German arachno-musical-operas and lots of boredom

Signs are the new signifiers

It's early March and it's freezing. My nose, fingers and cheek bones are gone already. Gone the Ranulph Fiennes way, soon to be followed by toes, legs and ears. Why is the weather so inconsistent? Why was this Sunday so boring and why on earth can I not find my second Christmas sock?

These are the worries of a middle-class Capitalist. Me. But, today's clutter holds a couple of pearls. Well, let's say well-made costume jewellery. Another completely bored Capitalist from the land of Oz facebooked something about making an opera about the ongoing drama about Spiderman: the Musical. Yay. Because I have neither talent nor education, only a serious passion for puns and lame jokes, I signed up to do the lyrics. In German. Wagner, eat your heart out. I should emphasise, I have no idea what is going on with the musical, I haven't followed the news and I have certainly no interest in Spiderman. In short, I am the man for the job. Woman, woman..... (feminist muttering).

I like semiotic layering - there is nothing as comforting as discovering a second layer of signs after peeling away the first layer with much care and precision. The second, third, fourth etc. layers are for the knowing, you know, dear non existing reader. Knowing is knowing, as George W. Bush might have said, but he didn't, he said something about fooling, which really was just foolish, and he knew. But he didn't know. Knowing goes beyond knowing theoretical crap that fills academic volumes since the invention of the printing press, or rather, since the invention of academic volumes. Knowing now is no longer just knowledge, it is knowing  and knowing how to use the knowledge, where to find it, and what to exclude from our search for knowledge. Take that Victorian toffs and your encyclopaedias. It's knowledge 2.0, where a Twitter status is worth just about as much as the entry for 'screwdriver'. Mind you, it has to be the right status. What I imply is that a lot more intellectual and social weight is accorded to a message less than 140 characters,  airport-tweeted, coffee-break-tweeted, before-descending-to-tube-tweeted or waiting-for-date-tweeted, more or less carefully crafted and then spewed out into the world by the touch of a button. And there it is then, it can be deleted, but it can never be revoked - it exists in cyberspace. Think of an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: before it comes into existence, it is checked, double-checked, edited and signed-off and then printed. A tweet only benefits from the Fruit's ghastly spellchecker and autocorrect, which fails to recognise terrible grammar mistakes involving the use of apostrophes. If you can't spare two characters for the benefit of your reader, why bother at all?

Literati should rejoice over Twitter: it is a platform for the essential Haiku, the short, short story and other Hemingway-inspired writings, though mainly about life, not about death. For the witty, Twitter could be the nec plus ultra in their writing career, for the not-so-very-witty, it is yet another platform to display poor punctuation, self-importance and narcissism. Did I mention that I tweet?

Boredom, a subtle change of subject, yet another Sunday spent sitting in the cold, trying to convince people that their taste is NOT universal. I am of course always ready to get the big guns out, hit them frontally with Bourdieu and Hebdige, Panofsky and that other guy, Cowell, but then again, I leave it. As much as my Sundays are devoted to intellectual exchange and Monday's readings, other people's Sundays are devoted to bad fashion and roasts. Those things do not work well together, especially after a couple of pints at the local boozer. If a non-art student then wants you to leave your prejudices behind in favour of a more structural, stylistic or economical view of the world, you get really cross. Yes, I am talking to you, man in the green sweater and woman with the rather heavy perfume. If you don't like what you see, why do you start talking about it in the first place? Both of you, among others, missed the moment to just shut up and keep it to yourselves. Or start writing a blog that nobody will read, or better still, write your comments on a piece of paper and burn it when you're done. Or tweet it, where people have the option of not following you (why would they???).

A little learning is a dangerous thing (Alexander Pope) if formulated in less than 140 characters.

Dictatorship of the Fruit and other things addictive

As of today, I am tweeting. (Today in fact was Thursday. Thursday is today once a week, which makes Thursday really happy, if only Thursday could be today everyday, but then everyday is today all the time, which makes Thursday really confused)

Me and Ravi in the latest Sci-Fi flick Fondue: The Next Generation

It wasn't meant to happen. I was an accident, I swear. In an attempt to have a lookie-look at someone else's Twitter account, I accidentally registered myself. So. With a full stop. I could have deleted the account immediately, but as it is the case with all things new and ever so slightly unknown, I couldn't resist. And spent most of my leisure time (some people in my semi-direct environment pronounce this word 'liiiiiisua time') trying to track down people I could stalk with my newly extended Go-Go-Gadget vocal cords. Again I must insist that I am innocent and that I couldn't resist the fangs of the evil tweeting bird of procrastination. 

Peep. So at half two I have one of these super insight moments, where all of a sudden life makes a little more sense in the wider context until I wake up tomorrow with a sleep deprivation hangover, a sleepover, thinking what an idiot I am to stay up that late, and wake up this fucked(ly). Not in the literal sense. If indeed I had been fucked all night (presumably some one-sided action) I might not feel fucked. Communication is low tonight, I apologise, dear non-existing reader, but remember I have tweeted my way through irrelevant human history until just now. To write a blog post... All this could not happen, had I not a piece of silver fruit lying in my lap. Another one of my sleek, suave transitions to refer back to the title: for the metaphorically challenged, I am writing this post from a silver Mac. On its throne of human leg it condescendingly stares at me with the bleak expression of a tyrant who only values its sovereigns for their willingness to submit themselves unquestioningly to its commands. Shift A, em, iiihh, enn. 

Without my silver dictator no Twitter, no Facebook, no Emails, no life. Big fruit is watching me.

Which does not at all cohere with the other half (1/4 more likely) of my life that is crafting away all evening, wearing my thrifted dress, my retro specs with a botched victory roll and a large cup of tea (victory roll on head, tea on desk). How come that there is a increasing discrepancy between my technologically advanced life and my smudging, crafting existence? This question doesn't come out of nowhere; it is tied into the narrative that will become my dissertation at some point later in the year. Why is there an increasing interest in practical skills and rather traditional occupations that contrasts the hyper-technologised life? And this is just the beginning: I wasn't born into a technoliterate society, and I certainly wasn't raised to embrace the use of all things computer-y. Now however, we take it for granted. Try and imagine life before mobile phone, or life before Facebook. WHAT DID WE DO?????? (I sort of have a hunch that I ate most of the time....) Is there a correlation between the above collective loss of memory of 'what was before the computer' and the revival of a lifestyle before the technological awakening? Are select cultural subgroups celebrating the cult of vintage (like a religion) to built a new faith from scratch, one that is both incredibly stylish and comforting in an era where iPhones hit the market like marbles the bullied kid in school? Are sewing and crafting substitutes for values that are lost in the speed of our times? And how much more can we take? We all tweet, facebook, flicker, google, youtube, pinterest ourselves, blog, update, download, upload, stream, comment, like, unlike, unfriend, add, follow, block, tag, untag, scroll, track and click on a daily basis: we are not creating a spectacle - we ARE the spectacle (thanks to Guy Debord for this spectacular insight). There is no longer a distinction between me, my Mac and my Twitter account.

Hm, maybe there is. Spectacular, spectacular, no words in the vernacular, can describe this great event, you'll be dumbed with wonderment. (hooray for Baz Luhrman) I agree with certain grumpy, dead German scholars that quite possibly, we've reached a state of complete commodification, and that now, all attempt to escape it involves a wooden box and cheap flowers (which are bought in by the bucket load). To escape the technified world of pretty, white goods of consumption originating in Silicon Valley, by way of cheap Chinese labour, means to choose but a different commodity to cling onto. Fail, if you observe it from the outside, which you can't really, according to dead German philosophers. But I like consumption. (Also, I would quite like to destroy Victorian/Edwardian metaphors here: I am not Leonard Bast - there are antibiotics - there is more or less central heating: it is time to rid consumption of its negative connotations.) I like to identify myself with a particular group and this year's great event is the Vintage Festival in July, where like-minded vintage consumers gather to celebrate consumption in its purest and retroest form. Hat included. The dictatorship of the fruit is at work here too: how many vintage lovers do you see scrolling up and down their iPads or iPhones to see where one can find the best original YSL gloves in their original packaging bought in 1953 in Indonesia from a passing Frenchman in return for a bowl of soup? Hm, maybe I went a bit too far with this example, but the truth is, because the Fruit still benefits from its 90s and Naughties artsy image, a lot of the artsy vintage crowd are proud to use the Fruit. And I don't see as much of a contradiction in using the Fruit and liking vintage simultaneously. I must admit that I have written myself into a oneway street, and I am way too tired to talk myself out again. So this ends abruptly.

Leadership theory. Is it just me?

Amplified self-confidence and the long way back

It felt like a long, warm hug from the Über-mother. A soothing drink for the soar self-confidence. A pat on the back of my ego. A Networking and Life skills workshop. 

That's the normal King's: all levels to a minimum

There is something intrinsically funny about a workshop hosted by a top agency, top people, with loads of free material and a well-structured schedule on the premises of King's College. But then we are CMCI, we like the binaries. It's now Saturday, sometime around midnight and I still feel energised. In fact, today was the first time in my entire time at King's that I felt energised at all, not drained of all my passion and will to live. I went into the workshop with little to no expectations at all, hoping to find at least some like-minded people to talk about what is bothering me. In addition to these people, we were presented with a group of professionals who actually cared about us. C-A-R-E. Unheard of in the area around the Strand, London, where levels of botheredness are so low, they fall beyond the bother-o-meter, off the scale into the Thames. And here are these people talking to us as if we were real human beings, valuing and evaluating every word we say. They even brought a former policeman in, who, admittedly, put a bit too much emphasis on the fact that he was not one of us, but a South-London boy with a Cockney accent, and a suit that wouldn't win the hearts of the Fashion Week people. Nevertheless, he rocked. And still rocks on. My hopes are all set on becoming a hostage negotiator. Denzel Washington-styly. Only that I am not male, not American, not black, not good at it, and not in a movie. The essence is that these people made us dream. Very realistic dreams in fact, about what is possible, not about what is impossible. 

The positive vibe that infused King's today was almost too much to bear - only hyper-regulated lunchtimes managed to keep us grounded. So where do they go right, where most other people go wrong? How did they manage to get my attention and keep it for two entire days with hardly any interruption (apart from said mealtimes)? How come that coloured pencils work more effectively than lecture handouts?

My main question of the day, and one of many unanswered ones (and that is a good thing!), was how can I make people listen to me? I find that people often switch off while I am talking. So, is it the boring content? My uninspiring articulation? My tone? My expressions? My general unappeal? What turns them off? Rather than being upset about it (though I still am, a bit) I explore the room for improvement, thanks to somebody who talks people off buildings, and somebody else who worked for a toothpaste manufacturer. I simplify here, because it makes the better story, and THAT is exactly what these two days were about: a story! My story, my life and the chapters to come. The dull prequel and the rather unimaginative introduction are over, now it's time to make things happen. What I need to do is work on the brand that is 'ME': 'ME' is the latest product of Alice, your trusted manufacturer of useless goods. 'ME' is launched in just one flavour, but with the promise of more to be developed within a short time. The components of 'ME' are a rather eclectic mix of novelty, eloquence, exchange, unattachedness, faithfulness and passion, shaped in the form of a regular Alice, but with a completely new recipe. 'ME' does not promise: 'ME' does. With its active ingredients of passion and novelty, 'ME' has everything future employers want: 'ME' will facilitate the generation of novelty ideas; it will provide the drive to make ideas go further; it will have the necessary distance to the project to see the need for correction; it will commit to the cause and want to finish the project: 'ME' does what others don't. (I love writing my own adverts) 

Also, what I learned today is that I need to stop complaining about my faults (see egocentrism) and start working with them as part of me, and potential strengths if modelled to my satisfaction. So I start here: 1. complaining (one for today is enough, I think). I like to complain, I have written to you, dear non-existing reader, about my complaints and what they mean to me. I have come to terms with them, and yet, they keep me from seeing myself clearly. They act as a veil of mounted dissatisfaction over my chubby face, blurring the distinctions between real unhappiness and just a bit of discomfort over some things that went a bit square. So, out with the complaints, in with positive feedback. I have decided that starting now, I will say positive things and stop moaning about everything, because my time is just NOT worth bothering. Uff that is quite a New Year's resolution, in mid-February.

Made me think about a beans party

Michael Caine is speaking, talking Italian

If there was any doubt that my brain just can't focus, not for two seconds, it was eradicated today. While I was meant to write, or at least meditate on the subject of rather dull questions, my brain was occupied trying to make my inner voice sound like Michael Caine ('Hello, my name is Michael Caine. Not a lot of people know that'. Try it, it's excellent fun). In case you were wondering - no - it is not very helpful in an exam. Having said that, there is something that's been nagging on me for a while and relates to an earlier post here (that you won't have read). I was thinking about being a grown up and how that is meant to change you. Now, I do not want to relate to myself as a grown up, but I have crossed the line, I think of grown-up behaviour, never to come back again. I have bought a gift and a card for a newborn, which means that 1. I know somebody with a baby and 2. I sort of care, and 3. I no longer belong to the entity that is my parents, who will send a separate gift and card (that is if my mother is bothered enough).

Part of the Guardian's solution for future graduates.

Now a month has passed and I spent that month trying not to freak out over too much work and not enough sleep. My chronic lack of ambition and stoic mind help, but mornings like today's do not. Why are some lectures boring? Why was I tired despite 10 hours sleep? Why does my tea no longer remain hot in my thermos? All in all, not a good day for reflection, fashion, nail polish, hair and certainly not a good day for productive ideas towards a dissertation. AND, it's Valentine's Day, another perfectly ordinary day highjacked by commerce and transformed into a Disney production of love and affection. Yes - this is a single speaking, and yes - I had a lot of cake during the last couple of days. I mean a lot. 

My weekend was spent with cake, beans and a treasure hunt - possibly the best hunt I've ever done. Beans included. And at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, dear non-existent reader, I summed it all up on Saturday night: 'if this is what being an adult is like, I want more of it'. True. It was a genuinely great day, spent in the glorious cold London sun, with people I like, doing crazy things of our own and others' design.  And lots and lots of rhyming, photographing, laughing and random silliness. I secretly wish never to look back onto my teens again, where everything was tense and not so very cool, despite my very hard attempts.  Have we reached the summit of coolness without trying? Or have we reached a state of coolness through a reversal of all that is classified as cool, de-accelerating to the point of total acceleration? Paul Virilio would be very proud indeed of me now. Reaching the level of complete acceleration where the only possible way is regression, the return to what has already been. What is coolness in the first place? Is it a virtue? An accomplishment? Is it natural? Can it be learned. As an outsider, a non-cool person, I have only ever had the possibility to observe coolness from the outside, i.e. with the longing to become or be cool, or cooler. Interestingly, it manifests itself in a variety of ways, which only have the ideological notion of coolness in common - it translates into so many visual, physical and metaphysical details that the only valid comparison I find is the universe, a an indefinitely large mass or un-mass, hosting galaxies and planets and and and... The question whether coolness is experienced by the bearer of cool him- or herself is an interesting layering of the idea that coolness may be only experienced by the outsider, and that 'a' cool person is not capable of grasping their own coolness. 

'Hello, my Name is Michael Caine'

Coolness as a distorted mirror image of the self that does not allow for a coherent evaluation. Which implies that anybody thinking of themselves as cool, could not possibly be cool, for cool cannot be self-experienced. This would explain why coolness seems effortless - because it is.

Any conscious effort must result in the individual's fail to be cool. Michael Caine is a prime example (notice how I make a suave link to an earlier bit): he spent the 60s and early 70s being cool. Nerdy glasses, mod-cut suits, unruly curls, Cockney accent, a good choice of movies, and the best spy movie scene in human history in The Ipcress File; two agents with trolleys in a supermarket. Coolness was a byproduct of good British acting. He did so well: and this is where it all went wrong. Michael Caine realised that he did well. So he made the effort to continue doing well, and did not so well in consequence. And what's worse: he lost his cool. I am particularly referring to the actors' workshops (1987) and a range of 'straight-to-video' films he made in the late 70s and 80s. In trying to replicate earlier coolness, Michael Caine created a caricature version of himself; a sort of postmodern pastiche of the actor he once was. Michael Caine in the 80s was a construct, designed after a bad description of Michael Caine in the 60s: an overemphasised Cockney accent, weird glasses, set hair (like his own grandmother) and bad 80s fashion. He might not have been responsible for the fashion, but it articulated well what had become of the 60s icon. It was the attempt to continue being the same character 20 years into his career - it was bound to fail.

Luckily, Caine grew up. There was a transition period where he had to age and mature to distance himself from Alfie, and where he became a sleek, witty, short-breathed grandfather. It took nearly 40 years, but Michael Caine is cool again, because he doesn't give a toss about it. 

Brain is the new sexy

... at least that's what I tell myself, sitting here in leggings and an indiscriminate blue top-and-ladsy shirt-combination. It's not a good day for fashion. Nor is it a good day for anything, actually. Not even for spelling - the blog word-processor has to correct very nearly every second word I write. Plus the ones that remain undetected because the words exist, only do they not express what I want to articulate. Sea. You get it. 

I am forcing myself through the remainder of what used to be my Contested Culture notes, but is now a pitiful pile of coffee-stained, grey matter in a plastic folder with the additional neon highlight to communicate to the passing fellow-student that I have read some of it, and had even had the mind frame to highlight. Indeed I have read some of it, most of it, with the exception of a rather dull text of myth-theories - I could't lower myself to do that - now the crucial point is that I don't remember anything. In fact, I don't remember reading most of it. The library drains all spatial and temporal rasters out of my brain and transforms it into a giant pudding, sitting comfortably and uselessly in my head, waiting to be poured onto paper on D day. Also, instead of teaching myself how to crochet over Christmas, I should have started early learning all that rubbish. It's my own fault, really. Or is it? Am I not the victim of the very subject I am supposed to know an awful lot about? Take this blog, for example: it is part of what has been christened the social media, and effectively impedes me from learning. Then the TV Christmas specials (gotta see all of those, right?), they too kept me from expanding my field of knowledge. Add a bit of random facebooking, a couple of cinema sessions, a talk with an ageing Ralph Fiennes (not me obviously, some fat bloke in an ill-fitting jumper) and tada, the cultural and creative industries destroy their most recent offspring before it even glimpsed at the world comprehendingly. Maybe I am just a victim of post-feminist self-determination incompetence? It could well be, given that I cannot rely on a husband with an iron fist to impose his will on me; I have to go and tame the shrew myself.

(the same day, bed time, the protagonist is sitting in bed, typing instead of reading dull slides about culture - computer battery full, human battery in reserve)

I need stage directions for my life. How else am I supposed to know how I feel, where I stand, whereto I belong and how the bloody hell this play is going to end?? Despite the fact that I am possibly the world's worst actress, I can just about manage to be an active agent in my own life and portray more or less convincingly real emotions to my fellow actors. Coincidentally, this metaphor relates to what Judith 'Jude' Butler writes about gender performativity. Ok, well, not quite, but the basic idea, the performative element of life remains the same. A very clever leadership book has taught me that performativity is not the playing of a part like Rowan Atkinson does Mr. Bean, but like Rowan Williams does his long-standing performance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, soon in a church nearby you. Gender works in a very similar way: although it depends on sex in the sense that a sex is already inscribed with a particular set of norms and normative elements, gender is more or less autonomous and a way of method acting 'man' or 'woman' to oneself and to others. So, where are my stage directions? At the moment, it's Samuel Beckett rather than Tennessee Williams, plotless incoherence. Maybe I should try and compensate by becoming an obedient consumer, without an opinion, without a choice. 

Culture: contested!

An unusually fast follow-up; naturally, it’s exam time and anything to procrastinate. Not even a cancelled internet connection keeps me from spending my time in any other way than reading inconclusive and irrelevant articles about the theatre of Genet by some random French sociologist.

Screencap is courtesy of guardian.co.uk. I couldn't write something like that.

 Anything to keep me from taking notes about the nature of culture and the cultivated nature, webs of significance, passive consumers, active authors and dead cocks, in the literal sense. I do not see the point in learning something that by definition, cannot be defined, or has at least, so far, not been defined by anybody in a satisfying way. Essentially, I team up with Sisyphus and help him push his stone up the mountain, with the added bonus of having my liver eaten out every now and again – or was that Prometheus. My Greek mythology like my theory of culture is a site of convergence, like culture itself, according to Stuart Hall. Everything merges and flows and escapes (most of it escapes my memory, actually) to leave me with the prevailing sentiment of despair. I am not alone: Facebook tells me that my fellow students suffer equally as hard as I do, albeit in a more public way than I, excluding this rant, which I expect no one to read. Communal suffering than links perfectly with one of the many theories of culture: rumor has it that cultural texts are not created by the one, but by the many. Social practices are interrelated and together form what we understand as culture. Perhaps. The main reason for my despair lies in the ‘perhaps’ that precedes and follows every single theory I encounter – theories of culture come with a reservation, like Euromillion numbers, the reservation that there might be a mistake in the theory and that the lot could be deconstructed within the blink of an eye. Haha, very funny. I look at the pile of paper that is ten weeks worth of cultural bullshitting, and counting, and wonder whether this exam is not a way of justifying ourselves. Like lawyers and doctors, we are forced to write exams because it makes culture and theories of culture quantifiable. We finally can translate culture into marks and grades, mistakes and definitions and thereby legitimize it within the numerous fields of academic practice. We are told that the exam is not about expression, quotations or perfect knowledge; nor is it about grammar; it is about our understanding of culture.

Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Message

My understanding is that we’re given a couple of vague questions and have to formulate equally blurry answers to those, while remaining close to the canonical texts – and despite of what they say, they want clear formulations of what we’ve read. Generally I like incoherent, messy, and pointless tasks, but this exam seems a first class example in pointlessness. What they want us to reproduce is what Stuart Hall has called theoretical noise, a sort of Bee Gees-techno mash-up of Beethoven’s Ninth with vocals provided by Andrea Boccelli and a guitar solo by Eric Clapton. Not that I wouldn’t want to hear it, but the task seems futile and the assembly of the different components rather difficult. Mind you, Eric Clapton would do anything for money. The resulting noise then is nothing more than one strand of the culture theories, a speck in the landscape of philosophizing sociologists, literary ethnographers, empirical critics, and clueless students. The irony is that in a different context, namely my academic career, this exam is more than just a speck – it is the make or break of 5 years of academia. Everything I’ll do in the future, whether I graduate or not, depends on this exam. In a way, I’m being very barbarous about it, to say it with Bourdieu. I concentrate on the small details of my life and want to see every single one of my actions justified, so that I can feel better about my lower middle-class existence. So, where does this leave me? I have to write this exam if I want to gain my degree – I have a choice to not write it, but it is a false choice, to say it with Benjamin, I could not write this exam, but that would mean that I’d isolate myself and I’d loose all the privileges tied to my status as a student, and possibly a lot of people would just forget me without questioning that I ever existed. I’d have to find my way for myself, without the help of fellow students. Great, so it’s either exclusion or two hours of my life trying to figure out what on earth they want me to write. 

Thoughts on being a grown up

IT has dawned on me recently that all my efforts to remain an under-educated, under-estimated, under-no-obligations twenty-something old are in vain, and that even I have to grow up some time to take my place within society. Argh, essentially, it means shovelling my own grave, doesn't it? Dear anonymous, inexistent reader. I confess, the latest outcomes of my creative, semi-professional life did not include any sign of adult behaviour, ended cataclysmic in public embarrassment or included making pompoms out of plastic bags. The fact that I am writing this at 03:26 after a day's work and a visit to the theatre should emphasise the fact that regulation and routine are slightly off-theme. I do like my routines, ocd-ing is one of my favourite pastimes, but how can anybody expect me to be responsible, empathetic, and mumsy?????? Don't get me wrong, I like other people - well not everybody, but the broader mass - and I wouldn't want to live without them (apart from a few), I just don't always feel with others, care about others or try and help others. Most things I do are created out of unadultered selfishness, with added egocentrism and a pinch of narcissism. I heard or read somewhere that being an adult is when you do things, not for your own benefit,  but for the benefit of others. Right, complete fail on that front, then. But let's be honest, how many people can I name who reason according to this Ghandi-ish mantra. Maybe two or three, and even those have their slips, occasionally, and involve a lot of spirits, in 99% of the cases. I have realised over the past year, that being a grown up has nothing to do with age, it is more, and here I enter the nature vs. nurture debate, a matter of being born an adult, or not being born an adult. I consider grown ups another ethnicity, about half the earth's population is a grown up in addition to whatever else category we want to put them into, and you don't just grow up to be a grown up. Your mind is set to a particular function, and unless you're hit on the head quite hard as a child, or fall into a pot full of magic potion (one has heard of such cases), your grown-up-ness is determined from the start. Ready, set, go, and fuck Simone de Beauvoir, 'on ne naît pas femme, on devient femme' - whom did she date again?? Right, dating a cross-eyed French Nobel Prize-denier does not make you cool enough to judge on nature or nurture or both.

This post does not come out of nowhere, in fact, it's midlife-crisy territoire - the twilight zone, as I would like to call it, had twilight not gained unwanted spotlight through a rather popular film series within the last couple of years. (ironic, isn't it that twilight is now in the limelight - ok ok, my jokes aren't getting better with age). What I want to say, were I not a self-centred idiot, is that I am turning 24 in less than 24 hours. Birthdays don't bother me much. I don't actually like birthdaying, it's a bit of a bother, trying to accommodate other people's well wishes, I don't like saying thank you, I like it about as much as saying I am sorry, or making compliments. If you hear it from me, it means a lot of effort on my side, so it's worth a lot. Celebrating the date of my birth is a bit of a weird idea - I wasn't much involved in the process, almost 24 years ago, as a matter of fact, I was barely present. I couldn't stand, was covered in sticky liquids and screamed cryptically - like an average night out, without the hangover. I think that celebrating the few successes I had in life would be much more appropriate than celebrating that fact that I appeared. Not that I want to get all Tristram Shandy here, but I'd rather celebrate the efforts that I made consciously: graduating,  learning how to bicycle, learning how to drive, learning how to avoid driving on a night out etc.


(P.S. I post-scribe this on the date I publish the post, 12 days after my birthday, like any good underachiever. I still believe what I wrote then, but I have to add that celebrating other people's birthdays is an activity I quite like. Mostly because I can value them for what they have done, and what they mean to me. Celebrating myself, as much as I would like to enjoy it as a self-centred idiot, is just not in my nature, so hurray to all the rest of people celebrating themselves.)