Work

Don’t expect anything

Posted by yseult on Sep 3, 2010 in Issues, Personal, Work

Don’t expect anything. Not even the best.

I realise that I am starting to repeat myself topic wise… but somehow I can’t talk about anything else but change. Not just because my life seems to go through a whole phase of changes one after the other, but because so many people around me seem to be affected by change or by… non-change.

I am faced with a particularly difficult task at the moment. Not only do I need to balance a number of things at various moment, be it work with 100 different dossiers dropping at the same time, personal life, friends, emotions, a pregnancy… but was also asked to start my philosophical engines and contribute in that particular field of Paleoanthropologie/Paleopathology in a meaningful way.

(big silence)

Exactly.

It’s not that I don’t feel inspired by the completely new setting that I am spending my days in now. From mummified mammoth babies, histological cell pictures to ancient DNA extraction protocolls, to orthopedic pathologies in Aegyptian Mumies, I come into contact with a lot of things that are simply breathtaking. (And that is just my working group. Let’s not even start with the space group that is working with NASA on the effects of zero gravity on human cell structure, degradation and other weird stuff that involves sending mice on a parabolic flight in the south of France…)
But for someone who never thought that she had enough stamina, chutzpe or intelligence (according to the time of day) to ever be any good at practical philosophy, this is a true dare.
And indeed, the last couple of weeks have been filled with the bording side of my profession: literature research and delving into a certain number of articles on the ideal way to deal with human remains in research, on the ethics of archeology and exhibit ehtics.

And what can I say? The spark has taken. This terribly theoretical philosopher now is truly inspired to bend her mind to the difficult and necessary task to find ways to think about mummies and historical human remains and their relation to top level modern medical research.

Who would have thought?

I certainly wouldn’t have. And that brings me to the main idea that I needed to share: we never know where we end up. And we’re back to the scary parts of life. The parts that we cannot possibly control. And while we sometimes may think that abandoning one way for another one that seems more comfortable and more secure, that might just be the path that takes us all the way to where we really need to be.

Think about that while you walk home tonight or stand on your balcony, or garden for a moment.

My Choice

Posted by yseult on Apr 28, 2008 in Poetry, Work

To bring the fire back into your eyes,
to make the walls around your heart tremble and then break,
to see the life in your eyes once more,
to feel your trembling touch on broken skin once again,
to solicit that special blush, that unbearable shudder,
to light the sky with one single look,
one single well placed kiss,

I will love you without a word or look,
without touch or nearness,
with a passion that will remain,
painful, eternal and unreal.

I will love you while you will conquer the world,
your fear and darkness.
While you become the one you were meant to be,
go where you’re meant to go and
love who you’re meant to love,
and sparkle the world with laughter.

To die in solace,
to suffer in twilight,
to end it all in one single thought,
to choose what cannot be found,
to hold on to your dying look,
to love at last.
With every heart, every fibre and every inch of my mind.
With every seed of heavenly lyrics and harmony,
with every eye and tear…

I will love you.

For all the people unconsciously wishing me the best,
for all the thoughts sent into this direction,
hoping for me to finally get up and make that choice.
For all the well mannered and discrete inquiries,
the undecided and unwanted partaking,
for every whim and expression only barely disguising that one last question,
for all it matters and all it doesn’t, this is what anyone would have to say…

Get out and turn around, because you’re not helping anyone.
Breathe out and let the projection rush out of you, because you’re not bringing any clarity.
Keep going and don’t come back.

Let me tear myself up into the tiniest pieces,
without rhyme or verse,
my future and my past.

Let me cry my soul down into an endless pit,
into the depths of what you would call your hell,
and I simply call… my own heaven.

- To an absolute Extreme, an Idol of Inspiration, D.M.

There’s something that needed exploring: the theme of an unrequited love that has been loved and been precious for such a long time that it is like an old friend in your mind and your way to look at the world. And what if that old friend suddenly changed in the face of hope, even the smallest one. That’s what needed to be discussed and that’s how I fulfilled the premise.

The Worst Is Over

Posted by yseult on Oct 12, 2006 in Personal, Work

It’s over. All done. All said. All payed for (at least I hope so…) and all counts closed. The Colloquium where I had to play out all the cards I had, is done and over with. I really went to hell and back this time to make it happen. Bordering the nervous breakdown, exhaustive depression and the Super GAU. I worked over 12 hours a day to come to terms with the text and the philosopher I was supposed to rehabilitate, tore my hair out over my decision to quit my well known topics for something new and cursed everything and everyone around me. Sounds like fun? Well, it does, and really now it all seems so futile. And there lies the danger. But I heard the call and I will take it to heart and step down a little to get my energies up again.
So. The congress went GREAT. It was amazing. All organising was up top (thanks to Tristan – the loyal – of course). The people attending were impressed by our work and our contributions. And then the most amazing thing happened: the ones without their PhD and degrees rocked the place. Every single one of our little group that joins together some people from Paris (Sorbonne), from Switzerland and Italy, offered brilliant texts and insights into some of the works of the next years. And me? Well, so did I. And I would not have done it without my love. He stayed up with me until 1:30 the night before my talk to finish up the conclusion, held my hand, calmed my feverish breakdowns, lifted my headaches and made me tea throughout it all. And again, without him, I would have simply stood down and told AdL what’s the what: Boss, I’m ready for the asylum.
I didn’t. I came through and it feels very good. Some were so impressed that I am now with several invitations across the world for congress attendance, conference tours and some job prospects along the road. *sigh* But, really now, I have to take care of my issues. This call was just too close to ignore it. And it all starts with some days just filled with sleeping, reading, watching all three seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and reading Lynda Lemay lyrics. gt;

The Odd Professional Doubt… or not…

Posted by yseult on Sep 8, 2006 in Work

Dr. Mark Johnson at Thomistica.Net made an interesting point a while ago when he published a list that explained to the world (and his peers) why he was not to be considered a Thomist. (Sidenote: A thomist as in either a specialist for the theories and writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas or a follower of said Mediaeval thinker)
In relation with the above Sidenote such a declaration begs a question: so what kind of Non-Thomist is he? A non-follower or a non-specialist?
The list makes it quite clear that it’s the second option. And then you get to thinking… Mark Johnson (reading his CV and Bibliography makes that cristal clear) is a CHIEF specialist for the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. And he’s really screaming his doubt about the non read books into the blogosphere…

So what on earth am I then? I guess I am just picking up the breadcrumbs of some non existent metaphysical bread. ANYWAY… back to Saint Thomas Aquinas. What is philosophy and what is theology? What are all the academic theories worth anyway?
The answer can be quite simple: they’re a shot a the right and the most accurate way to explain the world. Which basically makes the History of Human thought a huge Mall where you get to choose the theory that personally suits you the best or is the most attune to your own way of figuring out the world and the comings and goings within it.
By choosing it of course you expose yourself to being filed under some “-ism” or “-isticism” or any other filing tag that suits your opponents. And at one point you go out there and shout “I am not a …” to anyone who wants to hear it.
Truth is (as far as text knowledge for qualifying as a specialist in something goes): it’s impossible! We go on the things we know and the Hermeneutic Circle states clearly that the process NEVER stops. Never. Ever. It can’t. It’s a perpetuum mobile that once it has been set off, cannot be stopped. And I guess that after some runnings of the Hermeneutic Circle the time calls to some pretending…
Let’s face it. You go to school, to college, you start a PhD and somewhere in between people start to notice you. Suddenly what you say matters. Just because you have the degree making obvious that you’re smart. And the you want to live up to it and you start pretending. That’s why it is virtually impossible for academic professionals to confess to not knowing something or a text. In that way I am quite refreshed by Mark Johnsons ‘confession’ and his ten reasons that make him a non-thomist.
And for some unfathomable reason, I am NOT sent into eternal doubt over his statements. I have long accepted the fact that the world is a box of chocolates… not in a Forrest Gump sort of way. But rather like this: eat the first top layer of the chocolates at ease… there’ll always be a next one after that.

Writer’s Bl/Sh-ock

Posted by yseult on Jun 8, 2005 in Work

I got to taking about the sense and meaning of writing once more yesterday night and how revealing that has been…

I have always resented the post-modernist view that the text you write as an author, isn’t the same after being read by others. That the text, story or character somehow gain a personal life apart from their creator and thus are almost unrecognisable should the two ever meet again.
Apart from the fact that I always thought – and still do – that post-modernism is like Pop-Art a terribly overstated line of thought that tends to limit all things that have been and thus has a wonderful excuse not to produce something of its own, I have also gone through a thorough structuralistic boot-camp at University and both theories are like cats and dogs: nothing good can come out of the fight for power.

The talk from yesterday somehow set my record straight… or rather turned my categories upside down. My writing has one single objective: finding the right expression for the things I see. Detailed, overloaded, overcharged and as sticky as melted chocolate. I had somehow made the subconscious assumption that the more precise the expression and description would be, it would leave lesser room for an interpretation or understanding completely detached from what I intended.
I obviously thought completely wrong.
Things aparently do tend to develop a life of their own. Not only fail the pictures to trigger the right reference of response, they shockingly enough are not what I supposed them to be. If I go back to one of my favourite solitude quotes by Rilke – that we are desperately separated from one another and that sometimes bits and pieces of a stolen dialogue drop between us, start building up until obstructing every dialogue completely – one could easily adapt this to fit the ‘writer’s situation’.
If a text, a poem, a story, a description, even a simple line of a letter of encouragement is something you throw in the air and hope that the someone or the right person catches it, then the worst that can happen is that either it falls to the ground.
So probably not being understood the way you expected to be is not the greatest danger.
Maybe not being listened to in the first place is worse.

The only thing I am wondering about after this terribly cold shower, is on how this is going to affect my writing. Am I just going to stop? Since I have failed in being either original or precise enough to be understood? Am I going to undergo a sudden change of style, like when I started to work at the newspaper? Or is the the way you look at things and absorb them into your inner world the source of your inner speech and thus your writing? Can the style be changed at all without losing a complete range of subtlety?

Maybe we simply are, what we are and not who we are supposed to be. Maybe all the dreaming and the striving just comes down to this: me in this world, and everything around me.
Maybe Silence is the greatest enemy of all…

End of an Era

Posted by yseult on Mar 1, 2005 in Work

I woke up this morning after maybe 4 hours of sleep and I am not feeling that less sombre than I did yesterday.
The difference to my normal mental state, is that this time there is a good reason for it… or at least it is good enough for me, although some people might beg to differ.

‘The end of an era…’
How right he was to put it that way. I wonder if he was even aware how much he honoured me in including me into this era.
But since this is internet communication and it takes place on different levels of narration (hmm… my Lit. Prof. would be amazed at the number of levels this can reach…) it is quite possible that the person(s) in question are reading this right now, and thus they will know about the honour and my feelings behind it.
Of course that’s rather my vanity speaking than my actual knowledge of them. But let me have the nice thought that actually some people are reading this. Goes well with my morning coffee.
The era is ending while everybody is getting scattered halfway across Europe. Some of us went off to learn Arabic in the sunnier parts of this world, others went to see the Teutons and hone their discussion-battle skills. Others – such as me – only stayed for a moment, before being swept off to go where the work, the interest and the funding is. And the last two of our little group – the three maids (1) – well, they’re leaving soon. *laughs* We had a wonderful time and it’s possible that neither of my former peers will ever really know how much that time meant for me. After the seclusion and the envy of my Home University, they were the breath of fresh air that gave me back some faith in Academia. It was a joy to work with them and around them. Something that will quite obviously always stay with me. I learnt more in those 12 months of sharing an office with those two fine men than in the years of solitude at my former Departement. About the easiness of sharing, about the mutual fears we all have in this work, about literature, sarcasm and how you can relate to your students without missing the main aspects of teaching.

The truth is, we never finished our project for a portal on resources for the studies of Medieval Philosophy. I still have the drafts and tryouts here. And in fact, I was going through them only some days ago. But who knows, unburied projects are still live projects – as a friend of mine would say – and maybe we’ll get to do it no matter where we are in the world.

And I still haven’t hit them with my book project – well, not how it presents itself now – and that would certainly be a nice next step to keep the relation to those people that were the first ones to show me the way on my long, long path towards wherever I am going…

Thank you.

—-
(1) Following the traditional Medieval saying that considers philosophy to be the maid of theology, we – the unsufferable trio – too considered us to be maids… historians of philosophy, condemned to watch rather than to offer new systems of thought or contributing to political debates, chosing the rather ironical stance of the moraline saturated of contemporary philosophy…