… soon I’m pulling the plug or, I guess, it will be pulled for me. They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Impoving one’s job situation in academia is like blindfolded running into the wall over and over hoping to hit the door. Not only do you beat yourself bloody as you keep missing the door frame, it also turns out that the door is only opened if you know someone on the inside.  Today I was informed that once again I hit the wall to a door that would never have opened to me. Once again, sidelined by someone si ..read more

The battery is on red. Beep. Beep. Beep. Warning: energy level low. All non-life-sustaining systems on standby. Blood flow, lung expansion decompression, synapses, heartbeat, beat, beat, be-at, be-aht, de-aht, de-daht, du-damt, du-dum, du-dum… Am I sick or just exhausted? Am I exhausted or just in the wrong? Shoved in between a rock and a hard place, I can’t tell. I recall once upon a time not knowing the difference. I guess I didn’t learn much after all. There is something truly empowering about anger. Yet it’s so pointless. Why overturn the tables in the temple (Matthew 21:12-17) when the te ..read more

The water rocks the boat as though running aground, only it never sinks. Above the surface, the boat floats heavy on an ocean without horizon. On the boat rocks an ape. Peacefully meditating a world into existence. In the world of the ape, there is a tree in which lives a large horse and a small tiger. The tiger is too small to eat the horse, so she never tried. The horse never thought of eating the tiger, so he never tried either. When manifesting the rules of the world into existence, the ape made sure the tiger would grow slower than the horse to keep their friendship alive for longer. But ..read more

…in the fall from grace. Despite life’s irregular and chaotic nature, I’ve searched for something to hold on to throughout my existence. Not quite an anchor to hold me down, but a sail to provide direction. Recently, I met up with the Fantastic Four, and to the question of what is left on the bucket list, Water said “nothing” in a very reassuring and non-consequential sort of way. Often I feel similarly, but instead with a sense of burned-out dread. Having no more desires sounds like the soul-at-peace’s ideal, yet rings defeatist, surrender-ist, or apathy-ist. Life’s offered hours are too shor ..read more

Supposedly, a mouse will rip off its own leg to break free from a trap and a frog will cook to death in a pot of water put to boil. Humans, desperate to dominate in all things, seem to do both: we rip ourselves apart in our pursuits while simmering to death in our own indecisiveness. For years I have fought the notion of Karma. Fighting the idea that there exists a universal balance infused into the fabric of our existence, a principle inherited through lifetimes long forgotten. A principle that ensures that the sins we commit and the pains we expressed come back to us through some cause-and-e ..read more

It creeps up on you. The uncertainty in the stability. The discomfort in the comfort. Not quite downfall, but downhill. At some point, you feel pretty good, high in spirits, on top of things. Opportunties feels like certainties. Novelty is invited. Challenges encouraged. Then slowly things change, day by day, little by little. Some days are still great, and most of them are pretty good, comparatively, but the overall trend is just ever so slightly descending. Maybe a month goes by, maybe a year. Then at some point, you notice. You notice that the view is not quite as wide anymore. You notice ..read more

I’ve probably been on hundreds of trains. Going from one destination, to another, to nowhere in particular. Some rides I remember quite clearly and it is with picture-perfect precision that I can form the people there, the train station and the cabins. For sure, partly imagined, but real in the sense that all memories are real. Other rides have merged with one another to a blurry from-a-to-b, or been forever lost to give space to more meaningful memories. For sure on more occasions than I can recall, I’ve realised that I was on the wrong train. That my mode of transport would not allow me to r ..read more

The intense smell of durian infused our tiny Chinatown hotel room drenched in mould and poor interior design. It is a remarkable improvement from our nightmare bunker in Indiantown the morning before, where my claustrophobia kept me up almost as much as the suspicious plastic sheets. It had been a long trip getting there and our budget-friendly mindset did not provide any luxuries in one of Asia’s most expensive cities. Exploring the city, Singapore was beautiful, grand and modern. Skyscrapers licked the horizon in a modern setting unfamiliar to us from smaller and “older” towns in Europe. Ye ..read more

Today I had a rare opportunity. I was given the chance to look at the outward silhouette of a mentally ill man and deal with the situation like a reaponsible adult. I asked myself what would Jesus do? Buddha? …Sherlock Holmes? I am left wondering if I handled the situation in a decent way or not. The white speckles in his black beard revealed him to be around 60. Well dressed, if but a bit unclean. Good looking, if but a few missing teeth. Nails, hair and beard cut neatly, high quality clothes: Not homeless. Dirty clothes and muddy shoes, disoriented and red shot eyes from a lack of sleep or a ..read more

Tucked into my small frame, rest the souls of many persons. I’ve been so many versions of myself throughout my life, and surely will be many more. Different desires, different lifestyle, different references. As the piece of another soul rattles inside, old versions stir as to remind me of the impermanence of my being. I’m in back in Barcelona, back to visit Pandabear and Bambi. Years have past from the person they knew and sitting alone in the sun I wonder who I was, and who I became. Which souls slumber on the inside and which soul awoke as the result of their completion? We never show ours ..read more