Me Imperturbe, by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they, passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought,
Me toward the Mexican sea, or in the Mannahatta or the Tennessee,
or far north or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods or of any farm-life of these
States or of the coast, or the lakes or Kanada,
Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies,
To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.

Me Imperturbe
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Notes from The complete Writings of Walt Whitman,
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1902

1860: Chants Democratic, No. 18, page 91 ; 1867 Me Imper-
turbe, page 318; transferred to Inscriptions in 1881.

Line 1, 1860: " Me imperturbe,
Me standing at ease in Nature." Present reading in 1867.

After line 4, 1860, read: "Me private, or public, or menial,
or solitary all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the
best I am not subordinate.") This sentence dropped in 1881.

We didn't know

The world is full of ideas
If only the idea of you could be mine...

It was the year when the world learned
that the greed of the businessmen
and the constancy of a black man
can sometimes come together,
like heaven and earth sometimes come together.

You were standing and I was passing by,
I was thinking of you
and you were thinking of me
but we didn't know each other.

An attentive observer would have thought the opposite.
Seeing us always at the same places,
buying the same goods, being attracted by the same books,
wandering around the shops as two friends that came together,
split their ways and reunite again at the exit,
commenting their findings, their shopping.

I was dreaming of meeting you
and you were seeing me in your dreams,
without knowing my face.
Everyday we crossed our ways,
but you didn't know me,
I didn't know you.

"An incomplete education"

"In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn't be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms ... of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules an axioms, but by doing so you'll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.

"Gödel's Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths ... It plays a part in modern linguistic theories, which emphasize the power of language to come up with new ways to express ideas. And it has been taken to imply that you'll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself."

La 69.G: "We are living in a realm of desire"

La 69.G: "We are living in a realm of desire"

Gower

-----------------

The way I fall in love

I listen to your opinions

I listen to the answers that you give to my comments

I see how you behave in situations

I see how you treat me and treat others

I talk with you and see your reactions

I talk with others what we enjoyed talking together first

I look at your eyes, the way you move.

I look at how you look at me

---------------------

Why I didn't want you as a housemate.

The first day that you visited the house you seated in the table of the kitchen.

I was preparing my food and I approached you to show you the labels of the Zywiec beer.

I looked at your eyes, you looked at my eyes.

I saw a green sea inside you.

A deep ocean of moving waters.

The extension of the sea and the sky.

The power of nature.

All in one second. And then I feared.

For I know that oceans can bring storms.

------------------------

La 69.G: Window

La 69.G: Window

I know what you are looking for

it's the same story I am looking for

for everybody wants a story

Perhaps we don't see

through the same window...

Do you see sunshine or heavy clouds?

Maybe we are not looking...

at the same time

in the same way and place.

But we know what we want to see

maybe it's not what everybody

says it should be,

but it's our real story

and now it seems to be there

outside...

(I look through the window

and know that my story is there,

...maybe with you...

however

are you there?)

Undulating sea

I looked through your ear and saw an undulating sea inside.

What forces, what winds move those waves?

What sun warms those waters?

Behind her eyes

I am contemplating Nicole,
she is having a break,
a cup of tea on her hands.

She is looking at an undetermined point in front of her.
The head bows while worlds seem to be created,
in her thoughts.

Wisdom is growing inside her.
Behind those eyes, in that silence,
there is a life, older than her.

She is the woman that has no smile
or the most beautiful smile.

She finishes her break.
Stands up and gives a cold-looking to the world.
The same world she is kissing inside her heart.

La 69.G: Niqitoa ni Nezahualcoyotl

La 69.G: Niqitoa ni Nezahualcoyotl: "Niqitoa ni Nezahualcoyotl: ¿Cuix oc nelli nemohua in tlalticpac?..."

La 69.G: 5/05/05

La 69.G: 5/05/05: "'The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - one of the many major problems with governing people is... "

El Zahir

Siempre estamos en guerra

Perderse para encontrarse con uno mismo

El Zahir, Paulo Coelho

Mostly Harmless

   'I know that astrology isn't a science,' said Gail. 'Of course
it isn't. It's just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or,
what's that strange thing you British play?'
   'Er, cricket? Self-loathing?'
   'Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there.
They don't make any kind of sense except in terms of them-
selves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of
processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of
stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about
stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for
all the difference it would make. It's just a way of thinking about
a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge.
The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are,
the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a
piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets
you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above
it that's now been taken away and hidden. The graphite's not
important. It's just the means of revealing their indentations. So
you see, astrology's nothing to do with astronomy. It's just to do
with people thinking about people.
-----------------------------------o---------------------------------------
So everything was going well was it? Everything was working
out as if the most extraordinary luck was on his side? Well, he'd
see about that.
   In a spirit of scientific enquiry he hurled himself out of
the window again.
-----------------------------------o---------------------------------------
The frightening thing about the Vogons was their absolute mindless
determination to do whatever mindless thing it was they were
determined to do. There was never any point in trying to appeal
to their reason because they didn't have any.

Quotes from Douglas Adams’ Mostly Harmless, the fifth part of the trilogy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Books and writers to read

Marcel Proust

Slavoj Žižek

Kurt Vonnegut - A man without a country

Suzanne Brøgger

Claire Bertschinger - Moving mountains

J. J. Rousseau - Emile

David Lynch - Catching the big fish.

Se non che la mia mente fu percossa

Canto XXXIII de "la Divina Comedia" de Dante Alighieri

Se non che la mia mente fu percossa
Da un folgore, in che sua voglia tenue.
All' alta fantasía qui manco possa:
Ma gia volgeva il mío disiro e'l velle,
Si come ruota, che igualmente é mossa,
L'amor, che muove'l sole e I'altre stelle.

"Had it not been that then my mind was struck by

a flash of lightning, wherein its wish came.

Here the elevated fantasy lacked vigour:

But now my desire and will were already turning,

as a wheel that equally is moved,

love, which moves the sun and the other stars.

"Among the three Cantiche, 'Paradise' is the most difficult to understand because it's the most philosophical."

(Thank you Martina!!)

(You did such a nice job! Just look...)

Had it not been that then my mind there smote
A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:
But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

Instructions for life

I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
   Respect for self
   Respect for others and
   Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
13. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
14. Be gentle with the earth.
15. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
16. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
17. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
18. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.