Back to the desk
So, finally, my mini writers block has passed. And here I stand again, rejuvenated enough to add a chapter to Crescendo. If things go as planned, I may find some time to expand The Soul wanderer too. But I see a party bandwagon accelerating in insane speeds towards me, and well, I might be tempted to jump on it. 
So it will all show, if by nightfall, I haven’t posted that chapter too, it means that I’m someplace getting drunk and dancing, two things that are irrevocable tied together 
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Enjoy, and as always critic will be highly anticipated.
Cats Vs. Dogs Vs. Humans (+poem)
Cats Vs. Dogs. The eternal question. I will refrain from taking a position, because I wouldn’t be a fair judge, my phobia of dogs, even since I was a little boy, wouldn’t allow me to answer truthfully. What I will talk about, will be the generalizations and the stereotypes of those magnificent animals.
They say that one can judge a person for his love of a specific kind of animal, but I find this to be a racist comment against the animals themselves. We cannot bring our pettiness to those simple beings. If we want to ‘blame’ someone or to ‘praise’ something indirectly, and we don’t want to state the specific HUMAN problem or trait, we always have the (ancient) gods… they were invented for this thing after all. So as to have someone to alleviate our fears and someone to blame for our faults.
Regardless, there are some stereotypes that must be followed. Like dog being the faithful servant of man, and cat being the naughty mistress of the house. Both of those are good traits imo.
For I ask you, which is better, the one that keeps struggling after every failure? Or the one that tries to not fail? Those are the dogs and the cats for me.
Stability and determination. Faithfulness and loyalty. Obedience and reward. Dogs, masters of patience…
Or cats? Spontaneity and randomness. Fierce willpower coupled with mighty independence. Ego and pride. Majesty and creativity…
Which one would be the most rewarding? The spontaneous purr of a cat? A result of pure love that comes only once in a while like a reward that is seldom given? A thing to be cherished because it was earned, and it wasn’t certain? Or the constant company of a dog. Its happy barks to keep you company even in the most dire hours? A love that once earned, will stay true and steady. A faithful compatriot to the travesty of life that will never abandon you?
For me, as I said above, comparing animals with humans is degrading. But one can always compare animals to nature. And this is easy, for animals ARE nature. The cat and dog, the opposite side of the same coin. I won’t compare them now, or here, or anytime. Those who cannot see the earth as what it is have blinded themselves. They are the same people that don’t understand why we should care about our world.
One can wonder why I rant about this today… well…
I was sitting there, enjoying a coffee in the sunshine. The weather was brilliant, the company was great, we were chatting and having fun, and you know… enjoying ourselves wasting time.
Then my eyes drifted to this one girl that was barely visible in the corner of my eye. She was standing alone, sadden eyes were decorating her face. They drifted from time to time to the scenery around her, but usually just stood still looking at nothing. The only movement was their sudden movements. Because every time one passed near her, she would jump up, eyes darting in agony around her, like a scared cat, scanning the unknown human as a new object, trying to figure out if it was a threat or a nothingness…
An image sticked in my mind. I was sitting on a couch, and I had a cat in my lap. I was just patting the cat and she purred. And my problems seemed lighter.
They say that talking to people about your problems helps, I disagree. Just letting other people know that you have problems helps, no talking is necessary…
This might sound crazy but please read the whole paragraph before judging this…
I wanted to go to that girl. It was not that she was pretty, it was not that I was attracted to her. But it seemed that there was something that troubled her, something personal most probably, like the things that you cannot discuss with strangers. I have some problems too. So I was thinking how nice it would be, if we humans could communicate like we do with our pets. Just sigh to them, and accept their judgment, be it either the blind acceptance of a dog, or the indifferent walk of a cat, that refuses to see what troubles you as serious. No talking would have to take place. Just a nod to tell them that others have problems too, they are not alone in this madness we call life. Of course, humans are complicated beings… you cannot just walk to a stranger, nod to him, and then accept his response. But why?…
After about 30min the girl left.
So i dedicated a poem to those thoughts, thoughts about the behavior of cats, thoughts about the views of the animals towards us, thoughts about lonely humans, me, her, everybody who cannot find the power to express himself… It is named after the queen of animal indifference, Feline rejection
A moment to stay still
Unfortunatly, those last days, my novel writing is left a little behind.
Don’t blame me! Blame work, throw your accusation at real life. But above all, blame spring.
It’s a really beautiful day, and so was yesterday too. I heard my own advice, and the little free time I had, I spent it savoring this joyful season. I just… stopped doing anything for a little while, and just enjoyed… being. A simple gesture, a moment to look at the blue sky, was all it took to give me back a whole lot of the energy I had spent to various tasks.
Really, it doesn’t take much to be happy. You just have to appreciate what natures provides…
So, no novels today… I will leave you with a new poem though, Defy Mundane (that I wrote yesterday, so I guess it doesn’t count as today’s writing ^^).
Caution: It sucks, but Hey! I wrote it while I was happy and this is something new to me, since I usually write when I’m depressed. It will take me a while, I figure, to adapt…
I hope you’ll enjoy it. But, much more, I hope you too take a moment off from the pressure of everyday life and enjoy the simple things.
Updates (at last)
The at last part, is directed at the hour…
It’s 1:30am here, and although it’s not that late, I was thinking this morning when I woke up, that it would be a perfect day for writing. I had little to do, no job, etc, so I was thinking that maybe I would have time to update both stories…
And then the errands came.
Regardless, I want to keep my word, so I delayed posting a new entry until I had a new chapter (even though I had something to post about).
So, please enjoy, a new chapter of Soulwanderer (it has been so long since I have touched this story…) and a new poem (lies again, I wrote it yesterday ), Drifting in pleasing agony (please don’t flame me for the tiny self-gloating of this piece)
Death and music part II (+new poem)
My time today has been somewhat chiseled away by my writing of a brand new poem, I was given the 1st and last sentence and had to fill in the rest. I hope you’ll enjoy it (or rather not >.< since it is not quite happy…). It is called “A sailor’s fate”.
Well, yesterday I carried on my rant about life so much that unfortunately I didn’t managed to finish my thoughts. And since I said that I don’t have that much of a time, it is a good opportunity for me to just add this one small thing today.
I wanted to expand a bit the topic, including the opposite view. And this would have been the perspective of Death (as an imaginary entity) and his views about music. At least, as writers and composers depict him.
Maybe through this, by sensing what and why, those people think about death, would give us the opportunity to see another reason for the happy music.
Again I shall use a familiar tune of mine that I believe that it describes many of the views that poets have about Death. It’s again a Cretan song, named “Death of a lyre-player”, written and sung and played (lyre) by K. Mountakis.
This song’s choice of music illustrates my point perfectly. It is a sad tune in almost all of its length, but on ~4min when we enter the 4th period of the lyrics, where Death explains why the lyre is not allowed to the hades, the music turns up really joyous. I like to see this as this: Death is a grim subject that is due to sad music, but Death himself explains that merry tunes are unfit for it, and so our lyre player decides to ’speed it up’ a bit
————–
In one’s lyre-player’s the courtyard, Death came.
And the lyre-player stood up, old wine to bring,
like (Death) was a valued friend, to lay him the table.
And he (the lyre-player) unhooked his lyre, sweet tune to play.
As if he (Death) was a roisterer, to make him have fun.
———–
-Leave the tray lyre-player and hang your lyre.
Hide your fiddle stick because you’re not getting it anymore.
And go to prepare, your best clothes wear,
because I’m taking you right now to get you to the underworld.
————
-Death, if you wish let me take my lyre,
where the cords talk and the ‘rider’* cries,
where the eaglebells* of the fiddle stick tell me
of the joys of the above world and the (joyful) escapades of the youths,
(of) the beauty of the girls and the grace of the gallantry,
and of an old love’s the commandment,
who double-ordered me the lyre to not forget,
when I’ll go to the underworld.
————-
-I won’t leave it to you, crazy (old man), better for me (that you) break it.
Because with your fiddle stick, you raise the dead,
and you will start playing little tunes to upset the men,
to drive nuts the girls, to shake up the old men,
and you will bolster the babies to cry for affection.
And everyone will hate the cells, the Hades castles,
and everyone would want to come up again.
—————-
*rider refers to the cordy part of the fiddle stick
*eaglebells are little bells traditionally hung by the fiddle stick so as to produce little noise when the player plays fast tunes.
We see here, that Death is afraid of merry music. Music is a representation of life, the liver the tune, the more close to the above world. So, maybe the cheerful music is something like a spell, like the laughter of children that banish away all fears of the old people. Happy music is there to lighten their burden, but not by making them forget death, but through making them remember life. Through chasing the dreadful thought away…
Death and music (+huge pages update)
First of all. Huge update. I managed to steal some time to post some of my earlier works. Those are the most recent ones, written in CAD forums by me. As they had little to edit, it was easier to do them first. On a sidenote, I have almost finished editing another ‘half-done’ (and by this i mean the first few chapters that are the intro, to what seems to be a huge novel… ) story of mine, and will post it soon. For now, enjoy all those (that is if you haven’t read them yet). Poems/Stories, can be found here ——————>
Secondly… On topic:
Death and music:
Death, such a heavy word. A word that inspires fear, something that we all run to avoid. And it is natural to try to escape, if one tries to rush towards it, he can only be named insane.
I am lucky to be born in a country that the custom is to deal with heavy subjects with music (Greece). Through dance we drown our sorrows (or so they say). Or at least we used to be, but the downfall of my country’s custom is not the subject of my rant tonight. Undoubtedly, there are many other places like here, but alas, I can speak only for the places I have been to.
Usually, when a song speaks about death its music is surprising cheery. I can’t tell why is that… Maybe the composer tried to sweeten the bitterness. I believe though, that this can only be attributed to two things. Either it’s the fear of death that compels them to write such rhythms, so as to misguide himself and his listeners, to draw their mind away from the subject, or it is the acceptance of it, the will to look Death in the eye, and laugh. To smile at him knowing that the time’s is up, the fare is closed.
In the end, those two completely opposite views are also the views that one can have for death. There will always be people that try to outrun this last stop. But some few will have managed to acquire the strength to understand that this life is just a fleeting moment. No, I’m not talking about the afterlife. I’m talking about the here and now, the moments that one can hold to his heart and treasure them. Some will say that I’m still too young to have many such moments. But I will argue that every breath that one takes is worthy to be engraved forever in our minds.
Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. After all, our human strength allows us to rise again after each fall. If we will have learned anything from this, it is optional. So when the end comes, there will be two kinds of people, the one that wasted his life trying to find something to remember and the one that truly lived his life. It will be the latter one, he, that will look Death in the eye and say “My life’s done. Here are the moments I value” and he will not show Him abstract snapshots of his life, but a complete video of it.
N. Kazantzakis, a famous Cretan writer has written in one of his works a small passage. A passage that now adorns his grave. It reads “I fear nothing, I hope (believe) nothing, I’m free”. Some will try to argue that hope is what drives us through our hardships. Of course they are right. But this is not the hopes that the writer speaks about. He speaks about the mentality that disallows us to look in the present. For if we fear to live our lives, for if we only aspire to live in a future that we will create, we lose the ability to live in the present. As another Greek writer (K. Kavafis) has written: (freely translated) “When you start to find your Ithaki (the destination of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey), wish for your journey to be long” Meaning, that its not the destination that counts, but what you learn while trying to get there, the present.
They say learn from your mistakes. But how can you learn from something if you don’t actually embrace and live it fully? When the time comes, what will you remember: the fall or the flower that lay in the ground that you fell upon?
I choose the flower.
But I feel that, as always, I have carried myself away from the initial subject. I was blabbering about music and death, about the merry themes of dreadful songs.
I like that. I like the marriage of the sorrowful lyrics with the cheerful music. It gives a completion. It shows us that the worst and the best go, and should go, hand by hand. The best example that springs instantly to my mind, is a traditional Cretan song named ‘As heavy as iron is’. It talks about death, but its music is so nice that, many times, the song is nicknamed ‘the hymn of the lute’. I suggest you hear it if you like traditional music. But to show to you the dichotomy, I’ll give you the (freely, it is a shame that English has so few words for some things…) translation of the lyrics:
As heavy as the iron is, aman aman*,
So heavy are the black clothes
Because I wore them too, my jasmine,
For a love that I had
Because I wore them too, aman aman,
For a love that I had
I had, and I lost it, lying world,
I remember, and I sigh.
Split open earth, so that inside I’ll enter, oh my baby,
The world to not have to look
Split open earth, so that inside I’ll enter, lying world,
The world (the people) to not have to look at
*it may sound gibberish, but the original word (aman) is an exclamation that describes great inner burden/pain, I couldn’t find an appropriate translation for this… if you heard the song, you can probably identify it as the word that continually resounds in it. It shows great agony as well as resignation.
Note: the uploaded version is a little variation of the translated one.
