A practical scientific find:

How to naturally reset your sleep cycle overnight

As I have been thinking much about evolution lately and about how its mechanisms guides some of our behavior as persons and as whole societies, I found the above result interesting.

I wonder if this has to do with Muslims fasting in Ramadan tending to stay up all night after they break their fast at sunset. Of course, they do so to have their “so7or” late at night, but do they become too awake and party late into the night because of the food clock taking over the regular daylight clock or is this simply a middle Eastern cultural phenomena? Some statistics would help.

For the past week, I have been reading and thinking about how to take the best photographs. Composition is what makes a photograph. So since a few friends are interested in this: I am sharing some nice online resources here.

A page that would make a great start is on Macteens: Simple introduction and the rule of thirds.

If you are a video person, Videojug is a must visit. Although I have seen better advice in other “rules of composition” pages, the whole array of photography-related topics presented there is satisfying.

Amateur Snapper is another very helpful resource, especially its rules page. I found its tips on taking portrait and architectural photography to be very concise and illuminating.  

The exposure basics at Picture Correct is a quick and to the point introduction. I haven’t explored the site much but you might find more nice things there.

Finally, there is also the Digital Photography School: whose 10 elements of composition show you a different take on things (here and here). Its portrait tips are just as unique while its 100 things I learned about Photography is fun to read.

The dPS has a weekly assignment forum which is a great idea for beginning photographers and it’s a great place to look at a variety of photos on the same subject taken by different people.

If you have the time, it might be a wonderful idea to start a photoblog, check out Cool Photoblogs for inspiration. 

My resolution is: shoot more and plan the shooting; compose more and crop less and shoot more portraits which capture the essence of the subject like this one:

Happy shooting :)

Audrey Kawasaki is an artist originally from LA. I stumbled upon her work looking for “gaze” on google images but her artwork has amazed me. Her blog is definitely a bookmark I will revisit often. This kind of art makes doing science seem so so boring. Here is her popular “She Who Dares”:

And here are my picks from here February 08 exhibit which she posted all online.

“Karamari”

“If Only You Were Here”

“After It’s Done”

“Tear me”

“Not the Only One”

You could also call it “Knowledge and explanation through reason, faith, or feeling (the mind, the soul, or the heart) in space and time” but my editor wouldn’t like that too much.

Somewhere in the common space connecting philosophy, religion, science, and art lies an earnest search for a sensible worldview. There is a gaze.

On the most basic levels, there are two questions: What can we and do we know? How do we and can we explain what we know? This is MY post-structuralist summary of world thought:

Egypto-Judeo: You can’t explain everything outside yourself but you can know (through faith) what you cant explain.

Chinese: You don’t need an explanation for anything.

Indian: When you reach Nirvana, you will know again all you knew before. But you can’t explain any of  it to anyone else.

Greco-Latin: Before and while in the process of explaining, explain the process of explaining.

Explaining = Showing = Teaching.

MY path forks in two here: Eastern and  Western:

Eastern.

Jesus: If you know love (God), He explains everything to you and makes everything perfect. Love is the ultimate knowledge and explanation. Pure beauty, pure theory.

(Some) Muslims: Knowledge is only from God. Explanation from us.

(Some) Sufis: All the knowledge and explanation you seek are in you. Look with your heart’s mind. Look with your soul, and not at it, and you will see the beautiful. I am the beautiful, therefore I am God.

http://www.phantasmaphile.com/2007/07/kako-ueda.html

Western.

Vatican Theology: Let’s try to know and explain everything through God and God through everything.

Renaissance Art and Science: I am only sure I know myself (I know I exist) so let me see what else I can know?

David Hume: Knowledge is an illusion. Explanation, an illusion of an illusion.

Keirkegaard: “The individual is the category through which, in a religious aspect, this age, all history, the human race as a whole, must pass.” I should try to explain myself first. Since only God knows me, only He can explain me.

Nietzsche: There will be a man who can explain himself, the ubermunch. Man is an abyss.

Modernist: I know myself but can I explain myself? Let me be confused for a bit.

Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophy:

The tools of explaining need to be examined. What we can’t explain, we must pass over in silence. (Original: “what we can’t speak of, we must pass over in silence.”)

“The world is all that is the case” : What is your collection of facts? What is your world?

Absurdist: Explain this!

Heiddeger: Even the simplest concept, Being, is an enigma.

We don’t know our tools of explaining well. Let’s deconstruct them; the pieces of language tell us more about history than philosophy. Only then the Truth (Aletheia) may unfold.

http://www.salvatierraimports.com/images/productimages/prints/Gaze.jpg

Post-Structuralist.

Foucault: Our languages tools hint at a changing underlying meta-system of thought. They carry within them the discourse between ideas which is the closest thing to the truth (one may hope for).

pomo: I know what my tools of explantation may tell me and I will try to find out what they have concealed. Many stories (expose) many systems of thought (hence) many explanations (hinting at) many knowledge (equals) many truths. This reminds me of the tower of Babel (Babylon).

Derrida: The language tools were not made for explaining. Their purpose was only socio-political/poetical: to construct a grand narrative. Do I want to deconstruct a grand narrative?

New age: Whoever you are, know with your heart and explain to me.

I know some of these might seem narrow-minded but that’s the price of compactness. Perhaps I will expand on this soon. If you feel there are essential links missing in this grand narrative of mine, let me know. I am often ready to see new perspectives.

Some people like Jean-Luc Godard say we live in a commercial age where the gaze have collapsed. Should we ask then: What is the next step in this path? What is your next step? What is mine?

A poem sung by Fairouz a long time ago: 

ذاكر يا ترى طورنا الأخضر            حيث كانت تفئ الطيور

يومها حبنا كان في حينا               قصة الورد لحن الزهور

ذاكر يا ترى شعري الأشقر           والشريطة والشال الحرير

حين خبئت في سمعي المرهف         همة الريح كفيض العبير

                       و بعد ترى من حكايا

                        وأثقل روض السمر

                         تحدث عنه الصبايا

                         يجئ  إليه  القمر

ذاكر يا ترى وعدك المقمر               بالرجوع و قطف الورود

أم تراه مضى حبنا و أنقضى            موسما مفردا لا يعود

and my translation: 

Do you remember, I wonder, our green mountain to where the birds returned?

That day our love was, to everyone, the story of flowers and melody of roses. 

Do you remember, I wonder, my blond hair, my ribbon, and my silk shawl,

When you hid in my ears the whisper of the wind like a flood of aroma? 

And still, I find those who copied me and burdened the night-talk gardens,

The girls talk of them, and the moon comes to them.

Do you remember, I wonder, your moon-lit promise of return and of picking roses?

Or do you think our love has gone and ended, one lone season not to return?

Sorry for the unavoidable translation of Samar into night-talk, but it is what it is.

I don’t know who the author is but would like to. Anyone?

Thanks to Mary for giving me the song, now I can’t get it out of my head. (She talks about the song’s circumstances here).

And finally a7eb ashkor Google Translate wel magma3 al la3′awe we ma3hom al mo3gam al wageez for letting me stay up an extra 30 minutes past 5 am.

News of Bush’s post-presidential career in a hardware store is all that is needed to make anyone feel better about their career choices.

He sets the bar high. Probably no one will be able to keep up with this guy.

Let’s go on a trip together.

 

The universe never asks.

It never tells us why too.

It is simply there, all bare, almost all

like the desert.

 

It goes on and on

we only take snapshots of it

 you with a camera

 me with data

 or a word or two.

 We see what we want to see.

But is what we see real?

 

You are a living piece of art.

Art is choice,

to pick what you like

but what you like

is not necessarily real.

Art is madness.

“The instant of decision is madness,”

so says Kierkegaard.

Our reality is always partial reality.

So we choose to include other bits by doing art.

Why do I write?

So that my writing may lead

to seas of dream

to oceans of imagination

to the unreal

to another nearly real

to the untouched

and untouchable.

For there to be a desert, there must be an artist.

Its silence powers her imagination.

 

The desert says “this is me,”

I have nothing to say about myself.

Hear the silence and the wind

and listen.

To me.

There is nothing but me.

For now,

For here,

I am me.

 

 

 

After reading two pieces about love by Mary and Koty, which should be linked soon, I was reminded of a basic characteristic of love and it was so shocking to me, and more shocking to remember how I used to view it earlier in my life, and this is: 

Love can’t be bought.

It also can’t be sold. Even if you try to sell your love, you can’t.

Therefore, it can’t be negotiated. There is no economy and there is no measure of love. Like St. Augustine used to say: “the only measure of love is to love without measure.”

It is also not a gift. A gift of love is pity. Charity is not love in my dictionary which is not the case for some Catholics.

It is almost forced on the lover. It is the neon light photons that a fly can’t help but be attracted to to meet its end in their source.

Does this mean love has an element of blindness to it? Must it have an element of blindness?

It is the connection between the lovers. And the blindness is perhaps the imperfection of communication? Or perhaps the effect of the lovers being always inside their love, and never observing it from the outside?

Can anyone observe their love from the outside? I think not.

Love is an enclosure. It’s also a liberation.

Love is an exile. Love is freedom.

A liberation from what? From which prison? And freedom to where? I would love to hear what everyone who reads this thinks love liberates or frees them from and where it leads them.

Thought of the day or for the end of days:

ستفتش عنها يا ولدي في كل مكان 
وستسأل عنها موج البحر وستسأل فيروز الشطآن 
وتجوب بحاراً وبحارا .. وتفيض دموعك أنهارا 
وسيكبر حزنك حتى يصبح أشجارا 

وسترجع يوماً يا ولدي 
مهزوماً مكسور الوجدان 
وستعرف بعد رحيل العمر 
بأنك كنت تطارد خيط دخان 

 من قارئة الفنجان – نزار قباني

Here is a mediocre English translation of the whole poem.

Update: I couldn’t help but translate the whole poem. Right now I can’t find a nice online database for translated poems. So here it is:

The Fortune Teller -by Nazar Qabani

She sat, with fear in her eyes,
contemplating my flipped coffee cup,
she said: don’t be sorrowful, my son.
Love is your destiny.

My son, he who has died for love
has died a martyr.

I have told fortunes many times, my son,
but I never saw a cup like yours

I have told fortunes many times, my son,
but I never found a sorrow like yours

You can live forever in the sea of love without sail
and all your life can be a book of tears
and you can remain a prisoner amid water and fire.

For despite all its fires,
despite all its history,
despite the sadness in us, day and night,
despite the wind, and despite the raining weather and the hurricane,
love will remain the sweetest destiny, my son.

In your life, my son, a woman.
Her eyes, praise Whom we worship.
Her lips, drawn like a grape cluster.
Her laugh, melodies and flowers,
and her mad gypsy hair
travels the whole world.

She might become, my son, a woman
that the heart loves;
she might become the world.

But your sky is raining
and your path is blocked, blocked.

Because the love of your heart, my son,
is sleeping in a monitored palace.
Who enters her room, who wants to marry her,
who nears her garden, who tries to undo her braids,
my son, is lost, lost.

You will look for her everywhere, my son
you will ask the waves of the sea about her
and the Turquoise stones of the shores,

you will roam oceans and oceans

and your tears will overflow into rivers

and your sorrow will grow into trees.

Then you will return one day, my son
defeated with a broken spirit

and you will know, after your days have gone,

that you have been chasing a trace of smoke.

The love of your heart, my son,
has no land, no country, no address,
and how hard it is, my son, to love a woman
without an address.

Updated: Feb 10.

Beautiful expression of thought in “Piece of Truth“ by Mary Shenouda.

Before you keep reading, go read it first. Otherwise you would be doing injustice to the following comment on it and possibly to Mary’s blogpost as well.

I am not sure if the following comments represent my mind’s idea of what truth is and how to get it, but they represent a closely related idea to say the least. This is a path many times branching into a question (or two or three or infinity), many times blurry, and many times simply still and unmoved under construction. It’s something like a backbone of (my) Philosophy. All I can say is ‘this is one way to look at what  Mary wrote.’ I hope you enjoy both pieces of writing. I can safely say that this is probably my best piece of writing, and perhaps thinking, to-date.

Beautiful Sophia:

First, an idea:

Truth is good.

“Ever since one opens their eyes in the morning, and the small rays of light penetrate the depth of darkness from the night before, a small piece of truth appears … truth can only exist in light”

Search for truth:

“As soon as one starts on their morning rituals – prayers, meditations or any other form of liturgy – one stumbles cross another piece of truth … the presence of something beyond the perceived world.”

1. Religion and ascribing to its dogma of the supernatural.

“Going out into the street, one looks around to see much happiness and misery in the world … the truth of pain and happiness are revealed”

2. The primality (as in both importance and precedence) of feelings. If it was up to me, I would have switched 1 and 2. A person has to perceive the world first and then think about something beyond her perception, but then again in religion many things are upside down.

“Heading off to work or study reveals a lot more truths … all those equations and technologies are small simple manifestations of the invisible science rules which govern our everyday lives.”

3. Science and its hidden mechanisms. Science is not invisible though, it’s only the hard to see. And some think that science is the only and most visible “thing”. 

“Eating reveals even more secrets and more truths … the amazing machine inside each of our simple-looking bodies which have the capacity to turn food into energy … turn the visible food into invisible energy.”

4. More machines: the machines in us.

“Talking shows one another side of the truth… the relative side of perspective … when one talk contradicts another talk.”

5. What is not a machine? Looking for the not-machine. Some find the soul. I find the individual subject and sometimes the possible impossibility of universality.

“Laughing is a magical activity that reveals some hidden truths … the deepest inner capacities to enjoy life are never as crystal clear as when someone’s laughing from the heart.”

6. The simplicity of wisdom and the love of life. Is this really looking for another not-machine? I think this is much more than a not-machine.

“But everyone goes through everyday life, goes through all these experiences, but hardly ever re-looks into what they call the TRUTH.”

7. The truth is so strong to come back from being forgotten. It’s like a phoenix that comes back to life younger only after going through a holy fire. Or it’s like “what they call the TRUTH” as in they never look into their own notion of truth. 

“I wonder if there can really be anything except ONE TRUTH”

8. The question of God, the unity in all truth, the unity of all truth, the unity supervening upon all things. Nice use of capitals. I wonder too.

“and we all are simple observers of little pieces of it which we stumble across on our way.”

9. Our participation as observers and higher-knowledge. I love how “stumble across” is used here. Great choice of word. Higher knowledge as accidental! It can’t be planned, this I am sure of and I totally agree to.

“I wonder if the only way to collect the dispersed pieces of truth is in fact for all humans to speak out their own pieces so the picture could be complete!……”

10. The communion of knowledge:

The communication of these truths is impossible or at the least very hard. Otherwise all-knowledge would be simple, but complex is more than simple. If it is less, if it is only simple then picture wouldn’t be needing any completion anyway.

Is the quest for completion a correct path? What is it a path to? Is this the person finding the stumbling across troublesome? Is this greed for and in “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”? Is this confusion, a mixing of ideas from different realms/contexts (the mathematical and the actual)? (I will have a post about my idea of what a realm is soon). What does Completeness mean?

I shall leave this last question for a future post. I have to say that Mary’s direction towards the end was a little too platonic for my taste.

Wow! The number comes out to be exactly ten! Is this a sign? :) 

Am I reading too much into this?