re:

to: iva
subject: re:
i try [to notice beauty]... sometimes i succeed. actually, i think that i succeed much more than others. if i were to hear a violinist in paris, i would certainly stop. i’d probably leave half an euro. but that’s because i don’t live in paris... it was a great challenge to start taking pictures of belgrade. it’s not because it’s not white [beo - white, grad – city] – but because it is mine...
... everything that is really yours is also real. and real things have their down side. the question is only how you deal with it.

the reason that i live in serbia is...

...the limited freedom.

sounds strange, but that's the price you pay for comfort. it's like riding down a road. a wise man explained to me the other day that too much freedom breeds dissatisfaction and hence discomfort. if you define your needs, and your needs are met - it doesn't matter that there is more freedom across the fence. if there is freedom, it requires choice. too much choice - and you start spending time/energy/nerves on deciding things that you (definitely) need, but you don't need the details, the fine tuning. by defining a frame for yourself, satisfying the basic (technical) necessities, you get to focus on your own priorities in life. and you can excel. that is what i want. to constantly keep moving forward. and in the aspects and directions of my own choice.
so i once again find myself in a world that exists between the worlds of the "free" and complicated (dispersed) west, and the "narrow" and simple (focused) east... and i find myself in the place where i feel comfortable, because on one hand i have what i need and the freedom to enjoy it, while on the other i have remarks and the patience to improve things.

hooked...

...is what i am. i'm not sure whether it is "communication" or "work" or "stability/comfort", but i just realized that there is a slight anxiety about leaving belgrade (although it's for 4 days and it's to go skiing!). i guess i'm just hooked. sitting in the office, i choose to postpone all preparations (although everything is more-less settled), just so that i could enjoy being here, doing this... working.
on the other hand this is precisely what i've been pushing myself to do - to focus on the huge project at hand. rationally - if you finish the majority of the work during the winter, then you can enjoy the summer somewhere else, outside, away from the city, crusing, voyaging, experiencing... it's only my third time around this cycle, but at least i have some idea about where i want to be (and after last year's experienec - more importantly where i don't want to be!)...
i guess i'll just enjoy this feeling for a moment, get back to the book, and tonight settle the final details so that i can go and come back, and get back on track... until the next unplugged opportunity arises!

into the wild

...has been playing on my computer for close to a week. i've reached minute 48 out of its two and a half hours. i haven't had the patience to watch any film in its entirety for years now. i mean i've been to theaters (not too often, but enough to know that) i can sit through something that i've made a big deal of (going out, getting tickets, making plans), but just to watch a film in the serenity of my own surroundings has become more-less impossible. i cant ditch myself.
so as i sit in the office on a sunny monday morning, waiting for my partner to arrive, i'm anxious to squeeze something else into my life, for example that movie that i liked so much when it started sometimes last week, and i go back and press play. and two minutes later, i'm axious to get back to work, even though its the only thing that lays ahead... at least for the day.

...and then when the day should be done (hours after i started writing this), i am still in in the same position, trying to keep my back straight, eyes high, mind focused and on alert. it's been hours since my partner left, and the movie has progressed 10 minutes... the mind wanders down all three lanes of the highway in my head - work, research, and the movie... but it also keeps hitting the side barriers, trying to jump the curb, gazing at the passing cultures, forests, the water passing below the bridges along the way, but not committing to a particular exit, therefore continueing on... with the steady rhythm of the passing division lines... wooom, wooom, wooom... and night has fallen, headligts are on, but no one going in my direction... just a bright hole in the darkness, and the reflective hint of the direction that the future brings. and the road keeping going on... and i don't known whether it leads back into the wild, nor where that actually is.