Not only is tea an old plant (a friend of mine is trying to find ancient plant DNA in what supposedly are tea samples from a couple of thousand years ago) and thus an old drink, but it is a fundamentally political plant and drink and thus of course philosophical. I will leave the politico-historical part to people that know what they’re doing with it and will focus on the aspect of tea where everyone can relate.

That small moment when brewing has stopped, when you set down your cup, mug, glass or goblet. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Be in the moment. Relax.

Granted, you’ll say, but that’s not something you couldn’t have with say… a cup of coffee or any kind of herbal infusion or even with a glass of water.

Yes, dear reader – I am replying – but this is tea.

Tea warms your hands and soul, it tastes of spices and tangy oak, it soothes nerves and mind and makes you slow down, gives you a moment to think before attacking whatever waits outside of your door to be dealt with. Tea is waiting at home, quickly made, quickly there to mentally hold your hand as you start lining up the pro and cons – or if you are less Jesuit than that, problems and solutions.

Of course tea represents also a several million important industry where the fight over fair trade, decent working conditions and wages is an important part of a movement of redefinition that we as consumers in the industrialised world need to start thinking about. And of course, a cup of tea issued from good, ecological planting and produced by unexploited workers will always taste better, but that is not my point here.

Tea, the act of tea drinking and the famous quote “drink tea and wait” reference a different state. They all point to a contemplative moment, a pause. And in our modern world, if there is one thing we do need, it’s more contemplation rather than action. Taking time to reflect rather than affect, or watch time slowly move by is an art that isn’t easily mastered and I fear that it will get lost completely seeing the accelerated multi-tasking social media generation that is in the makings now.

Let’s learn once more that technique at the end of our days to hold our breaths and contemplate. Let’s learn the art of a calming tea moment once more.

I ran across this picture a while ago and made it into my Kindle screensaver. (Sounds odd? Don’t know how to do that? Well, you’re in luck, here’s a guide and here a repository of rather neat screensavers for the kindle.)
It’s been with me for a while now. Almost a year to be honest. And considering the hours I’ve spent carrying Amélie in a sling or wrap and reading on my Kindle, the message has left an impression.

I do think that this is just as valuable to dad’s as a manifesto as it is to mothers, because trust me, they worry just as much as women do, but it has a profound message and I thought I’d share.

Have you ‘stopped, taken stock and breathed’ today?

Just ‘savour each moment, laugh, tickle, kiss and cuddle’. It’s love. And we can all do with love. It’s almost Christmas after all.

Keep it simple.

It’s an art.

I’ve been struggling with this. A lot. For a long time. While I may seem to be very ‘straight to the point’ and quite guided, my mind is a constant firecracker, spawning little sparks of intuitions and thoughts and it has taken a lot of learning to work with it (instead of against it and trying to constantly change it. I am sure that I would have been a perfect candidate for a Ritalin dose in today’s school system).To learn to focus on one spark only, maybe two. To really focus on one argument, one question in a discussion and keep in tune, instead of blasting off.

But of course focusing does only so much, when you can’t stop or turn down the sequence in your head or your inner dialogue. So, most of the time I am discussing things with my husband while in the background two other train of thoughts are battling it out and I am planning the meals for the week ahead.

That is also the hidden reason why J has no patience with me showing him things on the computer. I simply move too fast and am doing three things at the same time. It makes me a lousy explanator, but a great supporter when something about his MBP is not working as he wishes.

For me, keeping it simple, cutting myself off and really listen to what is being said in my own head is a challenge.

It’s an art.

No. The fact that there are certain techniques involved doesn’t mean that it excludes the artistic value. My techniques are artistic in their very core. Technic and techniques comes from the greek word techné litteraly meaning ‘art’.

Reaching peace of mind. True silence that will allow you or me to create what we can, is work.

And yet, everyone is an artist at it.

I find it hard to imagine anything scarier in real life (as opposed to zombies or other imaginary, otherworldly horrors such as clowns) than taking your own advice. Particularly when said advice comes from rational thought and ideals of the philosophical mind rather than experience. As with anything what we think is best in general is rarely what we end up doing. If we did, maybe things in this world would look a bit differently.

I did take my own advice. The one from the very last post in this blog. It explains the long silence between articles. I’ve made the change and it’s been quite the ride so far. And no, I haven’t had any regrets. And I truly doubt that they might still come.

I’ve accepted a new job, in a new town, and with that chose two things completely out of my comfort zone: we moved to Zürich, and I chose to work in a field I only have marginal knowledge of.
While for some that may be a step down from the career that I have built for myself, for me it’s a time out. A much needed moment of fresh air, new acquaintances, new things to learn, old things to see from a completely new perspective and finally a new level of knowledge about myself and waht I am actually able to achieve.

Changing life, be it radically or a little less drastic, isn’t something that can be achieved in a single decisions. Most of the times we are dependent on other people’s choices around us and on all these small things that make up set tapestry of life. But like the unravelling of your favourite winter sweater or the famous saying about the wings of a butterfly, all it takes is action at the right spot. Funnily enough, the writers of the Expanded Universe of Star Wars call the theory behind such a technique “shatter point”. And that’s just what it is. Every change is destructive in its very own way and not every consequence might have been anticipiated. Just as we hadn’t planned for a pregnancy to happen (probably) the same week I was offered my new job.

Stalemate in any situation, is the worst thing that can happen to us as human beings. While I wouldn’t disagree on the fact that we all need stability and a certain kind of constant organisation to be productive and all that goes with it, I would argue that this is not a stalemate. Not being able to progress towards the person you want to be or the life you want to have, because you don’t have the job that would allow for certain changes, not being able to change said job because you’ve chosen to be good in a field that is transformed into a desert of austerity… amounts to stalemate. A vicious circle where the increasing level of cynism and emotional stress is the only sign to mark the next level on your very own path to personal hell.
Or not being able to do the changes you wish, because you can’t find either this guy, that girl or the right flat, the right car or once more the right job. Not because you don’t know what you want, but because ultimately you have no clue about the things you actually need.

Change in that respect becomes a question of life or death. Literally. Let the person you are die in that situation to become someone else that is changed by the situation or take charge of your needs and start shaping your life around them as opposed to the other way around.

Sure, one always gets by and there is no animal more gifted in finding creative ways to avoid making the hard choices and face change than humans. And even if we are quick to admit that we do live in a desert and that truly we should do things differently, we persist. We find excuses. We take our fears for granted.

And yet, all it takes is the first step.
Courage to you all to find the strength and the infantile curiousness to take a single step. My prayers and thoughts are with you.

Shine your light, my heart,
drop your fears,
done your honour and your pride,
armour your eyes,
cast down the dreary pains,
and step out to shine your divine glow.

Don’t leave me yet, the day is not along,
our path here is not yet done,
your heart is not yet gone.

Why do we even have friends? Why do we link ourselves with others when there’s only heartache, abandonment, betrayal and pain to be had from it…?

The question is as old as society itself and probably even as old as language itself. Consequently philosophers, thinkers and good people have produced a varied catalogue of ideas on the subject that range as far as just stating that man is not made to live alone to a completely utilitarian approach: because it serves us.

But even if the simplistic theory that we can have ethical considerations and moral decisions towards our peers and fellow human beings only because we recognise ourselves in them falls short on several accounts, the intellectual approach that we care because we can or must, doesn’t help much more to understand what it is that makes us connect to this person, but not that one.

Quite generally speaking we are brought up with the idea that caring for others is an ideal to aspire to. That stepping out and away from the weight of your own needs and make someone else’s fears imperative for yourself, brings you something more, offers you some kind of insight into your own soul and one step closer to a ‘good life’.
There is no religion and no social system or idea that does not operate on this basic idea either by reinforcing it or by negating it.

But is the abstract idea of some heavenly reward in an afterlife or aspiring to the ideal of a good life or being a good person, really enough to account for the fact that we do against all odds, against adversity, despite rejection, hurt, desolation and frustration reach out, touch others, take up their burdens, listen to their fears, soothe their minds again and again?

Because secretly we hope that the people we care for will do the same for us, for even if I am someone who’s not used to facing the problem of not caring enough, but rather too much even for strangers that cross my path… even I am sort of speechless when in one of my weaker moments I am ignored by my friends.
That fundamental element of ‘shared love and shared burden’ doesn’t make us manipulative or even interested in the way we deal out our affections and our readiness to help, but rather it points to the next even more fundamental characteristics of our human condition: we need care.

We need people taking care of us and our emotions, people noticing us, recognising us for what we are and who we strive to be, listen to what we have to say or teach or even cry about and what makes us passionate. We don’t need it just to feel better or inflate our egos, what I am referring to is much more basic, much more unreflected. It’s not so much different than the impulsive touch towards a pet or a baby and the basic level of need either the animal or the baby feel for that touch and proximity.

Thomas Merton wasn’t the first to use the phrase ‘no man is an island’, but he certainly took the concept to a completely different level. His reaching out seemed to know no boundaries and looking closely at his biography might even suggest that it bore dangerous self-annihilating traits. And yet, his generosity of heart has become an ideal… because, no man is an island.

But what does that mean? Truly? That ultimately we’re flawed and can’t ever be enough on our own, for our own? I shouldn’t think so. I find it much more inspiring to think that our actions, however small they may be cause a light to shine (or ripples across existence, if you prefer that image) that – not unlike a seed – will grow over time, be reinforced by connecting to others and caring for them and it will eventually affect people outside of our immediate range of action… if we cannot believe that our actions influence others around us and our surrounding society, what else keeps us from not shutting down and surfing the ego trip to self destruction?

In times where dehumanisation is something that is so quickly achieved, where the mass of people in our immediate focus has grown exponentially through internet and modern media, where friends can be nothing much more than a few points on a computer screen and a name (maybe just an avatar), the danger of limiting people, shutting them out, casting them off or simply not taking care of them is even bigger than before. Not only does the internet make it much easier to connect with each other, it also makes it much easier for us to lose focus on the most important thing in life: nothing remains. We can’t take anything with us. When we die, all that remains will be the people we’ve loved and the ones that have loved us and the icon of a memory of that love.

So, we better start minding our friends, caring for their hearts, accepting their limits and loving them for what they are. Not because they deserve it or because we might need them one day, but because there is no greater and more effortless gift than love.

Be generous with yourself and someone you haven’t dared to reach out to today. It’ll make their day a brighter one and your heart shine harder.

We are how we talk and we talk like our parents have or have not taught us. Would teaching dialectics and discussion in school help with the current non-culture of debate and argumentation?

Prompted by the post on the communication style during the past US Presidential Elections, someone pointed out to me on plurk that they thought that communications, dialectics and the ethics of discourse should be taught in school to kids already and I gathered that for him that would mean a considerable improvement of certain things going wrong at this point in history when partisanship seems to be more important than the political, social et al. issue at hand.

I only half agree with that idea for one general reason: we talk like our parents. Or rather we discuss like our parents.

Let me explain this slightly exaggerated assertion. While I am all for teaching young adults the arts of talking properly, right and for effect on one hand and to analyse arguments and react to them on the other hand, I also believe that such a teaching is next to fruitless if it falls on unprepared ground.
Aren’t we much more influenced by the discussion style and culture going on in our parent’s house while growing up than shaped by what the teacher tells us at say… the age 14?

It is a common and widely accepted ground rule today that our way of talking, expressing ourselves in normal circumstance is shaped by our social upbringing, the surroundings we’ve been exposed to at tender age and the all the other socio-historical stimuli we’ve been subjected to. It’s shaped by what we read, when we read it, what we hear and process and finally who we consider our idols and personal heroes. (I had and still have a huge sympathy for the Roman Senators and it has pushed me at an early age to learn the history and nature of rhetoric making me real pain in discussions… )
If that is the case for ‘normal style’ communication, then it isn’t too far fetched to assume that the particular case of discursive discussion is just as influenced by our roots. As kids and adolescents we learn from what we see and if our parents have either a passive agressive discussion and confrontation style, or one that makes the roof blow off the house, as children we will either adopt that or refuse it completely depending our level of auto-evaluation and critical analysis of our actions.

The point I am trying to make here is simple really: an ethos is discussion and argumentation cannot be built by schooling and teaching alone, because these levels already assume a certain meta-level because they aim at teaching something. A good discussion style starts much earlier and parents are important in that process. The effect of an all-mighty father that can say ‘Yes, you’re right and making a good point there. I concede that I was wrong/hasty etc.’ are immense on the psyché of a child that will learn that even though a parent is the measure of all things in their life, conceding to being wrong isn’t the end of the world. This in turn will at a later age tell them that riding an argument even though you know that it’s flawed is a bad thing and that it’s better to learn from others rather than stand on your own viewpoint against all odds and the wrath of the gods.

I’ve seen people with a lot of kids being condescending with people who tried to have a decent discussion with them in the course of these Elections, who were deliberately mean and inflammatory and abrasive only to show how right they thought they were and it made me seriously worry about the example they give to their children, because I don’t believe that in their home environment they discuss differently than online. We are what we say and how we say it after all and if you don’t have a discussion ethos with the big topics, why would you have one in the most fundamental social cell, family?

Neither one of us has proof of the ultimate truth, if they did, the world would look differently and there wouldn’t be any need for discursive analysis and discussion or even so much as a teaching exchange. In such a utopian state of Eden, we all would know and thus wouldn’t need to exchange knowledge or different points of views. The second a person, locked in a discussion, assumes that they have the better point of view, the right way of looking at things, the respect clause has been violated and since at this point only condescension can be had from that person, the discussion dies a sudden death.
Now people will continue on, trying to work with such a person, to make them see other contrasting arguments to their view, or even pull the mother of all arguments: personal experience. (A well known ‘trick’ to try and bring emotion into the discussion and tone down the heat.) But with someone as fundamentally convinced as this, even that will be shot down.

There is no value to be had from such discussions. Not a social interactive value, not a personal one and certainly not a political one. All it serves is giving rhetorical bullies a box on which they can stand on their personal speaker’s corner. All that comes from it is insult.
Kids that grow up under such communication circumstances are bound to have a ‘strike first’ attitude in their discussion style and chances are such an attitude will also spill over into their general conflict resolution attitudes (hitting when no arguments are at hand etc.).

So, truly, as adults, we shape the future generation’s communication style as well as their ability to deal with information, process it and use it in discussion. A detail that often gets lost in the mayhem that can be child upbringing.

Sounds like an odd thing to say, doesn’t it? Why would the US elections keep me as a European, a writer or a philosopher from blogging my mind? The answer is easily given. There are only two ways to go about a topic that is so invasive in our everyday lives and has such a massive presence in the news: either you avoid talking about it completely, but then the avoidance will always show in your writing since it is what is on everyone’s mind after all OR you do write about it and open a can of worms that you cannot close again.

Of course I had an opinion on the votes and the elections, of course I have a personal stance and a professional one since I can rarely dissociate the one from the other. As someone trained in philosophy going about in the world, you can rarely not be influenced by the things and current topics around you and think about them with your ‘philosophical’ mind. So, even if I wasn’t to talk about the elephant in the room, I would in a way by avoiding it meticulously.

So the main question remains: why not blog about it if it’s such an important issue of our time?

Because in the myriad of comments, opinions, partisanship battles, demeaning thought processes etc. my word doesn’t count for anything. Not amongst the friends that I live around, close contacts over the internet that I’ve come to consider my friends on certain levels, not among the people that share my faith or convictions or the people I respect. Because just as the media coverage enlightens our knowledge of the world (not to be confounded with actual knowledge, I’m just referring to factual knowledge), it also taints and escalates the dialogue. There is practically no informed discussion to be had about anything in this respect. Not about the kind of dog Obama’s kids will get or the colour of Palin’s breakfast cereal.
I have in all honesty only seen ONE explame of a discussion that could be called constructive and instructive for both camps in all of over 2 years of following the whole circus called U.S. Presidential Election.

What a sad bottom line that makes.

And something I was not ready to expose myself to. There are only so many fall-outs with friends and family that you can get past and once certain things are being said… the going back is almost impossible. The Philosopher’s Attic isn’t about that. It’s about looking at the world in a different manner. It’s about getting a small spark of something else in your day and in mine. And that is what I’ll try to bring back now that this race is over.

A great weekend to all of you.

In a time where every minute of every day is filled with chatter and noise, solitude and silence do seem like an endearing thing. And while silence and solitude are bound to connect us much more deeply to ourselves and the things that haunt us, work on us, make us laugh or cry, they – just as anything else – can be the most oppressive and terrible things.
Being alone, lonely… maybe it’s for that reason that these expressions have become tinged with the sense of something negative. Or maybe it’s just our society that is suggesting that the more people you have around you that keep you from being alone, the more successful, more cherished, loved and popular you are. After all, who actually likes to be alone? Isn’t it rather the mark of a socially inept person to be alone, to seek loneliness, to find silence?

Another tradition runs against this. In it men and women have chosen solitude and silence as a way to holiness. For it is in the silence and solitude that we hear our inner selves proclaimed. It is in these lonely hours between the waking and the morning that we truly have to accept our own limits, our own fear and our own hardships that do not come from the world that surrounds us, but from the world that lives in us. But if holiness is found in solitude, why do we shy away from it?

Getting to know oneself is the challenge of a lifetime and some say that you can never achieve it until you’ve drawn your last breath. Be that as it may, it still is a hard task for sure. There never is a moment where we do not either surprise ourselves or are scared by our own darkness, meanness and gratious hardness towards either ourselves or the people that depend on us. Listening, hearing and accepting those limitations of our own being, of ultimately what makes us be the humans that we are… will break us or make us.

And thus solitude becomes a catalyst, a primer, a moment of hesitations before we launch ourselves back at the world to change it.

This is a tease post in a series of short essays or meditations that will sooner or later be published alongside with my poetry.