muzik

Only a few moths ago I thought about this for the first time, and I was ashamed at my ignorance: music is one of the most important parts of one human's life, yet one that is not so much acknoledged. Just try to imagine life without music... I can imagine life without electricity, life without the weel, but i can't quite imagine life without music. Music has been with us for quite a few millenia. It has fulfilled a healthy variety of purposes, and it still does that. My fragile little mind is in awe every time I start thinking about this.

I doubt there is any sane person that would not like music PERIOD... music is like food for the mind almost... everyone needs and likes it... it's just a question of what exactly are you expecting out of your music. I apologize for repeating myself but I am still astonished at the various roles it fulfills for each individual. Besides the obvious religious/cultural purposes that are astonishing by default, even looking at the "western world" you still see HUGE differences. On on side of the Athlantic you have a very powerful rock culture, compeeting (or threatened, depending on your perspective) by hip-hop. On the other you have club music... which is mainly electronic and "dance"... this is not to say that hip hop and rock dont have a presence... but the word of the street is electronic. It is not just that people like different music. These preference show underlying essential cultural differences. What europeans get and expect out of their music is completely opposed to what americans do. (yada yada... this is a gross generalization OF COURSE... i am speaking in large numbers... percentages etc...)
I cannot understand the rock concert culture, and they cannot under any circumstances understand club/electronic culture... they are excited over listening in concert to a band that was "hot" 30 years ago, while I am excited about going to a club and listening to a known song that was unrecognizebilly mutilated in their opinion... I go in for the feeling.. they go in for the... words? that are meaningless in this country anyway.. but yeah... INTERESTING STUFF I SAY...

Are we not gay?

Homosexuality is unnatural. It can't be normal. Gay mating results in nothing but pleasure, but has no benefit for humans. The human race will vanish if the entire society would embrace this depravation. Indeed, as good humans, we should tolerate the unfortunate deviants but never join them... you owe this to your race.

Homosexuality is genetic, you are born with it. You can't escape it till death. Your life as a gay person will be completely different than the life of more than 90% of the population... This is the cross they have to carry…

“I find individuals of the opposite sex completely sexually repugnant.”

Gay people are smart, witty, have good taste in clothes, food, they are intelligent and artistic; sensitive and sensible. They have initiated gay fashion, that says a lot about their influence. How many western urban respectable women don’t have a GBF?

These are just several of the stands on homosexuality. I don't side with any of them (they are extremes anyway.) However I can see that most people (between themselves and the image of themselves that they have to paint in different circles) need to juggle with these 3 main poses... Everyone has them in very fluid "concentrations" that change depending on the environment they find themselves in... So much people think of “their stand” that the true opinions are rarely expressed and most often forgotten or pushed in dark corners of your mind.

The gay issue has reached an impasse. The dialogue has become close to inexistent. Discussion about (and with) "gay" is stuck between taboo, ridicule and cliché. I doubt that this is anyone's fault in particular... NOR it is the society's fault (sociology has good observations but it becomes trivial when it blames society for any societal malfunctions.) Talking about homosexuality has become one (maybe a few?) beaten path(s)... talking to homosexuals has so far resulted in a joyful presentation of the gay perspective and how misunderstood it was. Anger and frustration ensue. Any attempts to digress and explore other dimensions of homosexuality have materialized in abrupt ends of conversations. The defense mechanisms trigger, and people suddenly become offended at the ignorant straight person "questioning" their sincerity and their homosexuality.

We live in an environment conducive to this. It is what we do, what we think and what we are taught that maintain the social constructions in place (they are equally hurtful if they trigger either a repression of homosexuality or embracing it as the single most defining part of one's identity.)

What if all these would disappear... what if the build-up of what is socially acceptable masculine, feminine and right would all be erased from our minds? I would bet money and maybe a limb that homosexual sex will occur at similar levels (if not higher) as it does right now. The demographics would be very different. While a number of gay would probably embrace bisexuality, most certainly a number of people that call themselves straight right now will follow their natural impulses. Anyone has, at one point, thought about a same sex person “DAMN! They’re good looking!” but the thought stops there, because everything around you tells you to block it. People need affection and love from both men and women. Both straights and gays repress one of their needs…

The Romanian in the West ("Romanul in strainatate")

This is a personal translation of a very interesting article I read a couple of days ago. I believe it applies to vast number of people that travel/live in other countries than the ones they grow up in and still maintain strong connections to their departure country.

The original title is "Romanul in strainatate." Andrei Plesu is the author: a Romanian scholar who explored several fields, but is known more for his writings in cultural anthropology and philosophy. He was briefly involved in politics as Minister of Culture and Foreign Affairs Minister. The article may have acquired my personal bias in the translation process. Perhaps I will update an improved, more readable version soon.

He makes an enormous amount of claims (that are more or less obvious). So I will comment on it in several days.

"Any Romanian outside the country experiences, more or less willingly, both the intensity and the ridicule of the double identity (“dedublare”). From this perspective, to travel can be equated with spending some time in the chambers of schizophrenia. You are in two places at the same time: drawn by the prestige and astonishing unexpected of one and by the comfortable domestic routine of the other. You can’t hold back from completely plunging in the novelty of where you are without craving for the scents and sounds from home. Since the emergence of the internet, this experience of the bi-location is yet more perverted. You are confronted with two series of news papers and breaking news bulletins. A perfect exercise of relativism… is reducing things at their “real scale.” The Diaspora lives this situation with maximum intensity that often has destabilizing effects. Even a short stay outside the borders, can have a similarly devastating result.

I have met compatriots that are so essentially different “at home” and “in exile” that it becomes close to impossible for one to estimate their true identity, to distinguish between the authentic and disguised. At home, the exiled is a combination of agrarian sentimentalism and pedagogical delirium. He comes from “the West” from the “normal world.” Consequently, he knows better than you, the un-traveled and uncultured individual at home about democracy, science, and any other area of academics. He is irritated by what he sees, critical… frantic even. On the other hand, in his adoptive country he is the complete opposite. He is self-conscious, obsessed with being marginalized, careful not to jeopardizing his future. Insecure, compliant, hypocritical, a “foreigner” to the others and tormented by a “foreign” language (regardless of how well he speaks it) the individual prefers being passive rather than daring, submissive rather than defying. He winds up developing an interior aversion towards the hosts. In Romania he is the advocate of the West, while in the West he is the teacher of “Eastern-ness”. In Romania he is sick of the characteristic “balkanism,” yet in the west he is sickened by the “liberal fundamentalism,” and the excessive secularization and political fairness. The ideal is of course, to obtain the western retributions while being a super-star among his people. The common result is often a double dislocation. It is distressing to contemplate the spectacle of some decently gifted individuals that are too often disfigured by an odd arrogance emergent from defeat. The feeling of defeat grips them too often: even when they had proved their edge in their niche. They don’t want to be mediocre among the “high-end people of the west.” They would much rather like to shine solitarily at home, where all sorts of worthless people, instead of praising and appreciating them, take their rightful societal spots.

If they are religious they are faced with the hell itself: deep inside they need to comprise needed vanity and required submissiveness. They need to accommodate the necessary culture of love in a poisonous mindset of hate. Angry (alternatively or simultaneously) with both their co-nationals and with the Westerners, intoxicated with frustrations and untamed ambitions, switching from grand rides at home to muddy crawls at their new home, depressed, suborned… these people are the epithemy of misery. They are not comfortable anywhere anymore, they become connected to their places through nothing but pure resentment. Before 1989, the Iron Curtain and the “communists” were entirely to be blamed for such torn destinies. Today however, despite the disappointments and difficulties Romania provides its citizens with, the fault becomes individual. Its source: vanity, provincialism, elitism and egotism. [...]"

PS: I do apologize, as my translation fails to capture the entire subtlety of the article, but I believe I preserved the essence.

Romanians and "kinda sucky" Americans

I just noticed how I described myself and the blog... "I am Romanian" ... I am "another Romanian student"... I wish I had angry things to say about this, but I don't. I was educated by everything happening around me, to be and feel like this... since I was 2yo. I am glad when I see how this identity was created but at the same time, I am a lost cause... they completely corruped my soul... It is almost impossible to change my mind-set, values, etc... from the organic feeling of belonging to the nation I was born part of.

WTF... i don't know why I am rambling about this. I just saw one of my compatriots' online image (ie. profile) in which he was going on and on about how Romanians are better(I think the reason was that "romanians go clubbing") and Americans kinda suck... And I have met a few other people that explained to me what wrong of a perception americans have ab their country... asking if they have pizza and sponge bob, when in fact they go to a very good private school, and many(I am pretty sure they said "most," actually) people go to such schools.

They were all reminders of me the first year here... how easy it is not to see our own damn forests because of the trees around us. Just a flagdizzle for the ones that are tempted to do the same... bitching about someone else's forest without even knowing what's behind the first line of trees of your forest sounds just plain stupid for any mildly-intelligent person.