antilibrary

I have too many books, especially in digital form. Whenever a book piques my interest, I immediately seek it out, acquire it by any means possible, and at least read its table of contents. This of course results in piles of books that I will never manage to read. As my knowledge expands, the pile keeps getting bigger.

This is not an unknown phenomenon for knowledge seekers. Umberto Eco had a huge library, more than 30,000 books. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book The Black Swan, describes Eco’s library as the antilibrary:

syzygy photolog

the biggest news of this week was definitely the exhibition at OtonomArt. after ~50 hours of work, it was so exciting to put Syzygy on display. it was also thrilling to see my name as the artist on the label.

i’m glad i photographed the sculpture after every session so i could see the gradual process. now, looking back, i find it eerie to look at the first photos. i created this thing from mud with my bare hands!

exoticizing the writing

one of the most eye-opening videos on youtube for me was anna p. foxen’s exoticizing the impossible, in which she talks about a common spiritual failure mode where the practitioner, being overfocused on the extraordinary, misses the beauty in mundane reality.

i was thinking about this in the context of my relationship with my blogging. i published over 30 posts in all three of my blogs this year. it’s a feat that i am proud of. but i still couldn’t manage to eliminate the friction of writing and publishing. i believe the most important task of the creative is to eliminate friction in creating. maybe quantity doesn’t guarantee quality but lack of quantity guarantees the impossibility of quality for sure.

the late edition

One day late reflection on the previous week.

Last weekend was so busy that I couldn’t find an hour to sit and write a few paragraphs. Yesterday, we had a Mother’s Day dinner with my in-laws (where did the morning go? who knows!). On Saturday, I watched my first ever American football game. My hometown team, the Halcyons, was playing against the ITU Hornets. Unfortunately we got our asses kicked by the Hornets, but it was fun either way!

Oblique Art

Contemporary art is often criticized for being extravagant, farfetched or nonsensical. You might think of the paintings and movies of David Lynch, sculptures of Miquel Barceló or even the banana (Comedian) of Maurizio Cattelan. They are definitely strange and hard to interpret, and in Cattelan’s case, give the finger to Art as an institutional practice. I have no problems with this kind of art. I don’t think the artist owes me any meaning. Even if the artwork seems straightforward, it is still too easy to misinterpret. My sculpting tutor made a sculpture of an anorexic girl with a VERY visible vagina and still, people keep thinking it’s a male…

charging my battery

Sunday reflection on the passing week.

I charged my car battery! This might sound unimportant to you, but it was a big deal for me. My father was a handyman and I helped him a lot on different projects throughout my childhood. So in theory I have a good grasp of how to use tools. But it was not enough. One also needs to be willing to do this kind of stuff, which I was not. My experiences of doing projects at home with my father primarily taught me that a project never goes according to plan. There are always edge cases that lead you away from the happy path, and it’s always easier to hire someone else to be responsible for them. But more and more I feel like the immortal insight of Ozan Akyol, a Turkish comedian, is spot on: “You call an expert. They come and you immediately realize that they’re just another guy.”

i didn't quit

i decided to quit smoking on april 19 almost two months ago. i told my wife, my colleagues, my friends. the week before the 19th, i smoked all my cigarettes mindfully, knowing that i wouldn’t have this sensation soon.

on april 19th, i didn’t quit.

this post is now at a crossroads: i will either self-rationalize not quitting smoking by saying i have this or i have that, or self-flagellate complaining about my weak will or never-ending akrasia.

the inner-anarchist concedes

I was in Antalya, Turkey for the company offsite last week. This is a reflection on the past week. photo dump.

The worst type of leader is the one who needs to be the leader. The second worst type is the one who just can’t accept that they are the leader.

I’m a leader. Writing this fills me with dread because it sounds megalomaniacal to my ears. However, it’s true. I am a leader. I’ve been a leader for some time—I’ve been the technical lead of my team for the last three years. Although they had been calling me that for some time, I think I never really assumed it. I always treated it like a symbolic title that they needed to give me not because I deserved it but because conditions demanded it. Somebody had to fill the void, and no one else was going to.

short update

I’m writing this in haste before packing my laptop for travel. This will be a short one.

• The bust is finished! I’m calling it “Syzygy”.
• We finished A Knight of Seven Kingdoms. I loved it!
• We started watching the new season of The Boys.
• I talked about my recent inability to read in analysis. Unsurprisingly, I started reading again. I’ll probably finish the current read tomorrow on the plane.