Mart-deBlog

Next year I am going to the ECLA (European College of Liberal Arts) in Berlin.
I am happy that I am going to Berlin, I really think it is my kind of city. And I am also happy that I will study at the ECLA, except for the fact that it is again a school that needs explanation. For some reason, I have the tendency to get myself into unconvential places, first there was the Vrije School, then there was University College and now the ECLA. So, the question is asked again 'what are you going to do there?' Well, let me explain for those who don't know. At UC I started studying for a Bachelor of Science (in mathematics, biology and neuroscience), however, somewhere in my second year I got into one of my existential crisis and realized that I have to study philosophy. But, since it was too late for a full switch to humanities, I have done as much philosophy possible while still getting my BSc. Now at the ECLA I can do those courses that are important to a general humanities background, such as history, literature and politics. It is not a Master and it is not a Bachelor, I will only receive a general certificate. What I will study there is a general course 'Intellectual History', where the big texts are read such as Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Marxs etc. Then I will also study German and have elective courses in which I can choose any of the humanities subjects (film studies, philosophy, etc.). And that is what I will do. In Berlin!

So how was Bologna?









Bologna is a small city, with an old centre, a couple of interesting churches, but especially it is an island of alternative students doing whatever they feel is right. It is right to start the evening start with a Spritz (campari mix) before dinner, on the street of course, if it does not rain. Apperetivo it is called. It is right to invade a classroom and declare it student property and use it for 'different' lectures (on Pornography for example), and have a relaxing joint while studying the heavy stuff of the world. Because everyone seems politically engaged.I went there with Ifeta and Andrzej, two great friends from UCU with whom I could just enjoy the friendships without any of the UC troubles, just having fun together. And then there are the people themselves, the happy Bolognese. They are in one word so uplifting, they draw you out your shell, they pull you into extraversions (okay, a little drink helps as well). It was exactly what I needed. So, everynight was fun, Italian, and happy. I wouldn't say it was crazy partying every night, but really just drinking and having casual conversations with random people about not-so-casual issues. Just the way I like it.

Halfway the last semester tonight. Only 7 more weeks and I'm done here at UCU. Too bad I have already started revising, looking back on my time on UC. It's a nasty habit of mine, not being able to await the future, the natural time for things to happen. So here I am, mentally already in May, giving meaning and value to my time on campus. I hate it. Why am I so serious? No.. Why am I trapped in my introspection? That words haunts me: 'introspection', for many people it is a very happy and necessary thing but what is good for one is bad for another; and to me introversion is my cage, my vice. It is the root of my uglier character traits, such as my self-absorption, my indifference to friends-out-of-fashion, or my simple boringness.
Time for a sip of Cavelli.
My mind constantly sucks me in, like a black hole with gravity that even freezes time, because that is what happens: I'm quasi-dead in the present, at least to the outside world. Too often I have placed myself in the future, the graduate programs I want to do, the country I could eventually live in; and all the while my present froze. And so I constantly get sucked in myself, like right now while I am writing this post with the taste of cheap alcohol in my mouth. I really want to write stupid happy posts, about the nice things in life, but I simply can't. The last three year have been endless wanderings in an empty wasteland. There is nothing left in my mind to rationalize, there is nothing new, or unexpected happening happening in the void. My mind is just empty, analyzed to death. And all frustration, even the frustration of knowing that introversion is useless and the resistance against it, it all pulls me only deeper in introversion. The more I resist, the deeper I sink. I can only complain, and I hate complaining and that makes it only worse. I can only indulge in self-pity, and I hate self-pity and that makes it only worse. I can only be silent, and I hate silence and that makes it only worse. I even hate the word "I". Everything that affects me only fuels my self-analyses. And I try to escape: good music draws me out, parties draw me out, my friends make me laugh; but it is just too strong: the moment I am left by myself I inflect inside out. Why am I not interested in the simply daily life outside my head? Why doesn't it stimulate me enough, why doesn't the world capture me like my head captures me.
Let's take another sip.
'Cause maybe that is just it: The world just doesn't stimulate me enough. If I think about it (Ha!), my early memories in childhood were that of not being happy in the world. Depression it's called, even if you are six. I also think it might run in the family, my brother Joost is lost in virtual worlds in the same way as I am lost in my mind. Several friends conceptualize me as asexual, having no sexual interest whatsoever. The world and the bodies therein just doesn't stimulate me like it does for others and it annoys them. I think. Just hypercritical to everything in the world, hoping that everything that is so - well, uninteresting- will only turn out to be the background of the beautiful things to come. Sometimes I think it will be children, or maybe not.
Let's take another sip.
Anyway, I'm sorry to have bothered you again with my troubles, my dear patient reader. Seriously, I don't know how people continue reading this, how people can stand me in general. Please feel free to react harshsly. 'Martin shut up' might be a wise thing to comment. Joy can be demanded.
And now it's time for a party in the all too well-known bar, and the comments 'Martin why are you so quiet?', 'Don't be so fucking boring' while I wander the wasteland called UC.

*don't worry mam, just airing some frustrations.

But then I imagine how she must walk on those endless stairs spiraling upwards. And I can see her walking, up and up, step after step. She walks rhythmically, neither hasty nor slow. On every step her bodyweight rests on the ball of her foot, flexing her hips from left to right and her upper body mirroring the movements from right to left, ending in the smooth waving of her head. Her steps never break the continuity of her walk, one foot lifting in reverse of the other foot sinking on the marble surface, one side of her body rewinding the motion of the other. She never stops walking, she never doubts her steps and her waist never moves away from the center of her body. She can only walk upwards. And at times she raises her head, without losing her balance, without breaking the continuity of her steps. She looks up to the coming steps and then she rests her neck again, her eyes brightening with her face down to the marble. Nothing will change.
Up and up, step after step she walks. And she never uses the banisters but walks straight in the middle. Her arms do not seek support and sometimes she even crosses them, one hand resting on the opposite shoulder.
There are short moments when she quietly hums random melodies. But she stops when the meandering tones turn into patterned tunes by the echoes of the spiraling hall.
Tread on tread she walks on the stairs, candles flickering when she passes. Her lower back hollows with the hollowing of the sole under her foot, and pushing her loin forward she rides on the rhythm of her legs. The outer sides of her thin calves dimple under the pulsating strain of flexing ankles. On the stairs in front of her she displays her shadows flickering in distorted forms on the white stone, experimenting with slight changes of her moving body blowing up into phantasmal creatures. Their forms break her boredom. And sometimes she leaves her long hair veiling her sight, blurring the stairs into haze. Twiggy shadows become bulky shadows become crooked shadows. They never look like her.
She walks up and up, tread on tread. Rhythmically she moves along, neither hasty nor slow, her body in perpetual motion. All the treads are equal and she moves continuously in the middle of the spiraling stairs. There is no runner. And when she looks up, she sees more of the same, an endless recital of stairs without any difference from the cold stone underneath her bare feet. She sees no promise of changes except for herself, her shadows. The repetition is her canvas. And thus she must walk in the continuous act of creation. She stretches her arms wide, and a creature appears. It is almost a bird.