Happy Birthday Jon!

Everyone write personal felicitations in the comments, or something.

Corruption

(To commend belatedly, I severely enjoyed both Jon's and Ted's recent posts.)

More to the point, what do you think about it? Corruption, precisely. Political corruption, to be more exact; or even financial and economic corruption. Of course, this is blatantly a rather personal issue. Which is to say; I'm asking you as people I know for some thoughtful answers. Some would also be inclined to say that it is impossible to answer in principle, because the very crux of the issue deals with a matter of absolute practice. Not many will argue openly that corruption is positive, is (as Summer would say) 'the good'; but then nevertheless I suppose it always remains a private question.

Would you, for example, take a bribe to write/speak favourably of someone? Discredit an opponent illegitimately in order to achieve an end? Pull certain 'connections' in order to not be conscripted into the army, to get into the university of your choice, to find a job that you like?

All these behaviours, ostensibly against moral common sense, how illegitimate are they, really? I'm just asking these questions because I've recently realized how relevant they are. My dad recently wanted me to meet a Privy Councilor to the Thai King, apparently a friend of his; and a former prime minister of Thailand. (Don't underestimate the emphasis of position; his designation, or how I knew him, was exactly -- Privy Councilor). Of course at meetings like these, one must ask oneself -- what for? I had no interest or knowledge in him outside that specific role. Would I be 'corrupt', simply in attending?

Another instance; I was searching for an internship in Hong Kong recently, and my mother told me about an informal network with her employer; my mother's employer had historically sponsored the head of the internship service and I was to refer to my mother's employer as my 'godmother', thereby almost necessitating a location. (Unfortunately, I found out that the application was four months too late). In any case, that also interested me in the 'language' of corruption. Would you manouvre by euphemism, tacit knowledge, referring to people to whom you had little connection, as 'godmother', 'uncle David', and so forth? Or would you rather be sincere, straightforward, and honest?

Would it be 'give me 500 dollars and I'll let you in'? Or rather 'You know, there are procedures for this sort of thing...' followed by appropriate gesture?

Otherwise, as to my daily life, I'm currently reading a massive headknocker called 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand, for obviously financial reasons, as anyone visiting http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_contests_index would know. It deals quite extensively with the political corruption apparently exclusive to Communism. An extremely interesting book, if a little pedagogic and repetitive, not to mention (did I?), MASSIVE. 1,000 pages in small print -- think Lord of the Rings in length, but the tone of an American (I mean AMERICAN) author expounding her conception of the virtues of hardcore (I mean hardcore) capitalism. I have been struggling through its density for three or four weeks now, but am hoping to finish it in sufficiency for HP7.

Otherwise, nothing is happening, as I suppose the nature and length of this post demonstrates exceptionally.

I am flying to London

Well, eventually I am flying to London for "only" $607. I believe it is going to be fun, and if not I can always satisfy myself by crying and mourning after the trip on the fact I wasted all my savings this summer, and end up killing myself after that.

Besides that I am a boring person, with almost no meaningful life at the moment. I realised it is mentally difficult to work. It is destroying one's desire to live, exist and do. Hopefully, Two weeks outside this madness would save my spirit and soul .

Here are some thoughts I added just now, while at work:

*I hate working at the petrol station.
*I want to stop working at the petrol station.
*There are too many people I'll be happy to torture for a very long time, Spanish Inquisition style. However, I cannot due to to the fact I am a sensible human being who is bounded by the law.

Ricky Gervais - Politics (Hitler interprets Nietzsche)

Eventuality

While on a bus with an internal temperature similar to that of Dante's 3rd circle of Hell (probably the inspiration for said work) I chanced upon noticing a single ant scaling the patina of evaporated sweat that clung to the window to my right. The ant was inside the bus, as we were driving along. Many people would, perhaps, think little of this. However, with my famously convoluted mind I forged an idea thusly:

The ant must have been in the vicinity of the bus for the short period of time that it stopped. Furthermore, it must have scaled the wheels, the surface area of which that touches the ground is not much. Furthermore it must have traversed the complexities of the undercarriage to arrive inside the bus itself, before, of course, the bus started to move. It then must have traversed the interior complexities and dangers of the bus to arrive, finally, at that moment where the sun's rays were disrupted by its miniscule body in such a way as to excite my tired eyes with interest.

I came up with the following conclusions:

The likelihood of this happening is rather slim. Perhaps a million to one. But then again, it just reinforces that recently-made yet age-old adage by Terry Pratchett that "million to one chances occur all the time". How beautiful it is to think that the universe is constructed upon such chaos. Chaos that you can't plan for and can't plan against. All fears of mortality fall away impotent when one realises the changeability of what seems to be in perfect order and the deviance of all life's unlikelihoods.
The ant travelled a long way, alone, of its own accord, despite being a naturally gregarious creature. Who knows what led it. In search of food? All that way? What perseverance or stupidity or confusion or spiritual quest led this ant so far?
A tired mind can wend along the strangest thought-paths.
Ants get fucking everywhere.



Apologies for pretence.

By the way, im still in Italy and about to go to Sweden. Hopefully talk to you all soon.

A chance event

This post has no real purpose; in the spirit of 'free association', I sit down to write this, because I have little else to do. I have, as you probably know, borrowed the expression from Freud; I would not, I suspect, have used it, unless I hadn't been reading one of his works very recently. To say that I have read it is, however, an exaggeration; I am currently reading it. To be exact, if you were by any chance wondering, the book is known as "Lectures on Psychoanalysis". It is an interesting book, thus far; I had hoped it would be. I bought it only last week at an antique store, for the decent price of 75 SEK, circa 7,5 Euros.
The first four parts of the book (Introduction, Parapraxes 1,2,3) deals mainly with so called 'parapraxes', which I guess could be translated into something like 'anti-practice'. With this concept, you will be more familiar than you might think. It might happen, as Freud explains, that sometimes, you make a slip of tongue; you mean to say one thing, but what comes out is another. You might make a slip of the pen that, naturally, is the same thing as the previous, but with an obvious difference. You might forget proper names that you know very well of. You might hear things wrongly, see things wrongly, or mislay various items. All of the above, are included in the concept of 'parapraxes'.
Freud deals with this over roughly 80 to a 100 pages, and what he seems to conclude in the end, is that none of these events are chance events. You might think that your slip of tongue was unintentional, that you had no desire or plan to say what you said, but that is, in fact, not true, in most cases. For instance, if someone at out graduation dinner had walked up on stage to hold a speech, and instead of saying that "all of you are nice", he or she would have said "all of you are mice", then there is a good reason to suspect this person for not really liking everyone that much, or maybe, that he or she really likes mice and wishes that everyone were mice.
This, says Freud, is one of the founding principles of psychoanalysis.

I am now on to another section of the book: dream interpretation. I have only read one part, but it already seems a bit more interesting than Introduction and Parapraxes 1,2,3.

Lisa wrote earlier inquiring about futures. I don't know for sure about mine yet, but it seems that things are going to slide, slide in all directions. I was just now discussing the topic with Poléo, and as he said, it would surely be splendid to make a living on obscure art. No one knows what art is, and being an ‘artist’ would allow for all the freedom in the world to be as incredibly bizarre as possible. I would dress in ragged woollen suits, always wear a hat, and smoke too many (I mean too many) cigarettes a day, still being able to defend it all the while with a plain: “I’m an artist you fucker.”

To end this with a quote, which I found very recently, by mere accident, and which applies to the people who write on this blog:

"Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say."

It was said by Thomas Merton, about whom I know very little other than that he was an author.

I have wireless connection at the Petrol Station

Today I found out that I have wireless connection at the petrol station. The unfortunate conclusion from this discovery is that I was working here for a month - bored to death of course - without knowing of its existence.

Regardless, I am happy now, and I am feeling much better today, which is why I am back working.

On Friday I am going with my parents to Kiryat Shmona, where Revelyn and Robby are living. They are flying back to China in two weeks time.

Where is (are, because Andreas thinks is does not make sense) everyone?

I am generally bored at the moment, hence it has been even more boring for a week or so as I had no one to talk to (i.e. among you guys only, obviously).

I was sick since Thursday, with a fever once again. It reached 41 degrees Celsius this time, but as of now it stands around 38 degrees Celsius. I need to go through some examinations soon because of this continuing problem of high fever. I did not sleep since Wednesday night and barely ate since Thursday afternoon. However, as you can see I am feeling better today, and thus can communicate with people once again. Yet, there are no people I wish to communicate with.

Hopefully, my doctor would tell me what is my system's bloody problem, and I will report to you his findings (unless I am going to die beforehand).