funny, life

its not alwas as dark as my last letter described it. your questions strike a cord, they remind me of my own questionings, only that this existential crisis doent seem that existential, because if you have this fullfilling love, how could everything else matter? or have you already taken it for granted? or do I again idealize because I have never experienced this myself? questioning your own set goal for becomming an architect is an important thing. there is no point for going on with it if you dont get out of it what you really need. your big question is not: is architecture what I should do? but rather: what do I need? really need. for most of us there wont be just one need to be fullfilled, especially if you already got a taste for what live can be about. but, as things go, we dont always get what our aquired taste for live (or love) requests, and beeing adults, we try to find ways to get those goodies again, and because most of the time its not in a lower shelf and one cannot get to it directly, one creates strategies to get up there. the tricky thing now is to know if this strategy will bring us to the right shelf, or if we just find us in front of the oven cleaner. or the spirits. in my case, two years ago, the shelf was empty. I decided that my strategy was ok (because I didnt find a better one), but my goal was wrong. so I tried to redefine my goals, and the most important question for this was: what moves me? this question is still not finally answered, but I saw that doing what I was doing interested me, though I still had the problem that the motivation to work on a project was mainly because of the framework of the school and the resulting pressure involved. this was obvioulsy not the way to go, because if I coulnt find the motivation within myself, I will be lost once the school is finished. So I was searching for what really interested me, without much regard what other people might think about it (though, honestly, a positive feedback is the most beautifull thing to get, but its a pressious present one shouldnt work for). So I slowly developed my own questions and interests. the big breakthrough will still take some time, beside I dont know where I really would like it to happen, but the important breakthrough has been done insofar that I am now master of my own doings, that I dont just make ideas of other people happen, as I did as an engineer or programmer, but actually create my own ideas, and subsequently, make them happen. only trouble is, I cant live of it. but getting up in the moring is now much easier (though its still hard to get out of bed). and now: back to work! I am developing my own video software to create special visuals for a piece of music that got me inspired. love love and more of the same.. xxxx m

reply to reply

i don't think your thoughts are cumbersome at all, i think that your passion for understanding yourself and the world has led you to refine your thought prcesses very well, and you are very insightful. i admit i do suffer from a great pessimism over what i underserstand about how the world works. the beautiful things seems threatened by the ugly things. fresh air, blue skies water, the seasons, our trees and flora, the animals, all seem to be under threat by our actions. i see us as the boil of the earth. humanity is so clumsy, ignorant and as it seems, "in charge" of the planet which works beautifully on its own. but here i turn the corner in my train of thought. because whatever i say, however much i believe it is us who have thrown the planet off kilter, we are a part of it. like you say, the fact that we exist is proof that we are meant to be a part of this system. well, time will tell if we survive our own actions.

hot and bothered

darling m, it's always a pleasure to hear from you. it's a balmy day today and i'm feeling hot and bothered, and can write only now in this state because i have no internet connection at home, but only when i come to visit my mom's house. so i write, but i will keep this short, and i am afraid i may not be able to give justice to your wonderfully long and thoughtful letter. thanks for the link to your latest project. i was fascinated. at first glance it was darlkly futuristic, looking much like it belongs on blade runner. your making of series was very insightful although i was lost. electronics baffle me. your work is beautiful and i am so happy you are showing it and developing your ideas all the time. me i find i am experiencing an existential crisis. i wonder if i am an architect or could ever be one. i have been feeling terribly down of late because i did poorly in design subjects last year. and i deserved to do poorly too. i find that i am lost where designing is concerned, and i don't know what to do. except that i have told myself i will keep asking for the next year, why are you an architect? i need my answer to this question. your career as a visual jockey sounds exciting. your visual communication skills are astounding, i still remember clearly your description of your very visually playful dreams. too bad it's going to be short lived - or is it? i'm sorry to hear of your loneliness. do you think it helps you be creative? i have once or twice thought to myself that maybe it is because i am so content in my love life that my work life is suffering. my energies are otherwise expended and i have little left to pour into my work. what a stupid thought, really, it would be tragic if it were true. however, addressing your queries on the artist's state of mind, i do think that in order to play a soulful tune or paint a deeper than pretty picture, or write gut wrenching words, the artist has to feel. and suffering is for most the deepest part of feeling. for me at least i know it is. i remember so very little of life, and dismay over it. but i remember well ills i've suffered and dismay more over this. but it's how my mind works. and love. well, i don't think i'm even going there. not now when i'm hot and bothered. hey i'll write again soon ok? i am off to tasmania on sunday. will tell you about it. love love love, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

losing the plot

first in best dressed as they say! so, first to know where you'll be living, although i do not have an inkling of what geographically it means! and i am sure that i will be lagging way behind on the list of people who will actually visit you! i shan't be coming this year, but will certainly try to next year. will you still be there? maybe, if i'm waiting till then, you will have had the opportunity of coming to visit here in melbourne? or we could meet up somewhere closer to this part of the world? remember how well you loved it here? melbourn'es colour is changing though. the beautiful picturesqueness of it is slowly being gobbled up by more and more tall grey apartment blocks which look the same and when they do try to look different they are ugly. it's becoming ugly. and the economy is becoming ugly too, more and more like singapore's. it's becoming another sydney. i think i'm ready for a change. the days of my personal life are going very well though, as you shall find out when i call you. i feel very very contented now and i wonder all the time what's coming round the corner. i think part of my contentment comes from the fact that i'm not driving in to work anymore, and don't hav ethe radio on and can't listen to the news and life is on the whole busier at nights so i don't crash in front of the telly and watch the always depressing news broadcasts. for a while i was very angry about all that's going on in theworld. but what's the use of being angry? like you say i'm a lazy ass! not like i will change anything by worrying! just live life to the best i can and fuck the rest of them. i think i still get angry when i think about things. i really hate the world when i think about it. this letter is losing the plot. the plot was to tell you i miss you and i shall be calling you sometime next week, will try to make it mornings but i think that will be hard... are nights good or bad? i'm thinking around eleven or so your time, which would make it a bright and early seven or so mine...

artificial brain

interesting, but science has many approaches on consiousness at the moment, and the artificial intelligence lab of university of zurich where I did my internship has a philosophy that thinks this approach as foolish (we dont yet understand the brain of an ant, so lets understand the brain of a human). I would agree with them. simulation of neuron systems might explain better how the brain grows and interconnects, but wont tell anything about consiousness, since consiousness can only be understood in connection to the body it resides in. without body as an interface to engage with its environment, no consiousnesss will arise. a grown consiousness inside a body placed inside a computer would withier away like a plant without water and air. imagin yourself being paralised and unable to communicate with your environment. you might turn into a very wise person or a very depressed one. but nobody would ever know. maybe this guys will understand better the hardware but have no clue what software is running on. there is another nice little story: imagine a stone beeing thrown. in mid flight it reaches conciousness. now it thinks its flying because of its own abilities. thats how our intellectuals think of themself nowadays.

reply

and here quickly my reply to your last lengthy mail: /i had missed this very big point, and last semester, i asked no questions, so i got no answers./ totally agree on this. Its good to be reminded of this sometimes! /to this end, i penned the following after readin john brockman's piece on the third culture. it made sense to me. reading edward o wilson's consilience. and found this. the ossified intellectualism of the great theorists should now be padded with the flesh and blood of a new humanism. the knowledge we possess, and that we will continue to create and discover for ourselves in the sciences, in the arts, in all the different parts of humanity must collide to form one body, and it will be a coherent body as marvellous as the bodies we now possess. perception will change, in methods, in scale, and we will see in different light and at different degrees of magnification so that an understanding of who we are may emerge from the various levels of being, and through different forms of being. we will know that we are systems that are part of a system that is a part of a system that does not end because it has no beginning. it's a tad simplistic, i think, but it sums up for now how i feel about what we are. organisms made up of organisms making up organisms. it convinces me that there is no point in questioning the beginning or the end. we are the middle, exist in the middle, and the middle is as important as the beginning or the end. what we should be asking questions about is what we can do to make sure this middle works as optimally as it can within the system, since we have the capability to ask./ maybe this is the task given to us: asking questions? but no, there is no task-giver, unless of course you want to believe in god. I dont think we have to strive to work (or function?) optimaly unless we are sure we know what our task is. I personaly prefer to reflect on this a bit more... :-) /but really, i think that humans are perhaps the least evolved of all creatures - dolphins live, my cat lives, other plants and creatures live, completely acclimatized and adapted to their environment./ from a scientific point of view: we are perfectly evolved, since we exist. /we are the only ones who are uncomfortable in our skins./ thats what defines us as being human! hence the tool makers, which leads us directly to the cyborgs ;-) /it pains me to no end to think of how it's always us who throw the balance./ thats because we are the only one to reflect on what we are doing. /it's as though we are precisely that element of chance mutation in darwinian evolution. we are the glitch./ like every other beeing on this planet... My diagnosis: I believe you suffer of a terrible culturpessimism and you see humanity as a form of virus that destroys itself and the planet it inhabits. sometimes I catch this meme aswell, but I developed a kind of resistance to it, since the planet (resp the eccosystem) shows an incredible ability to find its own balance again and again. we shouldnt forget on what condition life started on this barren ball, and through which disasters it ran through. it most certainly will survive us humans as well. this doesnt mean stop trying to avoid our mistakes, but more than trying is not possible, since thats the principle our evolution runs on, too. either it succeeds (on one way or another - always depending on how you define success) or it fails. but then.. we are all one. so long love and miss you m