I am doing fantastic! In the third week of a 9 month course on wood frame construction in beautiful historic mediaeval Parthenay. The teacher is totally a real-world person who is all about profitability, efficiency, low-fatigue, environmental responsibility. We are learning (theoretically and practically) how to build a house from A to Z, starting with making our own architectural designs (we worked a bit on his house, and are working currently on some simple cafeteria tables).
The course alternates between a few weeks at the school (class/workshops) and a few weeks with an enterprise. I was fortunate enough to find two enterprises in the same village (named Burie), and even more fortune to find lodging a hundred meters from the two enterprises with a friend I made at Vipassana France back in March. He sold his pizzeria in Bordeaux and bought a huge old stone and wood house in very poor shape for very cheap money, and is slowly renovating it. In exchange for my own private room in the house, I will help him renovate the house (for example there is a 1 meter square hole in the tiled roof). Wherever I turn, there is opportunity to learn how to construct and problem solve! Stephanie is still working at a vineyard near Cognac until September, and after hopes to do a year course in organic agriculture advising, advising farmers, supermarkets, cafeterias, etc. on how to turn organic.
I am in great shape, am helping out here at the youth hostel with the garden and also with turning an old busted piano into a bar. My French is great, and my ability to focus is very agreable!!
Stephanie is totally fantastic, I do not see a horizon to our relationship even from the top of a tower.
My social life has become lots more busy, and this is the reason I haven't made the time to write here more often. I haven't forgotten you! Talk soon!
Cheers,
Maurizio
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Last page before next chapter
So I went to visit the school on Wednesday in beautiful little Parthenay, after practicing a motivation speech the night before, to find that I was already accepted, just need to figure out logistics. Great! New adventure is set to begin on monday (so soon!). We go and check out the student lodgement to find out that there remains just one chamber free for monday. Lucky me. It is two km away, and is a nice atmosphere, with people from everywhere, cooks who cook international foods. Projectors for watching THE WORLD CUP. Computers with internet (meaning I can write with you more often, actually have the time to put more effort into my writing). So this afternoon I finish washing windows for my final office, and it is a big job. Gotta run for now and hop on my moped!
Cheers,
Maurizio
Cheers,
Maurizio
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The nooks only window washers see
Washing windows. Precision, speed, detail.
I started to destroy an intricate spiderweb in some left-behind top right corner of a window that, since it doesn't affect profits, lacks human attention. I stopped immediately as I observed a not small spider scramble for cover. I watched her disappear from sight and moved my squeegee elsewhere, leaving most of the web intact. I am happy there is little chance that my boss will find this blog post and translate it.
To be forgotten, to be useless. In reality, nothing is useless, everything plays a part in a big web, one way or another. But in the capitalist perspective, there are many things useless, many frontiers to the capitalistic consciousness. My first instinct is to think: good, leave that forest alone, for example. The less we are aware of, with our collective ability to make poor, short-sighted decisions, the better. But our effects on the world around us extend far beyond our narrowed consciousness. In some cases, our consciousness can be used to protect something or someplace from the negative effects of our perspectives.
Cleaning windows, I see many spots that rarely receive human awarness and care, like remote islands which rarely but excitedly receive seafaring travellers. The dust collects, and these remote nooks start to develop their own micro-ecosystem. On the visible level, it is often the entrepreneurial, adventurous and solitary spider inhabits these spaces, and the relative top of the food chain. The unfortunate flying insect that blazes an aerial trail into these nooks is next on the food chain. However life in the human offices and factories is hard for the insects, and often I find the dried exoskeleton of spiders, as well as their prey.
It is sometimes not easy to get a window clean. It requires a sufficient amount of soap and water, followed by a perfect swipe of the squeegee, applying constant pressure to push the dirt, water and soap all the way from one border of the window to another, on BOTH sides of the window. Factors such as muscle memory, muscle fatigue, position of the body of the window washer in adaptation to various obstacles, humidity, temperature, amount of water applied, amount of soap applied, sharpness of the edge of the rubber blade on the squeegee and lack of little nicks or irregularities, pressure of the squeegee against the window, angle of the rubber blade in relation to the window, speed of the swipe, dirt on the window, paint or other objects stuck on the window which cause the rubber blade to lose contact with the window momentarily. And the economy and such require that one works at a constant high speed, big windows, small windows, interior, exterior, ankle height, shoulder height, two story height, size of a computer monitor or size of a wall, sliding door windows, windows with manual or electronic screens, shutters, blinds.
I enjoy the little places I get to explore, whether it is a roof or some closet or corner. Sometimes it is hard to find the rhythm required to work at a speed that satisfies my boss. When it is found, I can sustain it for hours. Sometimes that rhythm extends beyond work hours, and when I have a lunch break I eat and drink and idle at the same energetic rhythm. Sometimes I return home and still have this rhythm, and so I go outside and work in the garden or go running or pushups, chinups, situps. When this frantic pace ends, I am usually quite low on energy, dragging my feet and my mind around.
This rhythm is the rhythm that many bosses in many different lines of work require from their employees. Whether it is harvesting, cleaning windows, packing boxes, sorting vegetables, cutting wood, making a business deal. This is the capitalistic rhythm. Most industrialized governments, including France and Canada, make a deal with their citizens: You find a career, or work various jobs, you learn this rhythm, you master it, and you maintain it for between 35 and 45 hours a week for 35 to 45 years. If you accomplish this, along with giving some of your salary every month for all these years to the government, you then have a pension. Then you can slow down your rhythm, stop working for your money, go at your own, natural rhythm (IF YOU CAN EVER FIND IT AGAIN), and get a modest monthly salary to live on.
We'll see where it all goes. What happens in the future.
Hey, you know, bees and other social insects like ants and termites keep a superiorly frantic rhythm until their last heartbeat. I haven't observed beavers, but I am sure they don't lounge about either. Neither do birds, nor reptiles. It seems to be the larger animals that exhibit more lazy and relaxed rhythms. However, animals that are food to many other animals can't afford to relax much. Dinner is the prey which relaxed at the wrong time.
Us humans, who eats us for dinner? The lion in the zoo? Why must we keep a frantic pace on the tips of our toes to survive? We are the top of the food chain, by far. No other animal can press a button and destroy everything. Is it a very obsolete instinct, one which helped us survive the savannah and the ice age and war?
Ah, right, we have to keep this pace because those other competitive countries are trying to develop an even more frantic rhythm.
How romantic, how balancing, how lonely it would be to be left behind in a nook, or on a forgotten island. To accidentily fall off the conveyor belt into the dark depths below, the Land of the Dust. How childish! Many of us had the liberty to go at our own pace when we were children. Before school started, when we got home from school, at recess. That is, those of us who could develop independence from the collective pace of our peers, or those of us who were ostracized by those peers and were left to our own devices.
Is the anti-society, anti-capitalist longing really a longing for a return to childhood? To no longer peform as a cog in a wheel, to create ever bigger and remote structures with ever more powerful leverage on the planet and on ourselves. To bring things down to the personal, observable, immediate level. To explore our imagination, not just while our bodies work our careers, not just distracting ourselves from our job, but exploring our imagination, uninhibited, with our bodies and minds, turning everything into an adventure.
I would like write here a thought that came to me about atrophy, or the inevitable decay of things. We are, constantly, in the middle of creating more clever and technologically advanced ways of extending the lifespan and maintaining and deepening the comfort of every atmosphere our body enters, and ensuring the fullness of the stomache and the satisfaction of our emotions. It used to be that only the physically strong and dexterous, disciplined people survived. Like other animals. In many cases in history, nothing short of heroism was required to survive. prudence, patience, determination. Strength of character, ability to sacrifice, stoicism, diligence, persistence.
Today, in our society, we don't need strong personalities to survive. We don't need patience, we don't need physical strength or agility. We don't need self-discipline. We don't need instinct. We just wait for the green light and stay within the lines. We just read manuals, we just call experts, we obey laws and rules and signs. We herd ourselves like shepherds herd sheeps, so we can maintain a level of immaturity and mediocrity until our body gives out, and ensure that our future generations can do so as well.
And this is atrophy, the atrophy of the human species. We don't need all five senses to live eighty years, we don't need maturity, we don't need instincts, we don't need wisdom, we don't need forsight, we don't need sacrifice (except, of course, if you will, the biggest sacrifice of all, that which we are in the middle of rendering obsolete), we don't need self-discipline, we don't need awareness. It is an urge towards an unfathomable collective laziness that drives us, a reduction and shameful simplification of 'human being' into a biological machine run by childish emotional urges.
And so, generation after generation, we lose attention span, we lose muscle development, we lose endurance, we lose instinct, we lose self-awareness, and we ensure that we can live longer and longer in these degenerate states. We are making ourselves into mindless meat machines.
Someone, feel free to discuss this with me, show me another perspective, because there are always others.
I think this is a attempt at a rationalization of a desire towards my personal independence from the state, my self-sufficiency, self-discipline, being able to survive by the efforts of my own wits and hands.
Stephanie continues to discovers new white hairs on my head. I love her.
Cheers,
Maurizio
I started to destroy an intricate spiderweb in some left-behind top right corner of a window that, since it doesn't affect profits, lacks human attention. I stopped immediately as I observed a not small spider scramble for cover. I watched her disappear from sight and moved my squeegee elsewhere, leaving most of the web intact. I am happy there is little chance that my boss will find this blog post and translate it.
To be forgotten, to be useless. In reality, nothing is useless, everything plays a part in a big web, one way or another. But in the capitalist perspective, there are many things useless, many frontiers to the capitalistic consciousness. My first instinct is to think: good, leave that forest alone, for example. The less we are aware of, with our collective ability to make poor, short-sighted decisions, the better. But our effects on the world around us extend far beyond our narrowed consciousness. In some cases, our consciousness can be used to protect something or someplace from the negative effects of our perspectives.
Cleaning windows, I see many spots that rarely receive human awarness and care, like remote islands which rarely but excitedly receive seafaring travellers. The dust collects, and these remote nooks start to develop their own micro-ecosystem. On the visible level, it is often the entrepreneurial, adventurous and solitary spider inhabits these spaces, and the relative top of the food chain. The unfortunate flying insect that blazes an aerial trail into these nooks is next on the food chain. However life in the human offices and factories is hard for the insects, and often I find the dried exoskeleton of spiders, as well as their prey.
It is sometimes not easy to get a window clean. It requires a sufficient amount of soap and water, followed by a perfect swipe of the squeegee, applying constant pressure to push the dirt, water and soap all the way from one border of the window to another, on BOTH sides of the window. Factors such as muscle memory, muscle fatigue, position of the body of the window washer in adaptation to various obstacles, humidity, temperature, amount of water applied, amount of soap applied, sharpness of the edge of the rubber blade on the squeegee and lack of little nicks or irregularities, pressure of the squeegee against the window, angle of the rubber blade in relation to the window, speed of the swipe, dirt on the window, paint or other objects stuck on the window which cause the rubber blade to lose contact with the window momentarily. And the economy and such require that one works at a constant high speed, big windows, small windows, interior, exterior, ankle height, shoulder height, two story height, size of a computer monitor or size of a wall, sliding door windows, windows with manual or electronic screens, shutters, blinds.
I enjoy the little places I get to explore, whether it is a roof or some closet or corner. Sometimes it is hard to find the rhythm required to work at a speed that satisfies my boss. When it is found, I can sustain it for hours. Sometimes that rhythm extends beyond work hours, and when I have a lunch break I eat and drink and idle at the same energetic rhythm. Sometimes I return home and still have this rhythm, and so I go outside and work in the garden or go running or pushups, chinups, situps. When this frantic pace ends, I am usually quite low on energy, dragging my feet and my mind around.
This rhythm is the rhythm that many bosses in many different lines of work require from their employees. Whether it is harvesting, cleaning windows, packing boxes, sorting vegetables, cutting wood, making a business deal. This is the capitalistic rhythm. Most industrialized governments, including France and Canada, make a deal with their citizens: You find a career, or work various jobs, you learn this rhythm, you master it, and you maintain it for between 35 and 45 hours a week for 35 to 45 years. If you accomplish this, along with giving some of your salary every month for all these years to the government, you then have a pension. Then you can slow down your rhythm, stop working for your money, go at your own, natural rhythm (IF YOU CAN EVER FIND IT AGAIN), and get a modest monthly salary to live on.
We'll see where it all goes. What happens in the future.
Hey, you know, bees and other social insects like ants and termites keep a superiorly frantic rhythm until their last heartbeat. I haven't observed beavers, but I am sure they don't lounge about either. Neither do birds, nor reptiles. It seems to be the larger animals that exhibit more lazy and relaxed rhythms. However, animals that are food to many other animals can't afford to relax much. Dinner is the prey which relaxed at the wrong time.
Us humans, who eats us for dinner? The lion in the zoo? Why must we keep a frantic pace on the tips of our toes to survive? We are the top of the food chain, by far. No other animal can press a button and destroy everything. Is it a very obsolete instinct, one which helped us survive the savannah and the ice age and war?
Ah, right, we have to keep this pace because those other competitive countries are trying to develop an even more frantic rhythm.
How romantic, how balancing, how lonely it would be to be left behind in a nook, or on a forgotten island. To accidentily fall off the conveyor belt into the dark depths below, the Land of the Dust. How childish! Many of us had the liberty to go at our own pace when we were children. Before school started, when we got home from school, at recess. That is, those of us who could develop independence from the collective pace of our peers, or those of us who were ostracized by those peers and were left to our own devices.
Is the anti-society, anti-capitalist longing really a longing for a return to childhood? To no longer peform as a cog in a wheel, to create ever bigger and remote structures with ever more powerful leverage on the planet and on ourselves. To bring things down to the personal, observable, immediate level. To explore our imagination, not just while our bodies work our careers, not just distracting ourselves from our job, but exploring our imagination, uninhibited, with our bodies and minds, turning everything into an adventure.
I would like write here a thought that came to me about atrophy, or the inevitable decay of things. We are, constantly, in the middle of creating more clever and technologically advanced ways of extending the lifespan and maintaining and deepening the comfort of every atmosphere our body enters, and ensuring the fullness of the stomache and the satisfaction of our emotions. It used to be that only the physically strong and dexterous, disciplined people survived. Like other animals. In many cases in history, nothing short of heroism was required to survive. prudence, patience, determination. Strength of character, ability to sacrifice, stoicism, diligence, persistence.
Today, in our society, we don't need strong personalities to survive. We don't need patience, we don't need physical strength or agility. We don't need self-discipline. We don't need instinct. We just wait for the green light and stay within the lines. We just read manuals, we just call experts, we obey laws and rules and signs. We herd ourselves like shepherds herd sheeps, so we can maintain a level of immaturity and mediocrity until our body gives out, and ensure that our future generations can do so as well.
And this is atrophy, the atrophy of the human species. We don't need all five senses to live eighty years, we don't need maturity, we don't need instincts, we don't need wisdom, we don't need forsight, we don't need sacrifice (except, of course, if you will, the biggest sacrifice of all, that which we are in the middle of rendering obsolete), we don't need self-discipline, we don't need awareness. It is an urge towards an unfathomable collective laziness that drives us, a reduction and shameful simplification of 'human being' into a biological machine run by childish emotional urges.
And so, generation after generation, we lose attention span, we lose muscle development, we lose endurance, we lose instinct, we lose self-awareness, and we ensure that we can live longer and longer in these degenerate states. We are making ourselves into mindless meat machines.
Someone, feel free to discuss this with me, show me another perspective, because there are always others.
I think this is a attempt at a rationalization of a desire towards my personal independence from the state, my self-sufficiency, self-discipline, being able to survive by the efforts of my own wits and hands.
Stephanie continues to discovers new white hairs on my head. I love her.
Cheers,
Maurizio
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