Blast from the Past

rage

山崎ハコ - さすらい (1975)

故郷はない

今歩く道だけ

A Poem

A poem I wrote after I finished reading The Power Of Now right before I drifted into dreamland.

We want what we don't have

We have everything

We love who we can't have

Love is within

We dream but it's not real

Because we're sleeping

We are what we are

We are the universe

We are everything

Sleeping Habits of Cats

A day in the life of a cat

Cats are nocturnal snooze masters. As humans, we are diurnal (active during the day), so it may appear to us like cats sleep all day. While we need 7 to 9 hours of sleep on average, cats have a sleeping record of 12 to 18 hours a day.

Dark side of the moon

Like their wilder African ancestors, cats are nocturnal predators by nature. They both share the same feline sleeping patternwhere they sleep during the day to preserve their energy and hunt at night. This means that they are instinctively most active during dusk and dawn.

Cats hunt at night because small mammals that they prey on are less attentive to danger during twilight hours.

If you see a cat roaming outdoors at night, they most probably are exploring and/or claiming new territory, visiting other houses for food and water, seeking a mate if they’re not neutered, and of course putting those claws and fangs to good use. 

Nature vs. nurture

Living with humans, our feline friends became domesticated over time. Cats are truest to their nocturnal nature when they’re babies. Then they learn to sleep at night slowly adapting to our sleeping habitswhich lets them spend more time with their owners during the day. 

Differences in cats’ sleeping routine 

A cat’s circadian rhythm varies according to their breed, age, mood, housing conditions, even the weather. Indoor cats snooze more than outdoor cats because they mirrortheir owners’ sleeping schedule. Outdoor cats tend to be more nocturnal.

As our furry friends grow older their activity levels slow down and they start sleeping longer periods of time. You may also notice your kitty is sleeping more during cold or rainy days.

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART VII

This quarantine showed me:

- how little I actually need stuff

- with how little I can be happy

- to be grateful for what I have, — recheck myself periodically for it

- what it means to live one day at a time

But it also made me ponder, was I already living one day at a time? Is my love for video games the grand escapism show that I'm putting myself subject to in the face of my gargantuan lack of purpose in life?

I mean, what do I want my life to represent?

Having a family and kids was never the ultimate goal. That's just something you're brainwashed about. Being wild and free, doing what you want when you want makes things ambiguous, unstable. But isn't that what's fun about it? The moment you stop and settle, you're doomed. It's death.

Trying to achieve that constantly-rising level of basic needs. Like trying to touch the horizon. Fulfil the glass of destiny that has a hole in its bottom.

Great weather outside but no solitary sunbathing in parks okay?

#justpondering

It's the kind of war that prepares you for war.

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART VI

I figured it out:

The convenience of finding information on internet is what's keeping me from concentrating on reading.

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I made a calculation, — after I listened to Tim Ferriss do one for himself, of how many more books I would read for the rest of my life span.

If I live until I'm 70 (family average if I'm lucky), I have 32 years left on earth. (wow just made me realise the better half of it is gone pouf.)

If I read 1 book a month on average, that makes 384 books in 32 years.

This doesn't leave room for much and makes me wonder if I should really read that Ernest Cline's Armada or Carol Tavris' Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me). Shouldn't I invest more time in books like Carlo Rovelli's The Order Of Time and Soren Kierkegaard's Either/Or.

I think one answer to this dilemma is speed reading. I first learnt it on a Mindvalley video with Jim Kwik (it was a private link but there are many videos of Jim Kwik on YouTube explaining his method). And my reading speed tripled in 15 minutes! Later I stumbled upon a video from Tim Ferriss explaining his own method.

By speed reading I don't mean using apps such as Blinkist or Joosr to listen to the gist of a book according to that 'specific' person who wrote it, I don't also mean apps like Spritz which Ryan Holiday passionately spits on in his article about how speed reading misses the point. Ryan has got a point on the most important thing, reading should be a habit not something you rush about. (and he's right about every other thing he mentions in that article but...)

I want to speed read because I want to squeeze more books in my short existence. I don't want to die without reading some important books. There are already around 100 in my reading queue that I already bought. Another 100 in my Amazon wish list. All staples of world literature, science and philosophy. I don't really have time for Lena Dunham's Not That Kind Of Girl.

Let's get back to Jim Kwik's method a little bit. 

It is about minimising the wandering of the eye throughout the book's periphery by using a pen to follow where we are on a page, and by this I mean follow each and every line all the way from left to right. (If you only move the pen over the middle of the lines, your brain won't retain the information on the two sides) The pen doesn't have to touch the paper (you don't want to cause a fire). This method improves concentration and visualisation, thus reading speed, and it helps us remember what we just read.

Now time 1 minute and start reading something how you would normally read. When the time is up count how many words you read. Repeat it reading another part (so you're not familiar with the content) with the above technique. How many words did you read this time? Did you have to go back? Did you understand everything you read. 

Trust me it gets better with practice. Being able to fully concentrate on the book, I even end up reading longer periods of time. I'm not reading a book in a day, but I fully grasp what I read and I remember more of it. (Because I read mostly non-fiction books, another thing I do is underlining, taking notes on the book, going back to these parts later on and engrave the knowledge in my head. I think it was Ryan Holiday who said something like this, "If I'm not going back to the books I read, what's the use of having a library?")

Eliminating the obvious distractions like mobile phone, any kind of notifications with sound or with vibration has been very useful for me. Instead of my phone (on which I habitually take notes) I started keeping a pen and a notebook with me while reading.

But the ultimate tweaking of course concerns a behaviour that is engulfing a good part of my personal time: streaming. 

If I establish the discipline of reading a book instead of streaming, I can double my reading average to a whopping 768 books! Then I would easily have more time to explore books like James Franco's Palo Alto or David Marsh' For Who the Bell Tolls.

PS1: Not so many years ago, books used to paint our minds with so many emotions. Still no screen adaptation can capture and reflect the true essence of written form (although I think the first Harry Potter film was spot on and Miyazaki's adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle surpasses the book, but those are exceptions).

PS2: When I was living in Japan and immersing myself in mangas, I remember thinking their black and white nature with simple pen strokes left so much more space for imagination as opposed to western comics that I was used to reading.

PS3: I never read a book digital, never will. I need to see the physical book with all its physical pages in front of me at all times.

#justpondering

Who am I if I don't eat?

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART V

Everybody be like, "Now I have time for that project of mine"

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The first week all I could see was total despair and my dreams crashing. I became self-aware on everything about myself, physical and mental. My body hurt in different places on different days. My ever-existing depression was heightened. I couldn't sleep at night without taking a Xanax. 

3 weeks is over. I am now readjusting expectations, changing perspective, making daily financial forecasts (as gloomy as it may sound this is helping me cope with my current situation and feel better)

Things I stopped doing:

• checking currency rates 
• immersing myself in corona news 
• reading other people write about corona
• worrying about the future

Things I am doing instead:

• not spending my money on unneeded things
• following essential info about corona on official channels
• reading non-fiction books to help re-strategise my life and cope with the now
• making the most out of today by working on my business’ market position and job hunting

I downloaded WOW back the other day, and successfully refrained myself from re-subbing. I am a proud gamer. Instead I carry on with my brief evening online gaming session playing Destiny 2. Surprisingly playing Destiny just before bed time makes me like jello. So here is my secret healthy alternative for my nocturnal mistress Xanax.

This is the book I recommended THE MOST in my life. Can't think of a better time to read it.

The Obstacle Is The Way, Ryan Holiday

Here's the book description on Amazon:

We give up too easily. With a simple change of attitude, what seem like insurmountable obstacles become once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Ryan Holiday, who dropped out of college at nineteen to serve as an apprentice to bestselling 'modern Machiavelli' Robert Greene and is now a media consultant for billion-dollar brands, draws on the philosophy of the Stoics to guide you in every situation, showing that what blocks our path actually opens one that is new and better.If the competition threatens you, it's time to be fearless, to display your courage. An impossible deadline becomes a chance to show how dedicated you are. And as Ryan discovered as Director of Marketing for American Apparel, if your brand is generating controversy - it's also potentially generating publicity.The Stoic philosophy - that what is in the way, is the way - can be applied to any problem: it's a formula invented more than 2,000 years ago, whose effectiveness has been proven in battles and board rooms ever since. From Barack Obama's ability to overcome obstacles in his election races, to the design of the iPhone, the stoic philosophy has helped its users become world-beaters.  

#justpondering 

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART IV

Settle in, settle in! Gather around! Settle in!

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Is there space yet for extraordinary things in our lives?

Why do I use first-person plural personal pronoun when I actually talk about myself? Am I more than one?

Will I find the chance again to do something that I'm passionate about? 

Will I find meaning?

Will I fall in love again?

Will I fall in love when I'm old?

Resistance, survival, resilience for what?

#justpondering

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART III

Leave quantum physics alone.

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Why does some spiritualists feel obligatory to justify themselves in terms of quantum physics? Genuine spiritualists should stop the mention of quantum physics in their books it gives them incredibility.

Introduction to “The Power Of Now” by the author himself is very beautiful and neutral whereas the foreword by Russell E. diCarlo is not well thought of, lays the ground for the type of people that would dismiss the book with a reaction similar to Time magazine’s "mumbo jumbo" snap. He even mistypes Jack Sarfatti's name.

He fails to wrap up the gist of David Bohm's or Sarfatti's work in that paragraph where he uses wrong terminology.

What does The Power Of Now have to do with holographic universe and superluminal transfer ffs? I'm half-way through the book, and the writer's intention lies completely somewhere else.

It's very important to understand theories in physics as they are. By interpreting quantum physics OR quantum mysticism (which is the philosophy side of it, not "mumbo jumbo" side) to their advantage, this kind of people are just straying away from the real point of the subject.

Here's what holographic universe "actually" means: 

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/david-bohm-implicate-order-and-holomovement

PS: I find Sarfatti very borderline cuckoo, and Bohm (a true and successful theoretical physicist) very thought-provoking.

#justpondering

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART II

Johann Hari mentions in this TED Talk that exposure to the natural world is a really good anti depressant.

Humans are supposed to live in a tribe. Yet we are the loneliest society in the human history. We may be surrounded by many people but we can still feel lonely. Sharing meaningful experiences with others is what matters.

Hence, can we safely say that loneliness and corona are the two pandemics in our lifetime?

Is having a video chat on Hinge really scratch the itch?

I watched this one twice already. Johann Hari is a lovely person, follow him on Instagram. 

Goes well with Adam Grant's article about Loneliness for The New York Times.

Also you can listen to this awesome podcast with Tim Ferris and Adam Grant.

#justpondering 

*enter cute derivative word for quarantine* Diaries — PART I

It's a great time in history to ghost somebody.

#justpondering 

A Very Cathartic Feline Ownership Story

Ninja is our first pet as a family (named by me because of my love for Japanese anime. He used to run on the side of my parents' bed, like a scene from The Matrix, when he was a baby and that was the most burst of energy he showed all his life). My mum saved him from a pet shop in the summer of 2003. He was living in his cubicle for 4 months with eczema and bold patches all over his body including his tail. Nobody had bought him like that. In a matter of weeks, we put Ninja back into great shape but he had lots of ups and downs in his life as he’s a breed cat and an albino. In his mid-life he had a near-death experience from which we saved him from with medical care and lots of love. But as he neared his 15 years of age he no longer could do us the favour of staying alive, and passed away peacefully on my mum’s lap one day. He was the kind of cat that wouldn’t do anybody any harm. I used to put his paws on my eyes, to never feel his claws. We heard him hiss maybe 5 times during his whole life. Dad used to call him Mercedes Benz of Cats and I used to call him My Princess (Snow White reference) because he was the gentlest cat.

Two years later, Alice came (again named by me because of my love for Alice in Wonderland). Ninja was alone in the house and needed a friend! But it wasn't an easy battle to get dad to accept the idea of a second cat. I cried like a baby in front of him to have her stay with us. Mum had chosen Ninja and I wanted to chose her. Alice was a no muss no fuss cat for all her life. We learnt that darker haired cats have a stronger immune system. She is another feline ‘character’ in our household. Bringing her in surely caused a competition back in the day. Now both Ninja and Alice would come into my bedroom to take a nap in the afternoon. They were inseparable. As much as Ninja was completely zen, Alice has her temper. When she’s bored of being petted she starts sounding like a thunder. I should have named her Thundercat. You name your pet one thing, but then in time you attune with them and come up with other names that capture their essence. So I made a melodic nickname for her, Sekerim (translated as Honey), with each syllable sung as Se (A4) ke (A5) rim (G5). As she aged she lost most of her sight, but she still rocks her sweet short meows. She’s a 14 year-old tiny lady now, with a new companion named Canavar.

Frenchie. Love of my life, my best friend, my sister, part of my body and soul, named after the bubblegum pink haired beauty school drop out Frenchie in Grease. When I moved to Istanbul after my many years in Tokyo, one night I had a dream I was rescuing a cat from falling in the sea while I was taking the ferry to cross Bosphorus. The next evening I found Frenchie in my neighbourhood, meowing so loud that I couldn’t just pass by. She was so tiny and flimsy. I sat in front of a building and started looking for her siblings or her mum. In need of attention from me, she hopped on my lap. I possibly couldn’t have taken a third cat in the house. It would mean we’d be 3 humans and 3 cats. But she ended up coming home with me. Our vet later told us if I hadn’t picked her up that evening she would have died because she had severe diarrhoea (possibly food poisoning) and she’s been famished and dehydrated. She stayed in quarantine for 10 days, vet told us she might not make it as her body was very weak. She beat death there, then moved on to become a temporary guest at my grandma’s place, for a further 2 weeks, to make sure she doesn’t transmit any diseases to Ninja and Alice. She had rickets so we fed her appropriate medicine for a year. When I moved to my own place (my grandma’s flat after she passed away, - how things are beautifully interwoven right?) I took Frenchie with me, and we formed a bond which I’d never imagined would be possible with another living being. I entrusted her with my Aunt when I moved to London in the summer of 2019.

Canavar is my mum’s prescription cat after we lost Ninja in the summer of 2018 (named by mum as Can, but that's a common Turkish name meaning ‘life’, so I call him Canavar, ‘monster’ in English, more suited to his character). A most opposed pet adoption by me for its timing. Mum found him on Facebook. It was our long held dream to own a British short hair one day, and apparently mum thought it’s now or never. But as Canavar grew up our vet pointed that he wasn’t a British short hair but a Nebelung. A Nebelung? We couldn’t even memorise and say it right, yet in the blink of an eye he became another member of our family. I don't quiet like Canavar, because since the day he joined our household he's been giving Alice a very hard time, violently attacking her every chance he gets. I just want Alice to be peaceful in her last years. It's a relief knowing she takes refuge next my dad in his telly room.

Come crush my dreams

Slash my fantasy

  and waltz with me

I'm a hopeless romantic

Hiding behind mathematics 

  and time management

You may not be Mr. Wonderful 

But tis a wonderful time, to fall in love

A Very Long No

The thing had already lost its charm on second and third night of our consecutive encounters.

The spell had lifted and it had gave way to the usual dullness of that expected push and pull.

I need that high again. But I might never get there again. Because that was one singular exquisite moment in the fabric of space and time, humanity and existence, questions and answers, reciprocation and abandonment.

But isn't life about that?

Chasing the dragon...

Wish I was trapped in Shiina Ringo’s song forever.

It would be metaphorically very meaningful as the song’s name is  望遠鏡の外の景色 

I would be lost in a kaleidoscope of planets and stars and suns, where everything is everything and nothing is something.

I would try to find you but ‘you’ that existed on that Thursday night.

Daydreaming about the time you made me forget about everything else.

This scene literally happened to me last night

minus the ghosts...

Moshi Moshi - My Spotify Debut

A cross-over between jazz and techno, yet another amorous battle story with a lost cause.

Finally, the day has come and I'm on Spotify with my new song Moshi Moshi. 

I had cysts on my vocal cords at the time of recording, that's why my voice is a big mess, but I decided to keep it that way because the song represents a very broken period in my life.

I produced it in my living room. There's no mixing, no mastering. It's raw as fuck. This wasn't an artistic decision of course, but a financial one.

Zero budget. Zero favour-asking. I did it all by myself from the creation to the realisation. #onegirlarmy

Hoping it will resonate with someone's love story out there.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4E5mvCTl0nkcfYQK1E4aYH?si=bTW5P41_Rx2mwTjTPY6-1w

Leo

When I woke up after only four hours of drunken slumber, I found myself sleeping with my head on his chest, my arms wrapping him tight. So tight that otherwise it would mean I’d fall off of a cliff. It reminded me how I clench my teeth sometimes at night. Only, I was clenching his body with my arms. I had never cuddled someone that hard. I felt exposed, even shy or guilty. I felt like I made him uncomfortable. I didn’t know I had yearned for human touch that badly. I hastily turned towards the other side.

He covered my naked body with the bedspread. He planted gentle kisses along the side of my torso. He spooned me. It surely meant the beginning of a morning séance. 

I reached back with my arm and held his penis in my hand. I let it rest there while softly grasping it. I had always found this act remarkably soothing. Like the warmth of the sun after swimming in a cold sea, like when one single chunk of poop flawlessly passes through my rectum in one go, like knowing no matter what I’ll have my daddy to protect me.

He gave me time to ignite my sexual system. Can this guy do anything wrong? No matter what the situation was, from the first moment I’d seen him, he had exceled at everything he had done.

I let go. I was in good hands. I let him give me all the orgasms he could afford. 

I waited for the next sequence of events with my clumsy commentary or physical presence. I had a disdain for one-nighters. Strangers in the night. Not so romantic.

I asked if he is hungry. He said he has to leave.

Of course, I had picked the only guy who was going to leave London on a flight back to his home next day.

I panicked. This scene was too familiar.

To my surprise, he took my number. All the while, at the back of my mind, I was hoping he would just leave and rip off the band aid as soon as possible.

A deadly flood of emotions was sneakily rushing in, while at the same time hitting my omnipotent mental wall that is so powerful that it can hold tears and crazy things like love.

He kissed my lips at the door. 

He left.

Him leaving finally triggered the trauma I was unconsciously trying to hold back. Along with it came the panic attack haze that would mar my insignificant existence for the following hours of his absence and the weight of my disappointing presence. 

Hours of waiting for the panic attack to come and take me. Hours of mentally preventing the panic attack from devouring me whole. Hours that turned into days, then years and finally galactic years. Time didn’t exist anymore. Only pain. A familiar one by now. Familiar but never welcome.

I wasn’t able to breathe the air that’s been passing through my nostrils to my lungs. The bodily mechanics were there, yet my body didn’t feel like it was getting any oxygen inside. How was I still breathing? How was I still alive? I was drowning in air. I was freezing, shivering, burning, sweating.

A random sound I heard from the street got hung up in my consciousness. So small and unsubstantial. Then it turned into a horrible shriek with an unknown origin that made me want to run for the hills. Instead, its hellishness paralysed me, confined me, choked me.

I started remembering the previous night’s mini black outs. They were like tiny black holes scattered throughout the space in our universe. The universe which would be nothing but empty darkness if it weren’t for the suns. 

I felt like a dark opaque bee that doesn’t emit nor reflect light, wandering from one star to the other. Only to find they’re as void of light as I am. I somehow know if my journey ends in a sun, it would be my last stop as its heat would drink me in, like a baby wrapped in a gigantic blanket. Burn all my existence and memories. I’d fuel it while it would cleanse my superposition.

I had wanted him to be the sun for a day. 

I forget days are short in London.

a hot summer’s sunday evening

I'm thinking about my life,

and how I sucked on my former relationships.

indeed I was a fool

for trying to love

and be loved back

after you, I invested in trying on behaviours

holding hands and exchanging kisses

when I had to, I cried 

letting the colours of my makeup flow deep into me

so nobody could see

the pain

and I said to myself

faker

sucker

heartbreaker

we 

tried on nothing 

but you tried to trick love

and me 

by making me believe in you

talking about broken hearts and crying is bullshit

if you haven't experienced an irregular heartbeat

or trembling under a summer sun.