fads that come and go, and the things that remain...

so we got yet another fad. and it lasted a while...
most all of belgrade got hooked within a couple of weeks and smiles went all around... "and then on facebook this and then on facebook that..." we expressed ourselves without reservation, pouring hours terabytes of personal information, childhood photos and those of the guy/girl last night...
the question is do we understand what we got ourselves involved in?
on one hand this is one of those "cheap" ways of achieving web presence, which is something that i've been trying to have for the past ten years (and yes, it's true - people started "finding" me through fb for the first time), on the other hand you're constantly entering information about your (deepest?) self into a machine, which could be linked back to your boss, local police, credit manager... luckily living at the end of the digital earth allows me a feeling of casualness - email is about as far as large organizations have gotten here. ok, perhaps a primitive version of ebanking...
so the internet is still my big playground, where i can buzz around looking for information related to my work, hobbies, interests... and that's about it. i can't order from amazon, i can't even pay for itunes, but i also have fewer worries about security. no one can take control of my bank account, or steal and abuse my social security number, yet i got a domain and hosting service
ten years ago i could only dream of anything more than email and basic surfing... now i have a broadband connection (ok, what is called broadband in serbia), i'm chatting right now with a friend in paris (only because our correspondence started 11 years ago through ytalk -we're oldshool), and i can share coffee and morning exercises with my brother in holland... it just keeps getting better...
... or at least different. evolution... so after a month of fb-ing all the time, i got up one morning and realized that i was kind of out of the loop. i had become an observer - wanting things to happen (to me), but not giving much... i'm satisfied with publishing photos every couple of days, but i could do that just about anywhere. the only real reason here is the exposure. and the fact that people do use the basic functions to communicate real things. after some playing i've found my place and i guess that is it. sorry, guys - don't expect me to answer just any invitation to this or that... i have another (several) program(s) running in the background and they demand my attention. as i wrote years ago "When I got my computer, everybody thought it was a toy... Sorry, but I can't afford a toy it took me almost a year to save the money for..."
the computer i bought then is still sitting by my desk today, although not plugged in... now it takes me only days to earn a computer, and even though i still my email and icq number from more than a decade ago are still active, the party's gone elsewhere. that's why we are here - you, me, and this blog. fb is just the new kid on the block. until the next ones along...

blankness...

this is what i "stare" at all day long. i'm so fused that i don't even need the instructions. other's words replace my own and what was supposed to be written here days ago is still wondering through the dark corners of my mind, trying to find the light.

familiar lament

'twas but a decade ago that we were six. these days we scrape together but half of that number. it isn't surprising considering that the dog passed away, and that children have mostly flown the nest... but that's why my thoughts are left unuttered, confined to a bunch of 0s and 1s somewhere on a server in a far away land.
we all imagine our lives in the future. more or less detailed but there is some image. but what happens to the details? could i imagine five years ago that in the year 2008 the family dinner would be my parents and me? perhaps this isn't that surprising and i only longed for my childhood dinners when i'd run home from school in order to sit down at a full table, every day at 7 o'clock... even with the usual quarrel that ended the evening.
as my life took me other places, the idea of that meal, that company was always present. even when i moved away my day would stop at 7 sharp, like when the siren's went of at 3.15 p.m. on may 7th when i was a kid... the day stopped and restarted at 7. and i thought of my family.
nowadays dinner is usually takeaway in front of the television, during a break from work. half the family lives abroad, and it seems that this number will increase in the next twelve months. even holidays aren't the same - it's just too unlikely that we will all manage to get home. and home is redefined. my home has been a backpack (metaphorically and occasionally literally) for months. i'm not tied down by any place, as long as i have a roof over my head at the end of the day and a place to charge my batteries. this doesn't mean that i've physically strayed far, but in my mind i can be anywhere (which i am often, perhaps too often). but in the back of my head there is that classic romanticized idea of the parental home, the fireplace that is always there in the winter, the light in the window at night...
so after the last episode a few days ago, when we managed to get together (missing only one), but didn't even share a meal, and with the vision of what should/could be but in a year, i find my self with the urge to sigh, but at the last moment i choose to hold it back. "this is the way it's supposed to be..."

barton fink and camera shopping...

the discussion boils within the cerebellum, which occasionally requires letting off steam. one way is that nice stretch of path that runs up the river from my building, another is meditating with camera in hand.
there's several things you can leave behind you when you go. i guess the most primitive one is to indulge that primitive instinct called proliferation, but we call it having children. this is that holiest of holies - the crown jewel in the existence of the family (wo)man. you leave your genes on earth, proving that you are a success - at least as far as darwin is concerned. then there's the material - leaving behind riches beyond your needs. here we can mathematically calculate and measure. did you create more in your life than you spent? that is, provided that you are not a christian believer and thus dismiss that
man is able to create, but rather process and amass. do we need to create more than we need? do we define ourselves using such measures? and thirdly there is that creativity that is truly our own - the genuine artistic effort, our thoughts embodied in various shapes and forms, which will possibly outlive our time on earth.
so the next great question is - what is the priority among these? unfortunately debating the issue only leads to new questions, that is if you ever get to the debated issue in the first place. technical existence is a bore. talking about earthly things is just a matter of finding the solution that is right for us to survive, but it cannot be all there is. it's exactly the same with question of whether there is a god or aliens - it just wouldn't make sense if this what we was was all there is. and perhaps by spending time and energy contemplating and discussing metaphysics, but as individuals, parts of the global system called humanity - don't we know too much about the models of cameras and effects of alcohol, and not enough about our true creative and contemplative potential.

bright early and eery

the sun is up, but the roosters aren't crowing. it is a gloomy monday morning, the first one since we shifted to daylight savings time and i woke exceptionally early.
the light was still on in the church clock. that pale green smudge of radiance was always something that i dreaded. it's been part of my life since elementary school, part of the morning routine of walking the dog in the cold, before breakfast and school.
now i look at the same spire out a different window as i turn on my computer this morning. there's that piece that i didn't finish last night, and they sent me another text. it will all be over by nine. not bad. i get to finish my work before most people even get to the office...
for some reason i'm thinking about a small circle of people that are presently part of my life. i've been closed up in my apartment for a better part of two-and-a-half months, and my communication has become very limited. aside from mainly communicating by computer, i don't get "out" very much. my thoughts don't get out. they don't get bounced around in space and between people, i don't here them echo, reverberate. but there is the occasional discussion.
i remember one that happened just last night. and a feeling of deja vu sets in. eery. i already have one sibling that i communicate with online - now it looks like (i hope?) i will have another...
in the silence of the monday morning in last october i contemplate my life in a year. i don't plan much. i do what i consider needs to be done and that's it. things get done but i'm often blinded when it comes to what is developing around me. i realize that my family will be a lot different in a year. who knows where the next family dinner will be.
why is it that such toughs only come in solitude and dreary mist? where is that gene and can it be eliminated from the generations to come?
i'm not going to be down. i'm enjoying work, and taking advantage of that.
for the first time (ever/in many years) the leaves are turning color on the trees. small things people don't notice, something the photographer does. now if i only had some sunshine...

someone died.

and that puts a period. it also marks a period.
he claimed that the "final curtain" was the end of a world. each of us is a world. - and it was others' worlds that suffered from one's death. i felt my world tremble. i hadn't seen him in years. i used to go to his home often as a kid. he was the man with the beard and pipe. he was a strange one (not that i didn't meet much stranger people later on).
i didn't attend his funeral - because it was borders away, not because i don't attend funerals. i'm a persons that lives in denial of mortality and death. but i go for the living. occasionally its out of respect for the deceased, to salute and get closure.
closure. i like the sound of that word. klo´zher. 'love the "zh". gives it a burst of energy and then a fade to black.
anyway, i observed the impact that the loss of this world had on people around me. one person in particular. my father lost a friend. he's at an age when you are still not used to losing people around you, not to death at least. i could see his need for reassurance. everything will be ok. it's the way things go. it's not nice, he could have lived to see his youngest son finish school, but life is a terminal disease. but life has so much more meaning than death. death is but a moment. it's how you live that counts. and with that i get on my bike and ride off into the daylight. although i notice every single roadside memorial...

a new chapter

the time had come. lupe packed her sack and lay it on her bed. the first days of autumn were nearing, and that great step in her life was about to take place - whether she was ready for it or not. the summer was long and fun, and she enjoyed it with all her friends. but now that was about to change.
last week school started and lupe was old enough to start first grade. her friends would sit indoors all day. and even when they finished their classes there was homework to be done, projects, chores...
"time to go, honey", lupe's mother shouted from downstairs. lupe took one last look at her room, her pink little room, and closed the door on the way out.
lupe didn't have to go to school. she was going elsewhere.
lupe's father was a scientist. his work was taking her family away, far away for a long time. the family was abandoning their home for three years, and they would live on a boat, in a distant country, while he researched a endangered species of fish.
lupe would no longer spend time with her friends nor would she her teacher give her homework. that would be replaced by adventures with new friends of different races and species, and home schooling by her mother.
but will she have what to talk about when she returns?