Stephanie Booth's online ramblings
I left my Easter Bunny on my desk today. Actually, it’s been there these last days and I’ve been steadily nibbling at it.
As the weather was nice and grey this morning, and the building in front of my balcony is getting taller (thus stealing a fair amount of my light), I pulled up the blinds before I left.
When I got back home this evening, the bunny was gone.
Well, there was a pool of warm melted chocolate inside the plastic wrapping.
In response to a remark from Steph.
I am sure I have said something about this last year in French, but I’m incapable of finding it.
Update, 11.2011: here is the original French post — Déséquilibre.
What characterises life is constant lack of stability. From a biological point of view, the basis for life can be said to be oscillating chemical reactions. They are not equilibriums, they oscillate from one state to another, back and forth, back and forth. Their existence makes the biochemical reactions upon which life relies possible.
Mind is not separate from its biochemical foundation. Even if it cannot (and will never be) totally explained in biochemical terms (hear Paul Ricoeur), without the biochemistry behind it there is no “thought”. So we might as well say that our interior lives oscillate in a way similar to these chemical reactions. We are a system in perpetual dis-equilibrium.
Things are stable and constant only when we are dead.
Pour Script.
On décide que ça vaut la peine d’aimer, qu’on ne va pas renoncer, qu’on ne laissera pas son coeur se recouvrir d’une croûte noirâtre. On se dit que ce n’est pas parce qu’on risque de se faire mal qu’on restera cloîtré chez soi.
Et puis de longues années passent. On se rend compte qu’on a le coeur recouvert d’une croûte noirâtre, un peu craquelée, mais là quand même. On se regarde à nouveau et on se rend compte que malgré toutes ces belles décisions, on a peur d’aimer. On en est même incapable.
Alors un jour, on réalise que pour pouvoir aimer l’autre, il faut s’aimer soi. C’est bête à dire et ça a tellement été dit qu’on ne l’écoute plus. Tant que l’on aura besoin de l’autre pour nous donner cet amour qui nous manque pour se sentir être, on risquera toujours de ne tenir à cet autre que pour cet amour qu’il donne, et non pas pour ce qu’il est. Et s’il voulait juste être aimé pour ce qu’il est…? Bouclons la boucle: l’autre pourrait tout aussi bien être nous.
Ce n’est pas facile d’apprendre à s’aimer. D’abord il faut apprendre à aimer, et aussi à se sentir aimé. C’est peut-être ça le plus dur. Sentir qu’on est aimé. Pas aimé comme on imagine qu’on voudrait être aimé, mais aimé vraiment. C’est très différent. Ce n’est peut-être pas aussi grand, mais c’est réel.
S’aimer, ça peut commencer par ces tous petits actes que l’on fait pour prendre soin de soi. Ne pas attendre qu’un autre soit là pour le faire, prendre sa vie entre ses propres mains. Ces petits détails inutiles mais qui font le tissu de la vie.
Et à mesure qu’on est capable de se donner soi-même de cet amour sans lequel la vie est sèche et dure, le coeur dégèle, la croûte noire s’effrite, et vivre devient moins effrayant. La solitude est peut-être toujours là , mais elle n’est plus un péril mortel.
Parce que moi, je serai toujours là pour m’aimer.
We sometimes feel like the German-speaking part of Switzerland is almost another country. Indeed, we often feel culturally closer to France, which is within eyes reach on the other side of the lake, than to our fellow countrymen who live behind the Röstigraben”.
Maybe “culture shock” is a bit strong to describe what happened to me in Zürich University library – but I was told “welcome to Zürich!” when I told the story back in Lausanne.
First shock: no bags or jackets allowed in the library, compulsory lockers, and a guard in front of the entrance. I used to like guarded entrances in India, because they usually guaranteed “safe space” where I could relax. But in Switzerland, it gave me an uneasy feeling. What is there to guard against here? In Lausanne, the only “entrance guards” I’ve seen are in front of night-clubs or bars in evenings (and preferably in the—relatively—worst areas of town).
Second: no Internet connection at all in the library building (apart from very limited access to the library research site). How do these people do any research? Anyway. It was very bad news for me, because I had forgotten the carefully written-down list of articles I had to photocopy at home, and was hoping it could be quickly scanned and emailed to me. No luck.
(Actually, I had the list dictated to me on the phone, and it was a lot simpler. That shows how web-dependant my thinking is becoming.)
Third: I was allowed to go into the library storeroom myself to retrieve the volumes I needed. (They’d never let you do that in Lausanne, no way!)
Fourth: I was actually allowed to borrow these publication back issues and take them home with me! (I’m almost positive you can’t borrow publication back issues here… I’d have to check. I wasn’t expecting to be able to, anyway.)
Fifth: after having signed up for an account (online!) I asked how many books I was allowed to borrow at the same time: fifty! In Lausanne, I can take 16 (which is really not enough, honestly, especially when you’re doing your dissertation). You get to borrow fifty if you are doing your PhD or teaching.
So, in summary, what seemed to be starting out as a very unpleasant experience indeed ended up being pretty positive. Maybe this strange mixture of “worse than at home” and “better than at home” is characteristic of cultural variations…
Lighten up your spirits by enjoying this depressed server’s 404 (file not found) error message.
[thanks Karl]
Bon, histoire de trancher un peu avec le ton des entrées précédantes, une bonne nouvelle: j’ai échappé à la nomination! (l’abomination?)
I’ve just finished filling in the second part of the Coping with the Stress of the Terrorist Attacks survey. I thought I’d share with you my answer to the last question, which asks us to tell our story of the attacks.
Please bear in mind that this was written as it came, and that I’m not posting this to start a heated discussion about what I’m saying here.
Let’s first say I have lived through the terrorist attacks from a distance. I learnt of them on the Internet just when they happened – the net was slow and I saw a notice on a friend’s site. We were a party of people in India, and I broke the news to the group.
My biggest fear was in the American reaction. I was listening to Bush’s speeches and couldn’t believe what he was saying. At some point, I was wondering if we would have to rush back to Europe if things got bad. Pretty fast though, things seemed to “cool down” (as far as a possible rash “nuclear bomb” reaction was concerned).
I watched the news a lot during the next week or two. The financial news too. It was the first time in my life I was following something so closely, and the first time I was following financial news. I was worried about the effects on the economy.
Back in Switzerland after a few weeks, Swissair went bankrupt. It was a pretty big blow for people over here – though I don’t know anyone who was personally touched by it. Still, it was a concrete “close to us” consequence of the terrorist attacks.
Without wanting to remove any of the horror and tragedy of the attacks, I was (and still am) revolted by the US reaction to them. I tend to think that they are not attacking the root of the problem, not seeing what responsibility they have in the situation, and playing “we good, they bad” like always. I tend to side with Chomsky and his criticism of American foreign politics. I don’t consider myself anti-american, though. I have nothing against americans because they are americans, and I have american friends. The politics and government just get on my nerves. And it angers me too to be tagged “anti-american” because I dare show criticism.
In a nutshell, my feelings now towards September 11 are directed more against american politics in general. I think the shock of the attack itself is over – I had never been to New York, didn’t know anybody in the WTC, and don’t personally know anyone who was directly touched by what happened.
It’s revolting to kill civilians by crashing planes into buildings, but some of the actions of the US outside their borders are just as revolting (the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan and the Afghan refugees – the so-called “collateral” damage).
All this leaves me with the feeling that the world of politics is rotten and full of deceit. But I still think we can live in this world.
Je viens d’apprendre l’identité de la suissesse tuée mardi en Cisjordanie. Du coup, mes problèmes de “claustrophobie” me paraissent bien futiles.
Je connaissais un tout petit peu Catherine. On se saluait quand on se croisait dans les couloirs de l’uni, et on s’arrêtait quelques minutes pour bavarder. Pas plus que ça, mais quand même. Elle existait, marchait, respirait et souriait dans mon monde — alors que pour la plupart des gens, elle n’existait simplement pas avant de mourir.
Je connais un peu mieux sa soeur: on a fait les scouts ensemble durant quelques années, on a étudié en partie dans les mêmes bâtiments et on habitait tout près l’une de l’autre avant que je parte en Inde. On a mangé quelques fois ensemble après s’être croisées par hasard en ville, et on a même poussé une fois jusqu’à Genève pour voir une exposition sur Nicolas Bouvier. Elle m’avait invitée à son anniversaire dans son joli appartement tout entouré de balcon. J’avoue qu’on s’est perdues de vue depuis mon départ de Suisse.
Je crois que l’esprit humain résiste à l’idée de la mort. En tous cas le mien, il résiste beaucoup. L’idée qu’on puisse être et tout d’un coup ne pas être, je trouve ça proprement im-pensable. La mort c’est aussi le temps des regrets, des “si j’avais su”, des “trop tard”, de la perte irrévocable… Mais bon, je ne vais pas m’étaler en platitudes philosophiques comme j’en ai l’habitude.
Laure: je pense bien à toi, un peu bêtement, mais honnêtement. Et je ne sais pas quoi dire. Sauf que je sais que ça fait longtemps qu’on ne s’est pas vues, et que je vais t’écrire un petite carte pour te dire qu’aujourd’hui je pense bien à toi — du mieux que je peux.
Et qu’ils n’avaient pas à tuer ta soeur.
Il y a cet immeuble qui pousse devant mon balcon et ça m’embête énormément.
Je ne vois bientôt plus le ciel quand je suis à mon bureau. L’espace autour de mon appartement a rétréci et on est en train de me voler ma lumière.
J’enrage d’impuissance.
Je voudrais leur crier d’arrêter de construire, leur hurler que je ne vais pas pouvoir vivre comme ça, sans l’espace et les montagnes devant ma fenêtre. Que tout s’arrête, là , maintenant, comme c’est — ou plutôt, comme c’était il y a un mois, quand l’immeuble n’était encore qu’un grand trou.
Je ne peux que regarder l’espace se combler de briques rouges, chaque jour un peu plus haut, jusqu’à m’emprisonner complètement.
Je ne veux pas déménager. Mais comment vais-je pouvoir survivre à ça?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all…?
Definitely not me on this Mirror Project picture.