Intense Life

It's only half past 4 in the afternoon but its really dark and misty outside, raining on and off and the weather is certainly not a mood elevator today.

Back to my old discussion on 'meaning' with myself. Yes yes not that again I know. But what can you , some things just don't change. I guess this is one of them.

I really don't mean to be boring and certainly I don't have to write about it...then again since probably whoever reads this will want to read it (probably just me) it will not be boring. Anyway.......

'Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition' as the Monty Pythons said :-) Then again the unchanged turn of events, the days that pass and the time that floats all around us......the familiarity of everyday life which may be boring or not......it doesn't hold the intense meaning of life that one expects.

So what to expect, lightning to strike? Oh probably not a good idea but then again something DIFFERENT, out of the ordinary, something exquisite, magnificent, meaningful.

I'm sure Brunelleschi felt the same about his faboulous Dome, Sir Christofer Ren for St Peter, Michaelangelo about David, Leonardo about...well Leonardo about everything really, Byron, Keats, Burns, and then the Scientists, Darwin , Einstein, Feynman, Planck, etc etc etc ...and then some more etc.

The thing is.....the thing is I have no Dome to build, no Cosimo to fund me and certainly not Leonardo's flame of inspiration.

I'm left with an agonizing desire for a moment's proximity with experiencing Intense Life as those guys (and so many others) did. (and payed for it dearly with agonizing mental pain)

Intense Life, as described by F.S.Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby (yes I'm stuck with the great American novel again its that time of the year) and Walt Whitman in his (fabulous) Leaves of Grass.


The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Intense Life. Always connected with creativity, genious and a dash of maddness in my mind. Oh and maybe the feeling of being in love but that is a byproduct I guess.

How do you get to experience Intense Life? Do you really have to be a fictional character, living in someone's fantasy? How do you avoid Thoreau's Lives of quiet desperation? How do you find Meaning?

Well not with Oracle (sorry Larry) and not Unix (sorry Berkeley - LSD and Unix):-)

As Todd says in The Dead Poets Society 'Truth is like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it, stretch it, it'll never be enough. Kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying, to the moment we leave dying, it'll just cover your face as you wail and cry and scream'

G-R-E-A-T . So what is there to do?

I don't know....I'm more than 3 decades in this world and I don't know.....

I am old enough not to fool myself with the byproducts and excuses and cheap replacements others use to avoid facing the reality of the intensity of the meaning of Life as it should be experienced.

But I do feel it...as sparks in the neurons of my brain that never, absolutely never, stops thinking (uncomfortable at times but makes me....well me), heartbeats that I miss, or chills from the cold rain. Racing heartbeats from intensity of feelings or proximity with extreme creativity or genious, joy from sights that are imprinted forever in the mind to be reflected upon later and missed.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Yes John Keats, my favourite romantic poet, yes you were right but then again you were desperate were you not?

Why is the burden of Meaning and Intense Life so heavy that makes living unbearable?

I need meaning......(and sugar....I think I definately need sugar):)

P.S. I am listening to Ramstein......really? Me?

P.S.2 No, being Jack Bauer does not qualify as Intense Living either :-)

P.S.3 I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life ... to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Thoreau (who else)

P.S.4 Keating: A phone call from God. If it'd been collected, that would have been daring. (and I rest my case) :-)

Peanuts - Ball Team

Oracle - part I

ARERR [552] Failure during SQL operation to the database : ORA-01691: unable to extend lob segment ARADMIN.SYS_LOB0000072517C00016$$ by 1024 in tablespace ARSYSTEM

Ahh always count on Oracle.......(there IS enough space in the (#%(%$*%@(#*%@*()%*@)*%)@* disk!)

P.S.

Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love

I can't really explain why my 'obsession' with Peanuts has returned but it has....

So here is my clip for the day....

Now on to other matters at hand.....

My new office is a bit louder and quite more in the center of things....jeez I cant get a moments peace here - everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY can just stop by for....whatever.....

I miss my old office :( Oh well this one is a step closer to the desired goals.....

As I wrote before.....decisions, decisions, decisions.......so hard to make and so hard to stick by......

When you are just starting out you usually go with the flow, you try but without a clear picture of what you actually wish to achieve.

Now, almost 10 and more years later I cannot say my vision is more clear. It has gained more perspective, much more experience but also many more choices have presented themselves. And a lot of accumulated pressure and fatigue. And it is this fatigue that makes the vision blurry.

You think you can handle things but the truth you can only handle things as long as no new elements are introduced. And you don't even know you wanted these new elements to be introduced until they did. And then...then....you want them so much that the whole perspective changes. A...reality switch.....as it is called.

How strange, this kind of certainty, how inexplicable. I have the feeling I will be reading this post some time in the future and not even I will be able to quite understand what I meant. But my reluctancy to reveal things, to express them out into the void appears to grow expotentially.

I feel so tired.......and I wish I could rest but I guess that is not in the stars for me. Come to think of it...I cannot really remember the last time I had a real holiday....when I say holiday I mean, no worries, no concerns, leaving the whole world behind, even for a few days and just ....resting....even if that means climbing Anapurna:)

Well I 'm pretty sure I will not be climbing Anapurna any time soon but I would love a holiday (also not in the plans for the near future unless I make this decision which cuts me up like a knife and is therefore extremely difficult to make). Am I hurting myself by not making it? I don't know but it is my perception that the way I conceive the world and myself in it is through the things I do and accomplish and therefore to give up is a decision I do not know if I can bare.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

I know my path is not a frequently walked-upon path. It has been a hard hike but as MacGyver used to say 'I'm a sucker for mornings' (though not such an early riser myself) :-) so every morning brings with it a new day and new opportunities. Does my fatigue stop me from exploring them? I have to entertain this idea, it is a possibility but the thing is, leaving behind a big part of my life, what defines a big part of who I am is so damn hard. I really do not know if or how to do that and I fear it would break me if I did.

So what to do? Oh what to do?

I'm going to go with Baz Lurhman here :

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of 97
Wear sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience
I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you cant grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked.You re not as fat as you
imagine.

Dont worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Dont be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes
you're behind,the race is long, and in the end, it's only with
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your
life,the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children,maybe
you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary,what ever you do, don't
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either , your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can,don't be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever
own..

Dance,even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for
good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

I do love that song......

I have asked for focus and strength which is what someone who always relies on herself asks for. I now ask for hope, courrage and ....(I write the word and I delete it over and over again) help. So if Life is as wise as I think, please listen to me and give me a hand will you? I'm over my head here :)

But no matter how tired I am, the strenght of my convictions and my beliefs is intact. I do still believe in relativity (duh) and what Einstein said 'Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love' .

Hehe.......nope, its definately not gravity.........(I think.....you never know with physics) :-)

*Listening to Where the Streets have no name/Can't get my eyes off of you by The Pet Shop Boys