17T17:02:00.002+02:00

What you think?

Read my name

2009-10-11T20:34:00.009+02:00

...With all I've got I've taken part, I've made a
Difference to the world, I have been here, just read
My name...

...

2009-10-09T12:36:00.011+02:00

I have a very important exam next week and should study really hard this coming week. Mr.B is not with me these days and his absence has started since yesterday. This is not the first time that he's away but I feel so fragile and lonely from the moment he left...I can actually start to cry any time and any where about any thing that I hear, read or see that involves a little bit emotion.
I was so in rush yesterday that I did not notice I closed the door while his key was in the lock and the moment that I tried to lock the door I realized that. I had to leave and the time that I would be back home was around 10 p.m. I left any way but it went fine at the end and I wasn't homeless last night.
One of my friends' homepage in Facebook suddenly disappeared, she was very active during the election and I got this very bad feeling what if something bad has happened to her. I sent her an email, she replied she was fine but numbers of her friends got arrested and were asked to open their FB pages and give information about their FB's friends and how they know each other...Thank God she was fine, she might get arrested, she was thinking about her friends' safety, I cried.
Next week I'll be happier I think. Next week I'll have a very dear friend coming over for 2 days from England. Last time that we met was the time that we were about to leave Iran to Libya and she was on her short visit to Iran and last time that we had one of our long talks was almost 9 years ago. Next week Mr.B will come back.

Puzzle!

2009-10-04T13:15:00.004+02:00

68 cm by 48.5 cm- 1000 pieces of one winter landscape; a souvenir from our 2 hours tour to Rijksmuseum to ourselves and when they will be made to one piece (?) I'll tell you as soon as we finish ;-).

Personal Interpretation

2009-10-03T11:28:00.005+02:00

It is said that: "A person isn't who they are during the last conversation you had with them- they're who they've been throughout your whole relationship"*.
True! Which makes them hopeless always and again...

*Rainer Maria Rilke

Does falling in love make us more creative?

2009-10-02T10:12:00.002+02:00

...The clever experiments demonstrated that love makes us think differently in that it triggers global processing, which in turn promotes creative thinking and interferes with analytic thinking. Thinking about sex, however, has the opposite effect: it triggers local processing, which in turn promotes analytic thinking and interferes with creativity. Read more

No room for a new dictator

2009-09-29T10:52:00.010+02:00

مردمی که می‌خواهند سرپای خود بايستند و حياتی کريمانه را تجربه کنند جا دارد که از نخستين قدم‌هايی که به ناکامی‌‌شان می‌انجامد با بيشترين دقت‌ها پيشگيری کنند. تولد اينجانب نه هفتم مهر که روز آشنايی با شماست. حتی اگر روز هفتم مهر به دنيا آمده بودم نيز جا نداشت حرکت شما به کيش شخصيت آلوده شود

...The people who are willing to live based on their own thoughts and with dignity shall be cautious on steps they take which may prevent them to be able to do so. My bithday is not Mehr 7th but it is on the day of knowing you all and if it were on Mehr 7th, still it would be no room for your movement to get impure with an individual...

From Mousavi's latest statement ( 28-Sep-09).

Green night

2009-09-27T12:45:00.004+02:00

We sang all green songs with our green signs last night. We did not know each other but we did know with which color our language speaks these days and we spoke, proudly.

Life of a mind

2009-09-23T20:08:00.006+02:00

My train trips these days are devoted to reading a book titled "In search of memory" by Eric Kandel. It's the story of a refugee kid of Nazis-era, a husband, a father, a man and a Nobel prize winner.
And my sharing for today from this book:
...But the argument with Denise about spending more time with her and Paul did cause me to pause and think. As a consequence I learned from this argument the obvious lesson that hard thinking, especially if it leads to even one useful idea, is much more valuable than simply running more experiments. I was later reminded of a comment made about Jim Watson by Marx Perutz, the Viennese-born British structural biologist: "Jim never made the mistake of confusing hard work with hard thinking".

Vision

2009-09-22T20:58:00.005+02:00

I do an experiment on people with different visions; good, not bad and worse sights. It takes like an hour for each. The way that they handle the entire experiments- which for them gets boring and also tiring after a while- tells me how different their tolerances are for this specific experiment but doesn't tell me much about what kinds of people they are. I only have to judge their eyes not their characters and that could be a good practice, I hope.

How we read each other's minds

2009-09-20T17:02:00.009+02:00

2009-09-17T22:52:00.002+02:00

Tell me tomorrow is ours...

I wish you

2009-09-15T10:33:00.003+02:00

First of all, I wish you love, and that by loving you may also be loved. But if it’s not like that, be brief in forgetting And after you’ve forgotten, don’t keep anything. I wish that wouldn’t happen, but if it does and you forget, you could be a person without desperation.
I also wish you may have a lot of friends, And even if they are bad and inconsequent, They should be brave and true And, at least one of them, should be completely reliable.
But because life is the way it is, I also wish you may have enemies. Not many or too little, just in the right number So that you will have to question your own certainties and truths as well. And may there be among them at least one who is just and fair, So that you can never feel too secure in your ideas.
I wish you may be useful but not irreplaceable And in your bad moments, When you have nothing else, That sense of usefulness will keep you on your feet.
So equally, I wish you to be tolerant, Not with those that make little mistakes, because that is easy, but with those that make a lot of mistakes and can’t help it. And make good use of this tolerance to set an example to others.
I wish that, being young, you don’t mature too quickly And once you’re mature, don’t insist in getting younger. And when you’re old, don’t feel despaired Because each age has its pains and pleasures And we need them both in our lives.
By the way, I wish you to be sad at least one day So on that day you may discover That to laugh everyday is good, To laugh often is boring And to laugh constantly is an illness.
I wish that you may discover With maximum urgency That, above and in spite of everything, There are people around you who are depressed, Unhappy and unjustly treated.
I wish you to caress a dog, To feed a bird and to listen to its chirp as well As it sings triumphantly early in the morning. Because this way you will feel good for no reason.
And then I wish you may sow a seed Even if it is really small. And may you accompany it in its growth. So that you will discover how many lives a tree is made of.
I wish as well that you may have money, because we need to be practical. And that, at least once a year, You put some of this money in front of you and say “This is mine”. So it is very clear who owns who.
Also, I wish none of your loved ones may die, But if some of them do, I wish you may cry without regret and without feeling guilty for the things you never said or the things you never did.
Finally, I wish for you that being a man, you may have a good woman and being a woman, you may have a good man. Tomorrow and the day after.
If all these things would happen to you, Then I wish for you nothing more.

-Victor Hugo

...

2009-09-11T19:37:00.004+02:00

From Mousavi's latest statement:

People of Iran
...It is obvious that your efforts to restore peace to the society are not going to be responded wisely. Dangerous days are ahead...

Note

2009-09-08T23:19:00.007+02:00

I arrived at the office that I work, someone had put a paper on my desk; a report that said: "The university can no longer be the host to Dr... as he's cooperating with a TV channel that has called the Iranian students who protested against the recent Iranian election's result "riots". I got stuck in an elevator for more than 2 hours, I was the only person and as they think the first one ever. They asked for my room number after getting me out of that lift and they came back after a couple of days to see if I was doing fine and to explain what went wrong. I wasn't there, they'll come back. A scholar who's always polite and the warmest person in our faculty; the first gay man that I've met. And Life is good.

I don't want to tell...

2009-09-05T15:37:00.008+02:00

We chose to get out of Iran but I don't remember where exactly was our destination. We never set a destination and I did not want to be one of those who feels nostalgic all the time. I did not ignore all the bad memories and did not keep only the good ones but something happened; the bitter memories seemed sweet when they got old and far. It was like making different stories out of one thing to maybe feel happy. I see people feeling homesick and they write about having a big heart that always beats for that soil. I don't want to live where I don't live and I don't want to feel nostalgic when "I" chose to leave and I don't want to forget the reasons that made us leave there. I don't like to tell people that we had a great civilization back 2500 years ago and we were doing just fine till the Arabs attacked us and I don't like to say what you see in the media is not the true face of the Iranian people and we dance too, and inside thinking and saying but we're warmer and more polite but we do with our kindness as we do with our money; spending it when there is a real reason and a worthy person and what is kindness, we define all its properties. I don't like to tell people we're not religious God forbidden and we hate people being prejudice against other races but feel offensive when people think we speak Arabic.
----------
Some Iranians blame all the problems in Iran to such and such causes as sarcastically mentioned above, I obviously don't think like that.

Back from Iran

2009-08-30T14:20:00.004+02:00

Back to Holland and our one- year- old life in this country and still thinking of home. I need to wrap up my thoughts and get back to the routine and start being a focused person.
What people went through during the post-election days was mostly the first topic to talk about when I was with my family and relatives. There was no sign of election events on people's faces when I was on the streets and it was even less obvious when we were in the two historic cities of Esfahan and Kashan during our traveling.
I was wondering how many of these people are keeping old or having new concerns about what they were witnessing. You cannot expect those who do not feel generally secure be great fighters, you cannot ask the ones who feel tired to run and don't stop. I was wondering how many of people whom I could see in Kashan had access to anti-filtering software for their internet or if they had any access to the internet. I did not know what percentage of them had satellite dishes. I don' know how many could get informed or cared to be informed but as I talked with those who've been in the heart of their own street stories, they thought this was only the beginning. For them, it seems the election can be fresh starting point for an official religious dictatorship and the people of Iran are waiting for the time to move again. I do not know who will be the winner or if they'll move.

First chapter

2009-08-07T18:09:00.008+03:00

In the history books of the 21st century, the first chapter will be about us.
In the introduction, they might write that important events have happened before us, events like 9/11 and war on Iraq and Afghanistan, but those were the remnants of the previous century, with an outdated dialogue and with twentieth century tools: Airplanes, bombs and bullets. And then they will write that the first chapter is dedicated to us because we have been the true children of our time and our dialogue was the dialogue of the beginning of the third millennium.Early in the book, they will write that social movements are born out of communication technologies and at the same place they will write that we were the first movement that exploited entirely all the new communication tools that were established at the beginning of this century.Perhaps they will write a footnote on how these tools changed the social structure and how they changed the world view on the social classes, work flow, production and distribution of wealth, social leadership and management and even changed the world's attitude about the sustainable human values.Perhaps on the same page, there is a photograph of the inventor of the first mobile phone and the portraits of the founders of Wikipedia, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Podcasts, or maybe photos of their statues in the main squares of the world's leading cities, with captions like: "Figures who built the twenty first century."Idem they will write that previously there were only one-way paths: Somebody wrote and published the newspapers and the rest of the people read them. Somebody spoke while the rest were listening. One person was on TV and the rest were watching. Somebody commanded and led and then shapeless masses followed. They will write that the community structure and distribution of wealth, power and information was pyramidal, and then they will highlight that the new communication technologies flattened the society. It empowered the bases of the pyramid such that they reached the top.It made it possible to communicate with each other, send and receive news, exchange information, tell and listen, watch and be seen, and find new means of cooperation, thinking, criticizing and progress.There, on top of that page they will put a picture of us with our green flags.They will write that we were the first social movement that all of us were its leader and all of us were its organizer. The name which was called the most was only the speaker of a part of our demands.Perhaps they will open a box there to put MirHossein's written statement as an example, where he said: because the people participate in the Friday prayer, he will accept their invitation and join them. They must also add the explanation that previously the leader of a movement used to announce his presence and invited people to join him.They may make a subsection to describe how a movement without a command center was acting so well-orchestrated. How its ideas, desires, and slogans were suggested, criticized, and completed so well, and then one day they were expressed in such a harmony as if all these millions, have practiced together for years. Perhaps there, at least in the electronic version of this history book, they will make a link to a clip of us, where the Speaker shouts from the loud-speaker: "death to the U.S.” and we all respond "death to Russia". Without anybody been preparing for this response, without being coordinated, we shout as if we are all one mouth and one voice.They will write that we were the first party that had no central council, no secretary general, and no political branches. They will write that our party was one of complete anarchy that behaved quite systematic. They may presumably point their sarcasm toward anarchist parties of decades before us that were built systematically to behave as anarchists. They will write that our party had no party organs, but all its strategies were clear and its programs were all set correctly. Our demands were also summarized, reviewed, completed, and expressed in the clearest form of expression.In the same chapter they will write that we lived the last days of guns and bullets and we showed that wherever the awareness, information and enough communication channels for human connection exists, the bullet is pointless. There may put a picture of a single bullet somewhere in our Freedom Museum and will write for its caption "the last bullet that was pulled out of the magazine"A delicate person will calculate the total weight of the electrons that construct our blogs and websites, and will show that it was not even a thousandth of a bullet weight. He may estimate the weight of all the air molecules in our chants, our "death to dictators", our "all political prisoners must be released" and show that they altogether weigh less than the weight of a single wall of the Evin prison.Next they will write that we suggested a new definition for the human society, the human relations, for globalization and for living in the global village. Each of these historians will give us a name. Their simplest may write the “Green Revolution”, another will call us the “Silence Revolution”, somebody will call it the “Smile Revolution”, and at last there will be someone to write the “Awareness Revolution''.

Source and translation from BOLTS, here is the link.

From Iran

2009-08-03T00:37:00.005+03:00

Here is Iran, where I am one year late to meet unfamiliar wrinkles. I vividly remember they were not there last time. My parents are growing old, it takes one year of denial...one year of no picture of those new lines and here I am with a memory of a new picture; the new lines.

Here is Iran, where my eyes search for signs, any sign that could tell me things are going to be all right in here.

Here is Iran where I look for its news from the outside when I'm in, where I must and need to be...

2009-07-26T16:00:00.001+03:00

I'm going home.