Meandering w/ Confidence

It's not quite yet winter, but the night air chills me to the bone... I walked through solid rain to get chocolates I didn't want. I read an interview with Lady Gaga which made me proud to be her fan (here). According to my iTunes library, I have listened to Paparazzi 1084 times so far. It's both the celebration of one's own importance and the importance of another, for me. The yearning for the revered love interest while searching yourself deeply and earnestly to lay everything you've got out on the table.

I should probably go to bed. It's 5am.

P.S. Have you noticed that I'm making many of my posts shorter than usual? While writing for Orble I was instructed to make my posts at least a few hundred words long. Blogger lets me do whatever I want, and I'm savouring the short text... while still getting used to my new e-home. :o)

P.P.S... Don't stop, for anyone... we're postmodern, and it's so much fun!

Musing On The End Of A Toxic Friendship

We started out in all of the same classes. I had had lots of Asian friends before (even an Asian girlfriend), but she became my first Asian best friend. For a long time she was the person closest to me. And yet only people who haven't known us very well over the years are surprised that we are no longer friends.

For the best part of a decade, I had been proud and protective of the friendship, thinking that it kept me in place. There were a lot of things that threw me off about her, but I convinced myself that the good parts greatly compensated for any sense of discomfort. Eventually the discomfort became more pronounced, and before I was willing to admit it, chatting with her became painful. I noticed that she, too, was on a diet of slowly but surely proliferating gaps and silences when we last spent time together. She seemed so different to the other people in my life when last we spoke in person. So, a few months ago, I started the process of terminating all interaction with her. What had once been a source of warmth and assurance had become a breeding ground for bad self-esteem practices.

Even though I knew her very well, it was still a shock to hear her make fun of idealistic self-help-oriented folks, and dismiss the entire self-help genre with extreme scorn. I saw lots of ego, and someone who had been burnt early, and often. It was a repulsive picture. We were only on the phone. I kept up appearances, not knowing how to deal with such attitudes which flew in the face of everything I was about.

I love self-help books, and often write in the genre myself. She either knew this and had forgotten or had assumed that I had changed over the years. I realised that I was not prepared to be hurt by this person anymore. But still, I wouldn't let go. Loneliness seemed too overwhelming. My other friendships weren't as well-developed. We had tons of history. A lot of positive memories to fuel our pursuits, even though those pursuits only pushed us further apart, and the memories became less feel-good with the encroachment of the present's persistence.

I suppose I could have ended it on a better note, but I was so sick of mustering up enthusiasm for this woman who wasn't really my friend after all. Who was boosting a totalitarian economy by lending her creative and innovative skills to it, and re-investing in it by buying property there. Most people in the country would like to get out to countries like Australia, yet here she is going back.

What have I learnt from this? Better to be yourself in full all the way in your personal relationships rather than hold back and hope the person will eventually change in a way that is more complimentary to you. If a person has to change something about themselves in order to be a great companion, then they are less than great, and they don't deserve you. Honesty is the best policy. I don't ever want to find myself in another situation where both me and my supposed friend are holding back big parts of our personalities for the sake of being nice and harmonious.

I've also learnt to constantly re-evaluate my closest relationships... something I need to work on. Think of it this way: If something is good, it is likely change over time in a positive way, and you want to be open to the benefits of the change. Taking for granted doesn't encapsulate emotion, it simply deprives you of pleasure.

Keep enjoying yourself, though the things you enjoy will change.

Robyn says (in Fembot):

There's a calculator in my pocket / that you aren't in check /

Believe In Your Own Beauty

Did you know that there is no other being like you in the cosmos?

Why be a very good version of yourself when you can be the best?

Don't you know you already are?

A Postmodern Piece & Looking Forwards, To Bulgaria

I love self-reflexive writing, and although Sarah Menkedick claims it's a reluctant departure from the norm for her, I celebrate this piece. 

A few days ago I learned that I will be able to stay in Sofia, Bulgaria, as long as I like once my paternal grandmother is no longer living. 

Ever since my last visit to Bulgaria, I discovered within me a longing to explore this country's contours (psychological, geographical, economical, socio-political, etc) in some detail. I'm not sure how long I'd like to stay in the three-bedroom apartment we have there - I might very well get fed up with it after a couple of months - but I think making my own friends in Bulgaria (that is to say, ditching the prejudices accompanying the paradigms of the rapidly aging friends of my parents, and mingling with the savvier, more progressive young things of the landlocked Balkan nation) would be a revealing and even life-changing experience for me. 

Almost all of my immigrant friends in australia are more in touch with the culture of their birth than I, probably because I rebelled against mine in a very systematic and intense way, and it's tempting to completely break with it at the first sign of its weaknesses. Yet the weaknesses of Australia abound on my radar too (as do that of any nation). I must conclude that there are many powerful life lessons I could learn by going back to Bulgaria for a while, soaking up the culture, reclaiming, re-rejecting and finally making peace with my roots at a pace that suits me. (For without my parents to prod me with emotional cues, and without my grandma to vouch for the stagnancy of the Communist era, I am left to my own devices, to charm and be charmed, confound and be confounded, as I please.)

Some Australian DJ with an Eastern European background whom mashed up Britney Spears and The Prodigy for fun (this sounded like it could be interesting enough, until I realised that the songs used to illustrate that particular example were 'Smack My B#tch Up' and 'I'm a Slave 4 U' - hellooo to the misogyny implied!) is the only person in recent memory to guess the Eastern European part of my accent's heritage - he noted that people from that region spoke with sharper consonants than usual. (I'm used to getting diverse accounts of my accent, ranging from American to Scandinavian to South African to Irish, though the latter three tend to be from people who haven't been to, or don't have much experience with, America.) I've always enjoyed that enthusiastic, emphatic quality to my consonants, as much as I enjoy the elongated and flowy vowel sounds that people who learn English as a second language often have trouble wrapping their tongues around. 

Well, anyway, I wanted to stay in Sofia at the end of the 5 weeks I'm going to spend in Europe this winter/summer, intending to peruse the atmosphere, evade my relatives and travel as extensively within and without the country as possible (hello to Greece, Turkey, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia! And lets not forget the gorgeous discount fares!!!), but I was flatly refused no matter how inventively I represented it as win-win situation. My parents fear that I will place a deathly burden on my eighty-something year old Leo grandmum, and that she will fabricate costs of my upkeep which my dad won't be able to deny. 

It's nice to know that it won't always be like this - as much as I don't want a relative to die, I guess there's a bright side to every dark, gloomy event. 

Bulgaria seems to have a bright future ahead of it, one way or another: Now that it is breathing democracy in and out, its produce is so much the more interesting, creative and internationally lucrative. How much it gears itself up for innovative lifestyles remains to be seen, but it seems to have a lot of potential. No doubt it will anger and frustrate me a great deal of the time, but I can only hope that I also enjoy the freedom of being able to understand a language that is not English, be able to communicate with ever-shifting sensibilities, and get a feel for a nation that few outsiders of a less Slavic make-up would.

Here's to exploration, folks!~

Say Ciao to Calcata

Over the past few years I have poured a lot of passion into discovering hotspots of artistic innovation around the globe. I've almost always been a city dweller, but a nine-month period in a university village in California saw me appreciate smaller communities and made me realise that a place didn't have to be conservative and small-minded just because it didn't fit into the city mould.

It was with a great deal of interest that I went about learning about progressive small towns - the ones I immediately think of are Santa Cruz & Berkeley in California, Boulder in Colorado, Brighton in the UK, Sitges in Spain and Byron Bay & Lismore in Australia. I have only visited the Cali towns (briefly), plus Byron Bay... I don't think driving through Lismore really counts. The odd place out is Nimbin, Australia, an art-obsessed village where marijuana may as well be legal (just don't smoke it in front of the police, the locals will tell you). 

I treasured the discovery of each of these, opening as they have, new worlds of possibility over the years. For as much as I love cities, the prospect of the laid-back atmosphere and friendly vibes, a small, familiar and walkable locus... these things animate and soothe me in equal turns, an alternate and just as interesting mode of living. (It was no surprise that, longing for some peace of mind, I found myself gravitating to small towns throughout my trips in Thailand... alas, there is no 'bohemian paradise' (that I know of) in the Land of Smiles, so I made do with other attractions.)

It is my pleasure to have learned of a village in Italy, not far from Rome, which is almost exclusively inhabited by creative, unconventional types, today. You can read about it by the travel writer who put it on the international version of the Italian map, David Farley, here. I then recommend reading his story of how the article he wrote for the New York Times impacted Calcata, and his relationship with it here.

Calcata is so emerging a tourist attraction that it is not yet in Lonely Planet, but tourists are starting to drip in, and next time I find myself in Italy, it will be one of my #1 attractions... who knows, maybe I'll find a postmodern eccentric or two to hang out with! ;oD

Another Outlet Of Writerly Expression

Dear, esteemed reader,

Remember my idea of starting my very own travel blog? Well, here is Eccentric Travels. I am most proud of my creation, and hope you will also enjoy reading, as it touches upon many different themes, utlising many different approaches. You know me, I like variety as much as depth of insight! :o)

You know, I have such a relatively sweet life... the main threats in my life are being consumed by academia or the work force; meanwhile, I find myself in the position to travel quite often. I live in well-kept surroundings with some creature comforts, keep my spending low but nevertheless live well.

Society has both given me and tries to prevent me from accessing my potential.
I am simultaneously encouraged to be at my best and systematically harassed out of my well-being.
I'm one of the lucky ones.
My complaints are not seen as 'real problems' - better to disdain than feel threatened by something, the philosophy of my critics.

I'm lonely, but that, too, is a privilege... The darkness that haunts my soul won't be on any politician's priority list for many centuries... I try to keep things in perspective. :o)

Full stops... or question marks?

Every day I get a thought question delivered to my inbox, enhancing my love of questions, but I have also learnt over the years that it's also the question mark's marginal role in the practice of punctuation which makes it novel and endearing. I still think reversing the usage of full stops and question would have a huge benefit to writing cultures and stimulate all kinds of growth, but I have come to recognise that I can love narratives which utilise the full stop in an enchanting way. Ultimately it's about how you use the system you've chosen to work with.

You may wonder why, if I'm so in love with question marks, don't I use them more often? Whilst writing for Postmodern Critic, I was seeking to fit in with the other bloggers to some extent. Why present content in such an unusual new format? I asked myself. Often I felt like I was fighting the urge to slide into question-after-question mode. I wonder which direction I will take Postmodern Epiphanie in?

I have no doubt that the readers who have stuck with me this far would enjoy such a change, so it's up to me to ask: What am I capable of?

What are you capable of?

Richard Florida is capable of presenting economics to me in a way that makes me want to purchase his book(s). (Why is there something comforting about a statement? Does it imply a change of tone? Tone is something that is not conveyed through text, something the reader is in charge of constructing for themselves based on their own educated guesses.) He's currently promoting his brand new The Great Reset, in which he proposes that more people need to feel comfortable renting as opposed to owning their homes, we need to facilitate the growth of megaregions (for example, imagine New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Buffalo and Toronto as part of a much more networked, much busier and more interconnected superspace), and we need to knock down the artificial separation between work and non-work life.... just to name a few (it can be hard to keep up with him at times).

While I keep thinking about questions and my receptivity to throwing them out there, I'll tuck my toes under the covers and see which of my internet contacts are online...

Oh, that reminds me: I would like to work from home, somehow. Maybe I could be an editor and travel writer (I'd say postmodern travel writer, but Rolf Potts is already hugging that category close to his chest). Maybe I could create a separate blog for travel... I don't really like compartmentalising my life, but it would be easy to monetise and possibly even make some kind of income from it...

I need a contact in Berlin... perhaps CouchSurfing is my friend for that purpose. :o)