The Pattern That Connects

2009-02-14T17:18:00.000Z

In a crowded subway car, I hear a male voice, close to my ear. We’re on an express train somewhere between Grand Central and Union Square, and I worry that I have a situation on my hands. But he isn’t talking to me. He’s reading out loud from “Only You Can Save Mankind,” by Terry Pratchett. His head is a mass of dark, wayward curls, and a young woman leans into him, listening and idly tugging on

2008-11-12T18:40:00.002Z

Reactions, please (errr... to the x number of people who actually read this stuff; where x < 3):Obama's chief of staff.Zionist corrupt fatcatORInspired choice.

Myth, Lies and creation.

2008-11-02T22:15:00.000Z

"But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.No, said Tolkien, they are not.You call a tree, he said, and you tink more of the word. But it was not a 'tree' until someone gave it that name. You call a star a star, and say it just a ball of matter moving on mathematical course. But that is merely how you see it. By so naming things and describing them you are only

Will not apologise for the pain.

2008-11-02T17:36:00.011Z

Everything around here makes me sad.Everything around here's part of the dreams that we had. That will never be the way we wanted them to be... We dreamed of the future...All the beautiful dreams..I can see... this is only a dream.Come on and wake up with me. Hey come on, and wake up with me. Hey come on and wake up with me.Everything around is so beautiful.Everything is a part of the dreams we

Ich bin ein Berliner

2008-10-31T22:49:00.003Z

A wonderful speech! In better words than I could ever muster, here IS the pattern that connects. The only important one - Ich bin ein Berliner!

retrospectively, i can write an ad...

2008-08-24T16:39:00.003+01:00

From the other side of singledom:Wanted:One man.Essentials:Strong, beautiful hands. Cheekbones. The kissing kind. Loves parks, sunsets, cats and books. Must have insatiable curiosity and lust for life.Must be dizzyingly, madly, hopelessly beautiful to me even in the middle of a fight. (This will be tested many, many times. Final contract subject to success in these tests.)Must play the mandolin.

Back Home.

2008-08-11T21:23:00.001+01:00

The minute I heard my first love storyI started looking for you,not knowinghow blind that I was Lovers don't finally meet somewhereThey're in each other all along.-- Rumi

Citius, Altius, Fortius

2008-04-04T13:10:00.003+01:00

Open Letter / Self-Righteous, Heartfelt Gibberish

2008-04-01T14:49:00.007+01:00

To Respected God-Knows-Who;Most of whom do not know anything about the creature I am crafting myself into.Dear Madams, Sirs, Fuckwits and Friends, Greetings.To you who do not stop to think,Or stop to wonder, once you do,At all the beauty, joy and truth that could be, but isn’t:I pity you.For those of you who would rather rail about poverty and ‘ignorance’, drought and floodBut do not feel it in

Later

2008-03-28T17:55:00.004Z

The true picture emerges. In between all the wonderful recollecting of Scotland, my body was apparently beseiged by a force of spiky, green and inherently evil viruses. How they breached my immaculate immune system, I cannot immediately say. Perhaps it was the fact that I was walking around London the day before yesterday wearing a cotton dress and my winter coat was unbuttoned? I dunno!

Edinburgh

2008-03-28T14:25:00.002Z

My memory of Edinburgh has suddenly been revived. Here is a list of the ones that have burned themselves into me.Climbing onto the top of Calton Hill and sitting on a stone bench. The sunshine, filtered through the crystal air, that unbelievable light, that unbelievable cold wind. The brown and grey hills looking wildly and darkly at the horizon, where the sea shone aquamarine at the Firth of

Is this the right decision?

2008-03-23T21:26:00.005Z

I will not be watching the Olympics.Forget the whys and why-nots. I might still change my mind.For now, the one thing that will not change is the sadness I feel. My memories of the Olympics are painted in colours of warmth and love; when I was a child, and we didn't have a TV, my parents would rent a set just in time for the Games. I would sit in between them late into the light in a warm,

Eureka!

2008-03-20T20:04:00.000Z

I have it! I have it!No, not the dratted social capital questionnaire that I have been trying for weeks now to get around to writing. No, it is not the goal that I have trapped underneath triumphant fingers, flying over my keyboard.It is the reason why I may be incapable of getting an intuitive grasp of social capital research.The reason is this:I am not a socialised person. Not one for mutually

One Step Closer - U2

2008-03-18T22:46:00.001Z

I'm 'round the corner from anything that's realI'm across the road from hopeI'm under a bridge in a rip tideThat's taken everything I call my own(whisper, whisper, in a way only Bono can know) One step closer to knowingOne step closer to knowingOne step closer to knowingKnowing, knowingI'm on an island at a busy intersectionI can't go forward, I can't turn backCan't see the futureIt's getting

Schumacher College London Seminar

2008-03-18T22:21:00.002Z

These are the notes I took at the a Seminar on Sustainability organised by Schumacher College, Devon, in London.Personal impressions to follow in subsequent post. For now, here's the notes. On the meaning of the term 'sustainable development': * Yes, it has been hijacked by thousands of different, sometimes even contradictory uses. No, we do not need to abandon it altogether. To do so would

I saw some beautiful images today...

2008-03-04T11:50:00.000Z

Earth at work, Earth at play,and thought at the end of it all(just before: God I'd better get back to work!)that we are all dying slowly, We are all dying fast.What does anything matter after all?

2008-03-03T21:08:00.002Z

Friends. When I had none, I was always complaining, always lonely. Or so I thought. Now I have some; still complaining, still lonely. Could it be true, what I read ages ago? At the heart of all loneliness is a deep and unfulfilled desire for union with one's own lost self.'Could that be why we pick friends, lovers, lives, books that seem to be other versions of ourself?And is that why I feel

2008-02-29T22:26:00.000Z

my articles are in front of me because somewhere, a tree has died.a tree lives somewhere because i have not yet pressed print.either as a tree or as a page, the thing screams 'Life!!'but as a tree, it screams it so much louder.and yet, we know only our own language, and so we must cut down the tree and translate it's message into grossly simplied code that in the end, points us in exactly the

Insight Vs. Compromise

2008-02-22T13:12:00.002Z

You decide.The thought that is to be judged is as follows:Why have I tied myself to the idea that there is only one path to one destiny that I have to find if I am to find happiness?What a limiting, scary, unimaginative, faithless idea!Ridiculous.I need to change it, pronto.

2008-02-21T23:22:00.002Z

25 years old, and this is the only mathematics I know how to prove (to a highly exclusive audience of one):The perfect sum - 1 + 1 = ∞

Once in a while - Madeleine Peyroux

2008-02-21T22:50:00.001Z

From bad luckI'm walking awayI'm not getting stuckI'm not gonna stayTo good thingsI'm moving aheadI'm tired of dyingI'm living insteadOnce in a while I'll wake upWondering why we gave upBut once in a whileComes and it fades awayThe sun's up and lighting the skyI never could see itIt just passed me byGood things keep moving alongI'm not looking backwardFor something that's goneOnce in a while I'll

The Pattern That Connects

2008-02-21T22:45:00.001Z

It was a terrible idea, wasn't it, to try and explain the whole universe in a blog?I can't even keep my world well ordered, and I want to tie together all of creation?Ambitious, presumptious, arrogant little sparkplug.

Valentines Day

2008-02-21T22:41:00.003Z

He buys me presents, and writes me a card.I have never received either on Valentines day.I get him a bottle of Disaronno.We kiss.Firsts, firsts.---And on another, completely different note, cliche as it might sound: I am now entirely and totally in love with Sailing to Philadelphia. It tugs at something inside me and I can't help but turn and look.

Ghosts

2008-02-21T22:30:00.004Z

and my attempt to lay them to rest...----Here's what I did:I wished for it. I started it,I ended it,I WORKED at it,I wrote: the emails, the texts, the loveletters.But it was not meant to be.The death sentence was on my birth certificate.And no one can fight either.And does everything always have to be such a struggle? Always?I got tired. Deathly tired. So I quit.Did he take over then, stay when I

2008-02-17T12:55:00.002Z

A shameful dirty secret:I have stolen one item of clothing from the launderette.(No, I am not saying what it was)In my defense;It was lying on the floor, unclaimed.Perhaps it was a relic from a break up or a death or a failure or a forgetfulness or perhaps it was just unloved. Perhaps she didn't notice it was missing until well after she went to her room and unpacked her laundry bag (which, for

2008-02-16T23:20:00.002Z

Two ideas I used to love as a child, but haven't about that much until now;------We are dreaming, and soon we will wake up. And the most real-seeming things will vanish and dissolve. ---God exists. Or many Gods.And we live in one tiny insignificant corner of some tiny insignificant part of their world. A breeze blows through their window, and our universe implodes. We have no time to think but

2008-02-16T20:20:00.002Z

I believe!I believe!I B.E..L.I.E.V.E. and I talk to him or It or Her or them all. the. time.When I see stars. When I see mist. When I see rain. When I see my father. When I am kissing. When I want to be kissing, and can't. When I'm lonely. When I read. When I am silent. When I am dancing. When I see a lover. When I want a lover.All. The. Time.I believe!So what?

Nonsense, don't bother

2008-02-16T20:14:00.003Z

If at the end of my life, I am in a room exactly like this, will it be so bad?(This is a superficial thought, I am not existentially alarmed about being alone, I know there are bigger problems in the world than my patheticness, don't worry.)This what my moment looks like:A warm pink light in my room. A fat grey cat. Posters on the wall. I'm alright, I'm alright, I've been lonely before. There are

2008-02-11T11:37:00.000Z

Who is the great love of my life?Let's face it, darling.It's Just Me.-- Of all the loves past and future, not one has gone as deep as my own desire to fly. And only I can do that.Friends and lovers and great loves and small; None of them can do more than present cliffs high enough to leap from. The greater the love, the higher the ledge from which to leap.Who, though, will force me to fall and

Decisions, Decisions.

2008-02-05T12:08:00.000Z

Is the act of having children an expression of radical hope?And therefore, if I decide not to...What am I saying about my views on life? On possibility?- I am a hopeful, positive person.- I don't think we're going to make it.- At a fundamental level, I don't think we've figured out how best to be the best humans we can be.This moment in time feels to me like the farewell party. Joyous, (for

Sustainable Development

2007-11-05T17:17:00.001Z

A defintition by C.S. Holling:''Sustainability is the capacity to create, test and maintain adaptive capacity. Development is the process of creating, testing, and maintaining opportunity. The phrase that combines the two, "sustainable development", thus refers to the goal of fostering adaptive capabilities and creating opportunities. It is therefore not an oxymoron but a term that describes a

India Together

2007-11-01T14:15:00.000Z

For anyone who wants an alternative source of news to put 'India Shining' into perspective, subscribe to newsletters from India Together.(not going to insert link, google it you lazy bums.)

National Gallery, Edinburgh

2007-10-28T19:31:00.000Z

Some of the art I saw when I visited the National Gallery, Edinburgh. More in a later post.An Allegory, El GrecoDiana and her Nymphs, Robert BurnsFrancesca da Rimni, William DyceWandering Shadows, Peter GrahmThe Three Ages of Man, TitianThe Sick Rose, William BlakeThe Hill of the Winds, Sir David Young CameronThe Death of Adonis, Giuseppe MazzuoliSt. Bride, John Duncan

2007-10-28T13:25:00.000Z

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/opinion/28dowd.html?hpYes, it's in 'Opinion' and is therefore most likely a spoof (at least I hope it is).But still. Read it.

Climate Change and World Peace for Dummies

2007-10-12T13:37:00.000+01:00

As pointed out by Eric Pooley of Time Magazine, Al Gore's Peace Prize will be a subject of intense debate. One camp will hail it as deserved recognition, at long last, of the severity of climate change and the urgency with which it needs to be tackled. Everyone else will call it either: a.) SlightlyRidiculous (since there were more deserving candidates and/or causes) or b.) Totally and Completely

Chomsky on the role of the press in a democracy

2007-09-07T12:50:00.000+01:00

"Chomsky is quick to explain that none of this is to be taken as a conspiracy: no one meets with editors behind closed doors to tell journalists what to report. No one has to, for reporters know that they can become rich and famous if they just remain "normal". The best example: Bob Woodward. As an unknown journalist with nothing to lose, he broke the Watergate story right under the noses of the

A Question for Arundhati Roy

2007-09-05T12:02:00.000+01:00

Dear Arundhati-didi :I have read your books and your essays. Come September, and The Road to Harsud have moved me the most. Angered me the most. And woken me the most sharply, to the "...absolute, relentless, endless, habitual, unfairness of the world." While I do not presume that you will ever read this, I would still like to put a question to you.What can I do, and how should I be feeling? We

Jai Hind

2007-08-15T12:09:00.000+01:00

This is an email I wrote to my friends last year on Independence Day. I just looked at the list again and found that I still love each and every single item on it, just as much. Even the sad ones. Even the dispicable one. I love them all.________________________________ I couldn't fit everything in. I couldn't even fit the most important things in. I tried. I couldn't fit in all the sad things,

Haiku and more

2007-07-30T00:36:00.000+01:00

Back in England.Today is my birthday.Who knows.Somewhere, I'm sure, in those twisted mountains in Ellora, there is a door-gaurd who knows.

How do I know?

2007-06-30T08:11:00.000+01:00

How do I know this PhD, this office, this subject, constitutes the right path for me? Because they do not feel alien or look new. I recognize them as I would old friends. Or new ones who feel like old ones.How do I know this man is right for me? Because I remembered his face the first time I saw it.

Ellora - II

2007-06-30T02:27:00.000+01:00

After the lushness of Kailasa, a walk around the hillside to the Buddhist and Jain caves feels either like a cool breeze or a splash of icewater. Depending on how much you melted at Shiva's feet. It felt like a splash of cold water to me. And I was completely swept away. There is something even more moving about the Buddhist caves. Their austerity only highlights the perfection of technique, the

Ellora - I

2007-06-28T02:12:00.000+01:00

I thought I would write about Ellora as soon as I returned home. That way, I reasoned, a lot of the detail would be preserved. I realize now how silly that impulse was: more has been written about Ellora than I can hope to even read, let alone better. And the rapture in the detail can only be experienced, not read about. As for preserving my impressions in their entirety, I'm glad I'm writing

A Letter from India - Part I

2007-06-18T16:13:00.000+01:00

Home again. I'd expected big changes - but nothing seems to have changed much. The last time I came here, I was shocked at the general infiltration of MacReebok. This time, there are no new horrors skulking on the horizon - no new malls - and so I suppose there is less awareness of change. But an insidiously unpeaceful feeling is still buzzing in the background of the streets. At first, it's hard

The Scream

2007-06-04T17:32:00.000+01:00

An excerpt from Slavoj Zizek's The Parallax View that I found on http://radicalpolitics.wordpress.com :_____________________________________________________In the beginning is the scream. We scream.When we write or when we read, it is easy to forget that the beginning is not the word, but the scream. Faced with the mutilation of human lives by capitalism, a scream of sadness, a scream of horror,

Perhaps it is darkness

2007-06-03T18:19:00.000+01:00

Perhaps it is Darkness who is scaredAnd not meOr anyone else.__________________________Something I wrote for deviantart a while ago but which re-appeared in my head this afternoon, wanting to be here too.

What is Indian Morality?

2007-06-01T22:49:00.000+01:00

An article about sex education in India in the International Herald Tribune yesterday sparked this off. Specifically, this inane statement by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh: "government has devaluated (sic) Indian culture and its values...Instead, the younger generation should be taught about yoga, Indian culture and its values." Right. Let's just deconstruct 'Indian

I Write of That Journey

2007-06-01T19:50:00.000+01:00

I've been struggling for a while to articulate what this blog is really about. Sure, it's about my PhD and my thoughts on environmentalism. The title is inspired by a quote by Gregory Bateson: "What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose? And all four of them to you? And you to me?" But obviously, if you were to ask me so what does that mean for your

Responses to The Alarmist Perspective

2007-06-01T14:06:00.000+01:00

This is shaping up into a valuable debate, for me at least.Here are two responses to 'The Alarmist Perspective' (below):Response 1:Again, as you said, I think you've done a better job than the article in articulating what the problem is. Andwhile that has it's use (I'm not for a moment implying that just because you don't have a 100% doable solution, you stop talking about the problem), you still

The Alarmist Perspective

2007-05-31T14:24:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, an article in the International Herald Tribune caught my attention.The piece deals with the huge shortfall between capacity and demand for power in Growing India and the hugely inequitable supply that results from this.I've been reading things like this for a while - as will anyone who reads the news - but I thought it was interesting that the article was carried by a

White Noise

2007-05-28T18:44:00.001+01:00

It happened again the other night.There was a trance-night on campus and I was so keen on going that I went ahead to the party even though I didn't know anyone who was going and my boyfriend categorically refused to go. (Understandably, anyone who does not like to dance as much as I do is bored when they go out with me, since I get so immersed in my dancing.)It took a while for me to get 'into it

Catching Ideas

2007-05-10T14:58:00.000+01:00

Catching ideaslike raindropsblossoms fall to the ground.

My Reasons

2007-05-02T00:11:00.000+01:00

Browsing Google during an extended study break this evening, I found out about the earthfireice campaign to collect a million pledges from individuals and businesses to to take simple steps to cut their carbon emissions. As I took my (six) pledges, I created a small profile and stuck it up to a google map. I'm now a small green dot in Colchester (the only green dot in Colchester up on that

Transported, Transcendent, Truth

2007-04-24T12:42:00.000+01:00

Rather a mouthful, that title... Maybe too much of a burden of words for the singularly evanescent feeling I'm trying to describe.I had a thought about 'work'. Sitting near my window with the breeze blowing onto me and my music turned up as loud as it will go (loud enough to wake the whole world), I suddenly had a memory: In was in Goa for New Year's Eve a couple of years ago. My friends and I

02:37 - 24/April/2007

2007-04-24T02:36:00.000+01:00

I'm not really working flat out, but I'd rather be here than anywhere else, and I'm wide awake. Better to be working intermittently and slowly than not at all, eh?Observations at 2:37 -People returning from International Night. Can hear assorted languages, in assorted volumes. But mostly laughter, the stray drunken shriek or howl. A group of girls shouting goodnight and 'I LOVE you' across the

Rust and Stardust indeed!

2007-04-23T23:27:00.000+01:00

A question I often ask myself - as does everyone interested in environmental issues does, I think - is: To what extent is degradation an inevitable process of the ongoing experiment with civilisation? Or to put it another way: did we get to the state we are in (both the glories of it as well as the darkness) unconsciously? And so, how on earth are we going to begin learning our way out of it?A

The Rest is Rust and Stardust

2007-04-22T17:55:00.000+01:00

and the rest is rust and stardust.something painfully simple, honest and clear written by Nabokov - in Lolita, I think. and as a follow on to my thoughts through the day on embracing silence, i think this is the perfect way to come to terms with silence, solitude - and even start to like them again. (i say again because they were once my best friends. growing up tends to make you forget how to

Embracing Silence

2007-04-22T14:05:00.000+01:00

Orientation week for research postgraduates should have had a compulsory module entitled Embracing Silence.Eager-beaver PhD hopefuls should have been tested on their ability to sit long hours without saying a word, tested on their ability to remain sane under pressure without the comfortable social pillow of rants with classmates about upcoming deadlines. After all, there are no classmates in a

Where I am now

2007-04-19T22:28:00.000+01:00

The pattern that connects? That's a laugh. That was such a mouthful to think out, it kept me away from writing for half a year. Slowly, though, it is beginning to come back. As I take my first baby steps along the long path to my PhD.I plan to use this space to talk about the patterns I find as I go on this journey.For a background:I'm here at the University of Essex's Department of Biological

A message from Tolkien

2006-08-26T19:39:00.000+01:00

Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love Tolkien. I read him as more than just a wonderful vision of a lost world (lost, not invented). Sometimes, I read him as metaphor. I'm surprised I didn't think of putting this passage up before; now that I think of it, it's a perfect 'snapshot' as it were, of a sort of universal pattern-that-connects. An experience we've all had, at least once, that

A Letter to Myself

2006-08-20T14:57:00.000+01:00

With a post-cigarette-inward eye, drenched in sunshine and complete solitude, I began, on impulse, writing a letter to myself. (no, am not advocating smoking as a path to introspection, really, am not.)Why am I putting it up here, where it could so easily be torn to shreds by doubt, disbelief, cynicism or patronizing nods? (Patronizing nods. God. Those would probably be deadliest of all to the

What's this all about?

2006-08-13T21:16:00.000+01:00

What's this all about then? This is about trying to find some way to find a spark somewhere. To find the place where truth and beauty and freedom begin drift up out of the core of everything and into the orbit of everything. Where they leak into the air and animate existence. No, no matter what you say, I know they are there - and I know they run the show. Inside the senselessness there is surely