shout at the top of your voice

high air,

promising skies

and an honest soul?

the scarcity principle

If you thought beer was the best short-cut to happiness....

It's not the destination, but the direction

Are we

auto-piloting our way through life, 

only stopping when we are required to do so by law?

you do it to yourself

Well, sometimes life doesn't give you lemons, 

but there's an orange just barely within your reach. 

What can you do?

just you and noone else.

art <=> travel

Art on expedition, Leiden, October 2014.

Playground.

Italian vintage re-visited

Invito alla Letteratura, 

Rome, Italy

A Roman book bar along the Tiber

There is something magical about traveling alone.

About solitude, introspection and the kind of focused thinking 

that comes from being completely at peace with yourself,

or exactly where you want to be. 

Pursuit (or chance) of happiness?

John Locke coined the term "pursuit of happiness" adopted by Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence... and in our individual pursuits of happiness, how much is really down to pursuit, and how is much is left to chance?  

Either way - happy pursuits of happy chances - that so often come whilst playing (or travelling)...

free your body, free your mind?

This - I like to think- feminist stance from Hélène Cixous,

was slipped onto a piece of hand-pressed stationary paper

in one of the most beautiful shops of Brussels.

-Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time.

Write yourself. 

Your body must be heard.-

Most of us (apart from a handful fanatics, dictators and average idiots) 

agree that censoring the minds of the people is counter-productive and wrong.

But what about our bodies? 

Is that kind of censorship really that much different?

Imagining there is a better world

Combining ideas from the World Poems on the Underground and Socialist Union reading, 

we got an inspiration for imagining and singing for a better world...

All this whilst enjoying a wonderful up of coffee in a beautiful garden 

in a small bookshop in Notting Hill.

what children know and we forgot

Jeanette Winterson wisely writes that the only things she really regrets, 

were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.

Henry James would agree. 

And in the midst of this hot, steamy Brussels summer,

I can't help but think about his imperative.

The answer should always be to feel more,

never less.

And what better place to remind us all of this forgotten way of life, 

than next to a children's bookshop?

Dangerous women and unmeasurable pleasure

Lazy days of summer. 

A bowl of coffee, and then another one.

Pondering with the help of Kundera.

We classify things and people by measuring their output.

Here, in this quiet garden, 

surrounded by the sounds of birds and 

embedded in the smell of the sea,

I am wondering what to do with all the unmeasurables.

Many writers on this shelf has thought a lot about this. 

Sontag will be consulted next. 

And, on a semi-related note:

a force more powerful than..force?

people's power, popular uprisings, people's republic...

Same, same, but very different. 

In the end, what better place to remind people of the power of non-violence,

than a communist bar next to Harvard University?

"a force more powerful"

(thank you Halisa, for your transliteration)

Also, check out the real thing

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/

Time is money?

Here in capitalist heaven

Just a small reminder to think about what we're doing

whether it's making money, spending money, needing money.

It's all secondary to what we're actually doing. 

Contrary to popular belief, money can't buy time.

Time is now.

This may not last, but this is now.

Losing the battle, winning the peace

After a few overwhelming days studying non-violent conflict, 

my very understanding of the world is in turmoil. 

Sometimes questions are more fruitful than answers and here, Fletcher School really delivers. 

Picking up the pieces of these thoughts on peace and struggle, 

I'm leaving a few behind for someone to pick up on..