The function of the university

Oh, wouldn't that have been nice, if the following was what we would have gained from our education?

"What you have done here at the university, if you spent your time well, is to cultivate the intelligence and sensitivity you will need to meet those challenges, and thus to make life better and fuller and richer across a wide spectrum -- both for yourselves and for those whose lives you will touch and shape and improve. That is the true freedom, the positive freedom to achieve things, to build a life that can pretend to happiness." -- Lanier Anderson

"The function of the university is not simply to teach breadwinning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre of polite society; if is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment from which forms the secret of civilization.
...
The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by Plato, that formed the trivium and quadrivium, and is to-day laid before the freedmen’s sons by Atlanta University. And this course of study will not change; its methods will grow more deft and effectual, its content richer by toil of scholar and sight of seer; but the true college will ever have but one goal,—not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes." -- W.E.B. DuBois

(Frome the course The Art of Living, at the Stanford University)

Warm enough to trust...

با خودم فکر کردم٬ این طفلکی مال این‌جا نیس. نصف بهار این‌جاها براش هنوز زمستونه. هنوز وقت خوابشه. گرمسیریه. از سرما می‌ترسه. آفتاب باید خیلی گرم باشه که اعتماد کنه. ...

I though, this little thing does not belong to this region. Here half the spring is still like winter for her. It is still sleeping time for her. She is tropical, she is afraid of cold. The sun should shine very warm for her to trust....

(Source)

Bronze Statue with Feet of Clay

A bronze statue with feet of clay ...
A lot of varnish with little root ...

... that is what I hope I won't end up to be.

Exalt your reason to the height of passion...

...Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through it's own daily resurrection and like the phoenix rise above it's own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
-- Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet, On Reason and Passion)

It is all about balance... all about being "the lover of all your elements"!

True source of education...

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
-- Shakespeare (As You Like It, II.i)

Providence

"Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave betimes, let be." -- Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act V. Scene II)

Let be...

A Deeply Religious Man!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."
-- Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)

This is just a fantastic way of describing true religiosity! And I can't agree more with this sentence: "Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." It is a pity though, that among the first things most people lose, regardless of their being an atheists, agnostics or blindly religious, are seeking, wondering and marveling.

You can read an abridged version of the essay here.

It is not something discovered: it is something molded

Happiness! It is useless to seek it elsewhere than in this warmth of human relations. Our sordid interests imprison us within their walls. Only a comrade can grasp us by the hand and haul us free.

And these human relations must be created. One must go through an apprenticeship to learn the job. Games and risk are a help here. When we exchange manly handshakes, compete in races, join together to save one of us who is in trouble, cry aloud for help in the hour of danger - only then do we learn that we are not alone on earth.

Each man must look to himself to learn the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something moulded. These prison walls that the age of trade has built around us, we can break down. We can still run free, call to our comrades, and marvel to hear once more, in response to our call, the chant of the human voice. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery (Terre des Hommes, aka. Wind, Sand and Stars)

I have recently and gradually come to learn that it is such a greatness, beyond measure, to grasp the true value of human relations.

And good relations and true friendships are definitely molded through persistence and courage, not achieved over night out of sheer luck,... almost everything is so. Talking of luck and chance, Salman has an interesting post in his bugs of life series, called, "Chance is not just out of chance". Interesting read (in Persian).

Rain or rainbow... and what about pain?

"There could be no rainbow, without a little rain." -- Susan Polis Schutz*

And pain... some say it's the only education worth having! However, perhaps it is also important to keep in mind that

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." -- Dalai Lama*

* Both quotes seems be old sayings somehow rephrased by the mentioned people.

Becoming of use?

I was thinking that in the recent past, I've been spending too much of my time just thinking about my fears or writing seethes here. I was thinking about this quote from Knuth today:

"The important thing, once you have enough to eat and a nice house, is what you can do for others, what you can contribute to the enterprise as a whole."

After the first month here, which was more of a survival effort, I think it is time for me to try to make myself useful in some way. I really don't know what I can do that would be of any benefit to others though, but I should start from somewhere... (any suggestion?). Perhaps having the following quote in mind as the ultimate goal could help:

"Be the change you want to see in the world." -- Ghandi

Quo Vadis?

Zurich, an alpine city with fantastic sceneries, classy transportations, strangest German dialect, and fantastic chocolates and cheese!

I was going back to my dorm a few nights ago, it was exactly midnight and for the first time since I had arrived in Zurich, I looked up at the night's sky. The W, or Cassiopeia, was right above my head. I remembered the first time I looked at Stockholm's night sky, and how shocked I was for noticing that most everything was not at the place it always used to be; there Ursa Minor was almost above my head and I could see constellations that were not supposed to be seen in the sky at the same time (not supposed to be seen at my hometown's night sky that is).

When you move around, many things change in your environment, the look and feel of the place, the buildings, the signs, the plants, the way people dress and most obvious of all, the language. But for me, none of all those has ever had an effect as powerful as noticing the changes in the sky. It is like the final verdict, that proves that I have moved, and I am in a new place now!

It is just the contrary of a saying we have in Persian, "Where ever you go, the color of sky would be the same!". It is definitely not so, in the outside at least. But perhaps in the inside, skies stay the same. My internal sky has stayed the same for a long time now, it is gray, with a touch of pink!

= = =

Vienna, good old Vienna. It was a weird feeling, walking by the consuming silence of Donna (Danube) again, remembering the meditating nights I had, gazing at the dancing lights of the bridges over the calm flow of the water. The water looked so calm, but it surely carried the huge burden of what it had seen on its way since it had left the springs, the falls it had passed, the floods it had caused..., but it still had a long way to go; and so did I, and so did I.

= = =

Tehran, the hot city of dry eyes and lost cries.... The capital of my country, whose state and affairs hurt me, just like most other things I love do.

The stay in Tehran this time was just a simple one day transit stay, perhaps not that simple though. Our flight from Mashhad to Tehran was scheduled to be at 7:45pm, and we got home in Tehran at 5am next day. Mashhad's airport was just like a war zone that night, I have traveled quite a lot with plane, but I had never experienced such a havoc. The result of it for me was three broken nails (finger and thumb) and a twisted wrist!

= = =

Mashhad, home. It is already three weeks since I left it again, but it looks like a year. I don't know how on earth I survived the last days, I just have a vague recollection of trying to stay sane, keep my face straight, and handle what I had to handle. And also of reciting these verses from a poem by Saadi (here is the song):

ای ساربان آهسته رو کآرام جانم می​رود
وان دل که با خود داشتم با دلستانم می​رود

من مانده​ام مهجور از او بیچاره و رنجور از او
گویی که نیشی دور از او در استخوانم می​رود
...
او می​رود دامن کشان من زهر تنهایی چشان
دیگر مپرس از من نشان کز دل نشانم می​رود
...
در رفتن جان از بدن گویند هر نوعی سخن
من خود به چشم خویشتن دیدم که جانم می​رود

Fantastic, is much less interesting!

"In this I owe a debt to G.K. Chesterton, who pointed out on many occasions that the fantastic, when looked at properly, is much less interesting (and a lot less fantastic) than the everyday.

Take Magical lights, for example, A wizard snaps his finger and light appears. Where's the fun in that? He's only doing what wizards do. But a bunch of apes weren't doing what apes do when they learned, over half a million years, how to take the universe apart and put it together again so that a bit of it was now th electric light bulb."
-Terry Pratchet, The Art of the Discworld

I was thinking about something along the same line (or just similar) as the above today. As my departure day is getting closer, I was looking at my bookshelf with regret that there are lots and lots that I should have read and again I'm going to leave all these books behind, unread, in my library and go to another place, with yet bigger libraries that I won't be able to read even one thousandth of it during my whole life.

For a second I wished I could learn it all in ein augenblick, something similar to what people were doing on-board the Nebuchadnezzar (remember Trinity learning how to pilot a helicopter?). But again I thought, where would the fun be in knowing that much, in learning everything in an instant? I think, the greatest joys of life come not from the things you've always known, but they come at the moments when you understand or realize something that you've been trying to understand for sometime. All the adventure, the excitement and everything is in the pursuit of knowledge, the knowledge by itself is perhaps just boring!

Muscle failures!

Have your muscles ever failed you? Well, that is a very broad question, you can say which muscle and considering that your body has more than 630 muscles, you can make a very long list of how each of your muscles can fail and how that could affect you! I'll bring a few samples here:

If your heart's muscles fail, you will have a cardiac arrest! That is the sort of muscle failure I've had in my nightmares in the past 12 years!

Have you ever heard of the phrase “my knees failed me”? That's actually the tight muscles that fail you. It is when under tremendous pressure (emotional or physical) you are unable to move or just fall down. It is quite common when you are faced with a great fear, or you are extremely nervous.

If your tongue and throat muscles fail you, you’d be unable to utter something comprehensible. It usually happens when you have a good deal to say, but some intensified emotions or confusions lock your voice in! One could also experience it while dreaming. It has happened to me many times, that while dreaming (or rather having a nightmare), I start screaming and I feel that my throat muscles are failing me since I don't hear my own voice and usually at this point I wake up!

The most interesting is perhaps when your facial muscles fail you. They can fail you both ways, to reflect your feelings when you really want to cover things up, and to fail you in showing what your true feelings are when you want to show them! Having control to restrain your facial muscles is sometimes good, to be able to keep a neutral face. But it gets really frustrating when your _trained to be neutral face_, don't budge to reflect your simplest feelings, like smiling!

Interesting, isn't it?

The Road Not Taken

Today I saw a poem by Robert Frost that I had sent to a friend 13 month ago.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Now that I look back at it, those days I was tormenting myself with the question whether I was taking the right road. Although I was trying to push the question to be about coming to Stockholm or going to Canada, deep down it was still more about to go or not to go. Almost everybody I knew had disapproved of my decision in a way or another, but I had dragged myself through it all, and as the time grew nearer, I was more in doubt about everything. The last week before my departure, all my muscles were tense, I didn't like to talk to people about the fact that I'm leaving, and I had postponed packing to the very last minute. As a result of all the tension, I missed doing a lot of things. I didn't properly say good bye to some friends and relatives and I didn't finish some of the work I had to do before leaving, like re-setting my parent's computer and lots of other things. Now that I think of it, I should have really invited my friends out and properly thanked them and say good bye, but I was so reluctant to bring up the matter, so everything went messy. The funny thing is I'm still afraid, afraid to death of how I'm proceeding with my life.

But I have come to realize that this fear and tension doesn't have much to do with the road I'm in, I would have it no matter which road I had taken. Why all this tension and fear? I really don't know… perhaps it is the restlessness of my soul or because of my agonizing self-disdain.

Anyway, if nothing, coming here gave me the chance to realize (in practice, I might have known this, but experience is something else) that the real question is not where I am or where I go, it is who I am and how I am. I hope yet another move reveals more of this mystery to me.

When I told my father about my decision to go to Zurich (which he was partially advising me against), he said "Yeah, that is my Maryam, you've been like this since you started walking, you couldn't stay put, or where everybody else was. If we were at a picnic, after some time, you would have gone 10 meters away, and if we joined you, you would have departed after a while again."

So I guess I just need to make peace with myself.

Die Deutschen und die Arbeit

These are some common German sayings:

"Arbeite nur, die Freude kommt von selbst." (Work only, the joy comes automatically.)
"Ohne Arbeit früh bis spät kann dir nichts geraten. Neid sieht nur das Blumenbeet, aber nicht den Spaten." (Without work early until late nothing can turn out for you. Envy sees only the flower patch, but not the spade.)

Lately, I've been trying to to follow this model. Yet "Arbeit ist das halbe Leben!". So, I'm living a half life!

Where are the mirrors?

Following the previous post Do you have a mirror? I received a comment from my brother mentioning another sample reference to the magic mirror in a (perhaps) religious saying:

"The way that you see (imagine) death, is a reflection of your true self."

It should be a religious saying (not sure though). So, if you see death as a monster, your true self could be monstrous and if you see it as a beautiful angel then ...

So if you think of it, may be you can find a few things that could act as such a mirror. A true friend, the imagination of your death, ... what else? There should be more. And it could be different for different people, some may need a true friend; some may find a meditation on their death and after life to see what truly lies inside them. Where do you think your mirror is?

Do you have a mirror?

I was reading a blog the other day when I came to a post quoting a part of Milan Kundera’s Immortality:

"Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you."

It reminded me of a chat I had with a very good friend of mine sometime ago. Somehow we came to a point where I started retelling a part of a movie called The Never Ending Story, which is actually one of my favorites. I won't go through the overall story of this movie, just bits that are relevant here. however if you haven’t seen the movie, I'd suggest you try it).

Anyway, in a part of the movie the here who is a little boy named Atreyu and who is on a mission to find a way to fight The Nothing and save Fantasia, has to pass through two gates to reach the Southern Oracles. Here are parts of the script from his talks with Engywook, who is a scientist and acclaimed expert in Southern Oracles:

Atreyu (looking at the Sphinxes): Is that the Southern Oracle?

Engywook: No, it's the first of the two gates you must pass through before you reach the Southern Oracle, and get me the final information for my book! Of course, most people don't get that far...

Atreyu: Why?

Engywook: The Sphinxes eyes stay closed, until someone who does not feel his own worth tries to pass by.

So the first gate is a really though task, Atreyu watches the lost attempt of a knight who tries to pass through, but is instantly burnt by flashes from Sphinxes eyes. But since he is determined to carry out his mission, gathers all his confidence and courage and manages to pass.

But the really interesting part comes next, which is more relevant to the point I'm trying to make. After Atreyu passes through the first gate, Engywook comes back to Falcor (the luck dragon) to give him the news:

Falcor: I knew he would be safe.

Engywook: none sense, you don't understand anything. The worst one is coming up; next is the magic mirror gate. Atreyu has to face his true self.

Falcor: So what? That won't be too hard for him.

Engywook: Oh, that's what everyone thinks. But kind people find that they are cruel, brave men discover that they are really cowards; confronted with their true selves, most men run away screaming….

I won't say what happens next, not to spoil it for those of you who may like to go and see the movie.

Now why did I bring this up, especially after that quote from Milan Kundra? What interests me most in both of them is their reference to a magic mirror, the one that would have shown you your true self, the one that if revealed, people would have run away from it screaming. References to this mirror are replete in the literature. There is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde that doesn't directly refer to a magic mirror, but tells the same story that the picture of one's true self could be monstrous. And many more.

I believe that is something worth reminding ourselves of. We are inclined to create a nice and beautiful mental image of ourselves, and shove all the dirtiness and cruelty under the rug. May be you say your mental image of yourself is not that nice and beautiful, but that doesn't change a thing, as long as you are not having an image close to the reality of your true self. It may seem easy in the beginning but is one of the greatest challenges of life I believe, and I dare say it could be one of the keys to happiness and spiritual prosperity.

Anyway, why was I telling all this to my friend? I wanted to reveal yet another revelation of mine; that I believe among different things that could help you find your true self is a good friend who could act as the magic mirror. A good friend would get close enough to your inner self and reflect your goods and bads as they are, revealing all the things that you are trying to suppress with the help of your mental image. As all the great assets in the world are, true friends are rare, hard to find and even harder to keep. If you have one, count your blessings.

Purpose

"Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not!" -- Oscar Wild

Sitting in a bus station, next to my mother, I was watching people come and go in the streets of Stockholm Centralen. There were people of different age and origin and shape and size. There was a women with her baby, a Yong blond girl walking briskly and a middle aged, well dressed man, waiting for a taxi.

In a sudden rush of madness, I was just about to jump in the middle of the street and ask each of the people coming and going and waiting: What is your purpose in life! Why have you got up this Sunday morning dressed and walked out of your house. To what end and what future are you planning your lives....

Fortunately or unfortunately, my mother started talking and I was distracted and forgot about what I was to do. But what makes me afraid is that one of these days, this pressure inside is going to burst out in some sort of real madness. When is it going to happen, we shall wait and see...!

No comments!

A piece of writing. Well, just a short comment. I liked it very much!

And let there be light!

Well, I'm just going to start writing and skip giving reasons and motivation and so on and so forth! As you can see, I have decided on English over Persian (I am Iranian, where Persian is the official language.). You may ask why, I should say it has a long story and I am going to relieve you of the details, let's just say I used to write in Persian for some time and now I'm going to give English a try. I hope the long and dark winter ahead (here in Stockholm) and the extreme amount of course work we have (SEDS, KTH) would not extinguish the light of my new venture!