REMOVE THE LABEL

Never black and white.
Features blend. Be creative

The space they lived in as well as the air they breathed were prone to some sort of stagnation. Lacking some inputs from the world outside, too quiet in a holiday-mood period of time, their selves saw something else at the mirror.

Our human nature leads us usually to routine and sometimes, unexpectedly, after some time unconsciously facing ourselves with reflections and different perspectives, things have to keep changing. It could be tiding a room differently, buying a new and very unexpected item, trying something new in a meal, cutting (or getting cut) our hair....or more radical changes such as moving or looking for a different job or career.

I do believe that being labelled erodes us somehow. It might be comfortable to have everything and everyone around us perfectly labelled so as to be able to know how to act and know what to expect. Our self is dynamic, not static and our changing throughout life collides with the label the others assigned us and also with that one we chose for ourselves.

STRIVE, REMOVE LABELS, SHINE

Break it down!!! Is it that necessary to be that labelled? It requires a lot of flexibility and having a “brave” self, capable of applying creativity to its position in the world and to its relationship with others. Not everybody will understand some sorts of flexibility and relativism because it means “breaking” the mental schemes (labels) the others see tied to other people. It might be a bit tiring to try to explain the creative change and the creative fitting and balance between situation-world-self and we might end up giving heuristical explanations based on describing some sort of different label.  But after all we’d have gained a precious space of freedom and harmony through creativity and finding a better fitting for our self and society. We’re empowered to do more things than we might be aware of and balance is possible.

SHARING AND TOGETHERNESS (PLACE AND MIND)

downtown (Granollers, V. Oriental)

Yesterday, 11th September (the Diada), walking around Granollers with a friend I spotted a building hosting the offices of 2 "pretty opposite" political parties: Ciutadans and SI. How might be their daily life sharing that building? I think the elites are much less democratic than citizens and small representations and delegations of parties. It's people who are rather moved by feelings, by belongingness to a collective or a society and it's people who really deal with real problems in any country. And thus it should be citizens who, empowered, manage to change things. It was on the occasion of La Diada that people displayed a shared feeling of belongingness to a collective, to a society and to an identity. I did like the romantic side of such a collective action as was the Catalan Way (I found it beautiful and awe inspiring), even though I can't be any kind of nationalist (I rather focus on non-attachment and becoming a bit more selfless and less linked to any identity). Internationalism has also a romantic side but it's somehow less compatible (I'd say) with human nature and nowadays proneness to focus on the self and personalization of whatever might be customizable. Well, I'm talking about western culture countries in general.

Ah...but there's a nuance of internationalism within any nationalism in the sense that people from any place are prone to feel attached to a sense of belongingness to a culture, to a nation. We're all social creatures and need to some extent some kind of approval and "haven" from our peers. I know I can't deny I belong to a society and a culture, but I can't go beyond that and have nationalist or belongingness feelings. Facts on the one hand and subjectivity on the other hand.

CUINAR SENSE CADÀVERS I LA CREATIVITAT

El fet que resulta més agradable i divertit cuinar per d'altres i el fet de comptar amb algun entusiasta de la cuina vegana (great, Marcel!) i els experiments culinaris m'han portat a engrescar-me i provar de fer nous plats...i afegir interessants opcions als menús quotidians. Les possibilitats de la cuina vegetariana i vegana semblen realment infinites i s'aconsegueixen àpats realment interessants, complets i molt vistosos. Diria que cuinar veganament potencia molt més la inventiva i porta a un procés creatiu apassionant.

Primer van ser els daifukus...vam provar (en Marcel i una servidora) primer amb pasta de mongeta negra dolça ja feta i després ens hem atrevit amb anko. Tanmateix, l'anko casolà endolcit amb estèvia no va quedar gaire dolç, gust positiu per a mi (que no sóc gens llaminera) però insuficient per d'altres.

Després les hamburgueses a partir de tofu, flocs de civada i xampinyons...i, partint de tofu, una salsa tipus tofunesa.

Voltant per les opcions de la cuina d'altres països, vam optar per la mexicana...fajitas i burritos amb "tortillas" casolanes. 

I una de les meves receptes favorites ha estat el formatge vegà, especialment la segona versió, amb més gust de pebre negre i sense fruits secs (però amb més pasta de miso i una mica més de Marmite).

Bàsicament no segueixo les receptes fil per randa i adapto els ingredients als que puc aconseguir i als que tolero (res de ceba, per exemple).

El darrer experiment ha estat kimchi (vegetarià) de col, sense all ni ceba...

INTUITION, SERENDIPITY & CO.

They work in most fields and situations and can be really useful. But those lucky ones who have both intuition and often come across with serendipity won’t be able to measure or prove them, at least beforehand. It’s a bit like having a good taste or being able to see everything creatively. ...or being prone to find right things or surprises by chance.  Both in personal and professional life can all these be really important and useful but can’t be thought, even sometimes it can be read about techniques and strategies to boost some of them or to try to “force” oneself to meet them.

USES:

• Finding the right place or being sure about the right moment for something
• Knowing that something is heading toward the right direction and will work
• Choosing things that match
• Being able to see unexpected but good solutions or alternative

Being intuïtive, being prone to serendipity and chance, being creative...all positive but they can make one feel frustrated since they're hard to defend. Maybe just other intuitive and creative people will be able to notice those qualities. 

SUN RIVER AFTERNOON

It’s possible to create parallel dimensions just for us and for our theories.

We can belong to wherever we want to.

***

There wasn’t anything above us but we pretended to see something up there.

Aren’t we free?

Don’t we have a bondless imagination together?

Isn’t our own dimension flexible and expandable?

***

Parallel and synchronized creatures next to a river on a sunny spring afternoon,

Grey high-heeled shoes and dark violet pantyhose do go with t-shirts with metal band names.

Some other day we became outsiders and also foreigners.

COM ÉS QUE NO ENS CONEIXÍEM?!

Com amb tantes altres coses positives, la casualitat em va dur a descobrir el Fiat 600 Multiplà. Em va sobtar no haver tingut notícies abans d’aquesta criatura de l’automoció bàsicament per la popularitat del model de base, el Fiat 600 i la versió germana Seat 600.

A banda de l’innegable encant (subjectivament parlant, és clar) que li trobo, googlejant es podien trobar maquetes ben curioses fent referències a usos ben dispars per aquesta criatura amb rodes: taxi, vehicle d’oci per l’estiu (descapotable), vehicle per emergències mèdiques i –el millor de tots- cotxe fúnebre!!! Poden unes línies i formes més arrodonides posar un cert toc de consol en un enterrament?

HOME AMB BIGOTI I DONA AMB SABATES DE TALÓ (ALT)

Només una representació estètica de l'oposició entre masculinitat i feminitat? Es pot anar més enllà cavalcant per reflexions que prenen elements de teories filosòfiques, artístiques, místiques i fins i tot religioses. La clau rau en el fet de ser concebuts com a contraris i en el concepte de complementarietat.

Accentuació d'idees associades a una imatge

La idea subjectiva que es pot tenir d'un bigoti o unes sabates de taló pot variar molt entre individus i va sovint més enllà d'allò que culturalment hi ha associat (fet que a més varia de cultura a cultura). Com a part d'una identitat però també per gaudir d'una sensació associada (no deslligada de feminitat-masculinitat) es tria optar per bigoti/sabata de taló, segons el cas (dins de la concordança femení-sabata de taló i masculí-bigoti...ja que a la inversa les reflexions anirien encaminades cap a una altra banda, és clar).

Expressió d'essències i complementarietat

I ara resta només sumar els dos éssers en condició de dues entitats que es complementaran en tant que expressions de dues dimensions oposades (masculí/femení). Allò que es complementa esdevé, en la seva combinació, una unitat.

I esdevenint unitat ens sublimem

Primer perdem les nostres identitats, perdem feminitat i masculinitat i esdevenim part d'una dimensió diferent, pròpia. Tot i que no ho pugui semblar, el camí cap a aquesta dissolució des de l'accentuació d'una imatge-identitat no és necessàriament llarg.

SUGAR-SWITCH (BEYOND KOOTHRAPPALIAN DYNAMICS)

Cold skin and random walking,
polka-dotted legs unaware of time.
Let's pick a word.
Smoothly.
Sounds of pounds and fountains.
Flowing water on Adverb's day.
***
Open windows and doors,
so that you can send me paper airplanes
with something written on.
Above seas of chocolate.
***
Fruity bubblegum smell
and colourful juices.
Farewell to winter.
Switches' day.
***

Как можно лучше,,, (*)

(*as well as possible)

per ardua ad astra.

Stars and yellow boots to follow long and sometimes tough paths. Better to add colour and positive shapes, better to leave greyness and darkness in the background, better to share something positive and colourful with those we meet and come across in life.

HOPE AND TURNING POINTS

Beyond the image of a graphic showing a change in a trend of no-matter-what, we often face turning points which don't show up as turning points. We (usually) don't represent mentally events in any graphic and we're little prone to make calculations with them so as to get a more "rationalised" daily life and structured theories about ourselves.

There might be a change, a sudden situation, a problem, something we receive or lose. That is something either good or bad comes and decides to bear some consequences. Decisions and chance aren't mathematical...or is there some kind of rule/principle/being/force/energy tidying up all we experience and end up doing? I believe that there's some reason behind everything, something sort of karmic or based on laws of cause-effect. I'm not talking about justice, which might be something human rather than a ruling principle behind things and events, but about our ability to observe and find an order, theories, some kind of guide along the path we walk along.

What does define our degree of awareness toward turning points? Personally, I've been mentally analyzing turning points in these last years (and even in my whole life) but I don't focus at all on "possible" present turning points (or possible turning points to come). These are bad times for hope and I don't like planning or trying to foresee or forecast anything. I can just think about short term plans, events, etc.