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Stockholm syndrome

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

I have read somewhere a while ago about cells constituting a human body. Their life span lasts mostly from few seconds to months, depending on the kind. The longest ones live for around 7 years. It means that every 7 years we are completely regenerated: there is nothing left on physical plane from me living in 1999; not a single cell. I wonder how do we record our memories and how cells do pass recorded information from generation to generation… It looks like I already used to be 4 times, and about to finish my fifth cycle. Writing here is a sure way to back up myself in a case if something will go wrong, say, in a case of memory loss. So I decided to be honest, as ultimate memory loss anyway is just no more than 7 or 8 cycles away (keeping in mind what I’m a smoker, probably a half of that).

I spent most of my life trying to break out frames of convenience and certainty. My life was a constant escape. As I tried to live faster then my memories, I tried to run away from myself; cut off everything that hold ego together. To accept anything for given meant for me to accept self defeat. As I didn’t want to have compromises, I didn’t want to have anything in common with myself even a day ago. Head on I tried to hack into the future; no matter smash my head or break through I wanted to go as far as I could. I shed empty shells of my identity in process as a tree sheds leaves in the wind. Wind is a great allegory of time.

I didn’t see or rather didn’t care about danger of living like that then. Changing lives, names, places, occupations, friends, interests… you name it.

I lost myself. I don’t know anymore who I am, or who I was meant to be. It’s like a simultaneous chess game. Once I had an experience of it, playing with a chess grandmaster. He played 30 games the same time; walking up and down the lane of chess tables. I was just a somebody behind one of the boards. Now imagine yourself in his place, with no opponents on another side. You play this game on 30 boards with yourself; and these are different games with different sets of rules, sometimes rules you are not aware of. Some of them I managed to finish, some barely started.

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Summer Nights On The Overpass

Published by
Traverse
 in memory. 0 Comments

Standing on the overpass that night, watching the occasional car speed along the two-lane country highway below us, we felt infinite. Larger than life. Just three kids in our Sunday best with rolled up sleeves and loosened ties, illuminated by nothing but the pale glow of the full summer moon.

We never wanted that night to end. We wanted it to last forever. But tomorrow would bring big changes for us all, and we knew it. After years of talk of leaving this town, it was finally going to happen. Tomorrow Kyle would move off to a university, tearing our life-long trio apart. Of course there would still be John and I, but we both knew things would never be the same.

John set another empty beer bottle on the bumper of my car. He was starting to feel a bit tipsy. We all were. We hoped the alcohol would soften the pain of change.

None of us spoke, but we were all thinking the same thing. We were afraid. Afraid of change. Afraid of growing up. We didn’t want things to change. We didn’t want that summer to end. We wanted to stay young forever, living without the responsibilities of adults, but still having the independence to party every night and drink until we passed out.

But that night did end, as we knew it would. Kyle went to school and moved on to bigger and better things than us and our town and those nights spent drinking and talking of dreams, hopes, and whatever else came up on that overpass. I hear he’s married and has a kid now.

Eventually I stopped hearing from John, too. I found him passed out on the overpass, surrounded by broken glass. I took him back to his home, then learned he had died of alcohol poisoning that night. I wrote Kyle about it but never heard back. He wasn’t even at the funeral.

I wish I could relive that summer where the three of us stood so tall and strong against the world, walking through the streets like owned the town, staying awake for days on end and drinking ourselves to sleep and waking to a nasty hangover. We knew everyone and everyone knew us. That summer was the climax of our lives.

I still pass by that overpass occasionally, and I still see the three of us standing there together, ready to face the world, side by side.

Traverse

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I wanted to be Superman

Published by
Seung-Hyun Park
 in memory. 0 Comments

About twenty years ago, I was a naughty boy and a little bossy. I fought with other boys almost every day and sometimes I fought with my elder sister. I was five or six years old when I saw Superman on T.V the first time. It seemed he could do everything, so he became my idol. My dream was to be a Superman.

Finally I made up my mind to be Superman. So I called up all of my friends and said in front of my house, “Is there any body that can jump from that second floor?” A silence flew through my friends. I said, “All right, all of you are like chickens, but I can do it”. They said “Are you sure?” I said “Sure! And if I do it, I’ll get all the marbles that you have, but if I fail, you will get all of my marbles. Good deal?” They said, “O.K” So I went up to the second floor with the Superman costume, stood at the edge of the floor for a few seconds, and took a deep breath. I felt cold because I was almost naked. But what a brave boy! I jumped with my arms extended like Superman. During the flight, though it was just a second, I could see every eye of my friends get wider.

“CRASH!” I fell down on the ground. And I was knocked out for just a moment.

When I opened my eyes slowly I could see my mom’s nose. I had to go to the hospital with my mom because a part of my tongue was cut in the crash. But I got the marbles later and I became the leader in my group of friends.

Seung-Hyun Park

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Dreams and the game theory

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in dream. 4 Comments

A friend of mine put a cross on me, it looks like. She says, I am into post-religious spiritualism, referring to Memorycemetery concept. I can accept that. Some people called me worse words. Frankly speaking, I was always being suspicious in regard of everything starting from “post”, as of something second hand, or with warning: “Danger! Badly digested concepts attached!”. Nevertheless, as there’s no pleasure whatsoever in pointless arguing, I will take it on the basis that awakening of post-religious spiritualism requires evolution of our consciousness. Self-satisfaction is the only wisdom of our days…  :)

“God doesn’t play dice”, quoted she A.Einstein’s words. If so, let’s consider these words from my freshly acquired position of post-religious spiritualist:

 If God does not play dice, shall I accept Him/Her/It as the Savour?

I do not want to be saved by a superpower. If I want to be saved (from what?: from myself, of course), I want to be saved by a miracle. This statement probably pushes me even further into cultural margins, if not beyond. So what? It could be nice to fuck off the public value, as another friend of mine said on a different occasion. He studies economics. He told me what the post-industrial economics requires developed tools of post-industrial mathematics and vice versa. Like, for example, developing of the game theory had a certain impact on a stock market and the stock market acquired those ideas for further advance. This year’s Noble prize in economics given to this theory developers is the proof. My interest in economics though is somewhat on micro-level: how to survive from one salary to another one? How can I pay off my debts? So before we sunk deeper in such gory subjects, I would like to turn my attention to somewhere else. Let’s say, if games theory can describe behaviour of very complex and rather chaotic systems, what impact does it have on God? Or, down to more practical matters, on my dreams?

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