s.j. In Focus

What are you?

http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=lookingforogt&c=50652

The only holiday
celebrated by couple, and you: single. Surrounded by people’s conversations of
love, romance, and schmaltz, and seeing lovebirds wherever you turn, one cannot
ignore the chirping of Valentine’s Day is near. But wait, my fellow
companionless-friend, there is no need to hide, because I present you – drum
roll please! TRRRRRRRRRR…. Your SOULMATE!!…. Just kidding! TRRRRRRRRR….

THE VALENTINE’S
DAY SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR SINGLES!!!! –APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE! HURRAY! CLAP, CLAP,
CLAP!- uuhmm, I’m sorry, that’s what happens when you’re alone too much.
Enjoy.

1. Don’t define yourself by your relationship status – Your identity is much more than “single” or “In a Relationship”.

2. Be EMO Immune –
   Don’t turn into one of those creatures with interesting haircuts having bangs brushed to one side of the face over one eye (or both eyes), fashioned with nothing but black, and look like they just came from rehab or are about to cut themselves. Cheer Up and greet people you meet on the street.

3. True Romance –
   True Romance is about spontaneity and imagination and not a particular
   scripted day. Be relaxed that you don’t have to worry about what to buy and what to do.

4. Valentine’s Day truth – Put in mind that this seemingly innocent holiday is a big plot setup by greeting card companies to exploit the basic human instinct: love, making it the second largest card-selling holiday of the year behind Christmas, and it is named after St. Valentine, a Christian martyr, who was murdered on that day. Not so romantic anymore, huh? Now you know,
        HAHAHA…

5. Expanded Love – Valentine’s Day is not limited to couples. Remember and get in touch with people who love you, your family. Hang out with friends, or have a night out with other singles.

6. I AM LOVE –
   Take this day to celebrate You. Do not stay at home and feed yourself with depressing movies and junk-food. Get out, go home late and do something outside your routine. And don’t forget to wear your smile.

“I
think, therefore I am single.”

A minute has 60 seconds. An
hour has 60 minutes. And a day has 24 hours. The life of a 24 year-old has
8’760 days and 756’864’000 seconds…

Everything comes to its
time, the time where it must come. In the time, that is meant for. The
beginning is the end. The beginning of the end, that is ever present. Each
moment is infinite, yet only an instant short.

Two minutes for the search
after the rubber in the store, three minutes standing in line, 30 seconds to
pay.

3-4 hours sweet
conversations, half an hour on the way home.

20 minutes chat in the car. 10
after, outside in the corridor.

2 minutes just caressing and
kissing, 12 minutes break for two cigarettes, standing in the kitchen. Back in
the corridor, 4 minutes to or fro, plus 4 minutes for

“You can trust me, I really like you”.

And No becomes Yes in ca. 7
minutes.

2 seconds long a hesitant
breath, but that is quickly overcome.

Another 6 minutes to take a
bath, 3 minutes from, looking at the mirror, see that everything’s turning, and that
one is high, quietly laughing.

In a short moment lights
turned off and candles enkindled.

Clothes from body, then all
naked.

A second long thought given
to the rubber in the bedside locker, already at the next moment dispelled, no
attention dedicated.

And then: 10 minutes – or was it yet 40? – amused, then
4 minutes remained silent, avoided sights.

12 minutes long talk, 5
hours sleep, shower for only 3 minutes and 8 for toast and tomatoes.

10 minutes for “I have to
go, it was nice, and we see each other.”

10 seconds for “write me
sms”, 8 seconds long goodbye-kiss.

20 minutes at home, out of
the things.

1 hour under the shower, but
the odor won’t get off.

4 months for everyday life,
2 hours fever dizziness, 2 hours waiting room at the doctor and not feeling
well.

4 minutes blood taking, 6
days waiting for values – the seconds of the result, in life the hardest.

Thousand hours for doubt and
remorse, 20 seconds anguished, 20 comprehended, then 20 in tears, 20 screamed.

To be 24 and realize:

“Oh, my God what have I
done?!”

24 years exchanged for the rush
of only one night.

Everything comes to its
time, the time where it must come. In the time, that is meant for. The
beginning is the end. The beginning of the end, that is ever present. Each
moment is infinite, yet only an instant short.

 
Based on the song “24” by
Curse from the album “Sinnflut”

عِناق، تَعانُق, 拥抱, 擁抱, objetí, omfavnelse, omhelzing, kaisutus, halaus,
étreinte, Umarmung, αγκάλιασμα, átkarolás, faðmlag, pelukan, abbraccio, 抱よう, 포옹, apskāviens, priglaudimas, omfavnelse, uścisk, abraço,
îmbrăţişare, объятие, objatie, objem, abrazo, omfamning, yakap, kucaklama

Hug – The Universal Language

In the darkest corner it
waits. Placidly waiting to torture me for the wrongs I have done. Pretending to
sleep, not to move, nor breathe, yet through an opening of my cave of pillows
covering my head, keeping my eyes indirectly fixed at the ink black end of the
room, where it placidly waits. Wrapping myself a little bit more under the
blanket, but still, not enough to not feel exposed. It knows that I’m awake,
knows that I hear the wind knocking at my window and feel the cold shadows of moonlit
trees dancing across the bed. It is in these cold, never-ending nights in
particular, where it appears and deprives me from sleep, patiently, silently
waiting, just standing there in that corner between the unlit. But tonight is
different, this time I dare to take a longer glimpse across the darkness, I
won’t wait for the old sun to save me. It already knows that I’m looking right
at him and stares back, something familiar the way it does. My heart is
pounding, but still determined to be exposed and to get out of my cave.

“What are you?! I know I’m
not asleep, but are you a product of my mind?”

Placidly staring, then at
once moving towards the window to escape. But I get up the bed, grab it at its
back, pulling it down to the floor, to see its face…

A seemingly never-ending
night. The wind knocking at my window. Between the cold shadows of moonlit
trees it is now plain to see. After all this time, the monster, it was me.

As his every-days are spent,
he sits there with an emptied instant noodle cup in his hands, only a piece of
cardboard gives him comfort on the concrete. People various whereabouts pass
him by, the college student late for his religious education class, a teacher
taking her lunch break to make groceries for her family, the businessman who
will attend an important meeting across the street, yet they seem like faceless
ovals in gray suits, gray and cold as the concrete the aged man is sitting on. Every
now and then he shakes his cup just enough to make a clink of loose coins,
trying to penetrate the glassy blur in front of him. The faceless ovals in gray
suits conditioned to ignore the clink of loose coins and immune to the sight of
the aged man as if their senses were cut out of them. But once in a while, a
curious child, not yet conditioned to ignore the clink of coins and not yet immune
to the aged man’s sight, or a conscious dreamer seeking for a wake up call, or
a life-ponderer refusing to become one of the faceless ovals in gray suits,
stop and hear the ringing of the coins as it was a wake up call, see the aged
man as it was a sign for the meaning of life, or, like through the eyes of a
child, microscopically notice the details of the aged man’s character. The thin
silver hair, his face drawn by lines of his history, and if you’re lucky, a catch
of his smile. For free. Like the other day, a priceless memory had been picked
up by a life-ponderer seeking for something soul-touching.

As the life-ponderer made
his way through the gray, cold stream of ovals, he couldn’t help but pay
attention down to the aged man eating a piece of bread. About to turn his eyes
away from the man, he suddenly noticed a bunch of street children making their
way from the opposite direction. As they neared the aged man, without even a second
thought the aged man reached out with his hand and offered the piece of bread he
was eating, and smiled.
It all happened within a
blink of an eye and the situation itself seemed meaningless, yet for the
life-ponderer that fraction of time lingered in him. “Was I meant to see it? Was
it a sign?” a train of thoughts crossed his mind. But whatever it was, he felt
blessed at that moment. He looked back once more, and continued his way through
the gray blur of ovals.

The aged man had nothing,
yet he had something to offer. How much more then can we give? I’m afraid that
someday I might become a faceless oval in a gray suit in a world of faceless
ovals in gray suits. I’m already one of them passing by the aged man everyday,
getting immune to the clink of loose coins. I try to remind myself to give him
something, be it money, or simply a smile just to acknowledge that I see him,
because he gives much more in return that is priceless. He reminds me of my blessings.

"What if God was one of Us?"

He is all of us.

For my other photographs visit seian-j.deviantart.com

click on images for larger view

It’s always a
reflective experience when I am in the middle of somewhere and along my national
geographic, discovery channel like travels… –basically, I just get lost-
stumble on territory of a bunch of children.

I
like to see them as little Indians, complete with tiny dresses made of
animal-skin and matching feathered hats, for us outsiders they appear like
outer-spaced hullabaloo, but it’s what they want you to see, those little
Indians are more organized then you think. Within each little Indian’s tribe there
is an underlying structure, some of them hunt (animals, plants, other Indians,
outsiders), others discuss tactics and strategies against those hunted, or on
important issues, such as the effects of magnifying glass on global warming, and
older ones are assigned to keep an eye on the fields. But the one you should put
in mind is their leader. He can mostly be located with a smaller group of other
Indians walking after him and doing exactly what he does. If he picks up a
rock, the other Indians will pick up rocks. If he puts something in his nose,
they will put something in their noses. If he laughs devilish, they’ll laugh
devilish.

 
When
you find yourself in such situation, let me tell you that you have two
options. Either, 1) you sneak you’re way
back in the opposite direction before they spot you, or 2) and if they already
did spot you with their wolf-like senses , put on a smile and hope you will not
end up like the other victims tied on a tree or worse.

In the latter case, you have two sub-options,
2a) Run, is not really an option if you want to escape unharmed, plus it’s not
really considered the “cool”, Spartan choice. Which leads us with your only
choice 2b) befriend yourself with the leader, for the faith of your sorry life now
depends solely on him and his judgment whether he likes you or not-like you. I
hope that very moment is not when you remind yourself that you have forgotten
to make a check on the offerings-in-case-of-Indians item on your things to pack
list back home. Silver coins or colorful bonbons is a good start to tame the
leader, by now the rest of the tribe might have gathered around, so make sure
you have enough offering for each Indian in the tribe. If you have indeed no
offering with you, well, entertain them, dance, do something stupid, and/or
hurt yourself.

Once
they have sensed that you mean no harm, you’re allowed to move, slowly. Let the
leader show you around, ask him about his favorite horse. Gain his trust by
keeping attention on what he is saying, little Indians know if you are not
interested and they hate it. Now is the time when you can take out your big
black light-capturing box, in other words camera from your big black
light-capturing box bag, slowly, and while still keeping attention on the
leader. Don’t act nervous or too excited, little Indians can sense nervousness,
they will think you are up to something, and they hate it.

This
is particularly important when they spot you holding your big black
lighting-capturing box, the whole tribe will drop everything and gather around
you, just to see you operate your magic device. Don’t sweat. Let the little
Indians look through the viewfinder, show them their light drawings on the
liquid-crystal display of your light box, soon they will lose interest and go
back to what they were doing. At this time the little Indians know that a)
you’re harmless, and b) your magic device is just a camera duh. Good for you!
Now you can shoot the whole tribe in their natural environment, without being

noticed by them. After you knocked yourself out with your shutter-button
frenzy, show the tribe few frames (if they’re still interested in you), smile
and say good-bye.

Leave the little Indians how you met them in their
territory. Some will vaguely remember you as a giant with the magic device, but
most probably in time they will forget you being once there.

When
it comes to us, we might have gained more then just photographs. The footprints
of each little Indian I meet linger in my heart, and remind me that I was one
of them, for once I was a little Indian too.

(Me and my tent in the ‘80)

For my other photographs visit seian-j.deviantart.com

After many years
being (consciously or sub-consciously) depressed, there came a point where I
had enough of being unhappy and spending too many thoughts on my past and what
could have been better. I think I’m finding my way back to how I used to be
four years ago, just myself.

Here are some of
my refined thoughts and ideas that up to now still help me when things don’t go
the way I wanted to:

1. Find Happiness
   within You – People think they will find happiness in another person, so they waste their time waiting for someone who will arrive and make them happy, but the only person that can make you truly happy is no one, but yourself!

2. Change your Attitude – Happiness is a state of mind. Keep telling yourself that you ARE happy. I’m not telling you to pretend, but find reasons why you should be happy rather than miserable, believe me there always are reasons to be happy, we just don’t look close enough. Life is too short to spend unhappy!

3. Newton’s 3^rd Law of Motion – For every action there is an equal, opposite reaction. Happiness received is measured by how much happiness you give out to the world. If you make people feel good about themselves, most likely, you will feel good about yourself as well.

4. No Coldplay
   Rule – Music can be very powerful in changing our moods. So if you feel depressed, avoid listening to melodramatic songs. Instead, create a playlist that strictly contains “feeling good” and “life is great” music for your daily listening habits.

5. WYWINAWYN –
   What you want is not always what you need. We seek for things we think we need in order to be happy, but you were already happy, before “You wanted to be happy”. It is the thought “we need something to be happy” that makes us unhappy. Free yourself from that thought and just be!

Let me know if it works for you.
Well, if it doesn’t, make your own approach!

Once and again I
can’t help myself but to get pointless nostalgic. Reminiscing my cares away and
see the things that I may have missed at the time. Sometimes bitter sweet, but
always worth remembering. People from the past are slowly slipping away and I wonder
how they are. I would let them know how I appreciate them and to some that I
regret I didn’t say goodbye before I left, yet you may not know it, you are
here when I need a home. Sipping memory lane would not be as grand without you.

I
get caught up in photographs and it seems so far away, it feels like another
person lived that life a long time ago. But then, by heart I can’t forget; sunrays
on a cold day in spring, the squeaking of railways, the aroma of fresh bread, the
people and places of yesterday’s living, and moreover, I remember that we were carefree.
-Yes, I’m yearning for the good old days. Until, I realize once and again, that
life is meant to be…

Give
me the taste of some wine. Cheers!

(Good friend Viviana and yeah that’s me at Paradeplatz, Zurich)

(Good friends Beatriz and Tais)

(Tais)

(My Lil Sistah, Candy, et moi)

(Old Friend Patrick. at times friends,
at times rivals, but always made me
stronger)

(Ain’t no Playa. Juz like to Club. Old classmates Tamara, Elina, Sarah)

The only reason
why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate sacrifice.

A
few years ago he found me. He said he was lost and I believed him. Yet I
couldn’t trust my own eyes. My mother never told me, why would she hide him
after all these years… because, she never knew. We decided not to ask, so we never had any
answers. He was running away from his past, especially from the family who
adopted him. In search of something “real”, as he told me, he was tracing back
his origins, wanting to know more about himself. It took him two years to find
out what I had to realize a numb 30 seconds from the moment he was standing in
front of me. A brother, a twin brother.

For the first couple of weeks I had difficulties
figuring out how to deal having a doppelganger around my neck. It was bizarre, living in a room with a
stranger wearing your visage, a damned moving mirror. But I felt it was
something new for him too.

We
were similar, but different. He preferred to be alone and despised “the society”.
He idolized people who live on their own, like the Spartans with their
simplicity and strict self discipline. I understood him, but I’m a loner simply
because I have a hard time finding people I can relate to. I appreciate good
music of any kind, where the roaring of a high performing engine is music to
his ears. He’s dream was to own a Ferrari Testarossa, in red of course.  He was more of an easy going person with a
hint of an “l’etat, c’est moi” syndrome. He kept on mocking me because I was
still a virgin, but I was smarter than him and he knew that. We had different
point of views, and agreed at best when we shared our sarcasms. After hours of
Q&A we became close, like brothers, and it didn’t matter anymore where he
came from.

At
a point in time we began to think seriously about our newly acquired selves,
but it was me who worried more about him, there where times I felt less a
brother, but his parent. He didn’t want to let anyone know about him, there was
no place for him to go anyway. I was his only family, he once told me, and it
was enough for him that I exist.

I
had classes to attend, and he didn’t mind staying at the apartment
everyday. We then figured that he could try
going out as me. All he had to do is using my glasses instead of his contact
lenses. But the physical appearance was the only easy part.

“It’s
the glasses that make you look smart, now don’t make a fool out of me”, I joked
half seriously. I had to teach him
everything about me, what I eat for lunch, how I talk, get him familiarized
with the people I communicate on a regular basis and how I am related to
them. But no one really would notice the
switch, being a loner worked for us, and we agreed to keep up that image. My
habits and routines became his, it was like wearing a mask for him, and he
liked it that way. It gave me the creeps at first, he soon played my role almost
too perfectly.

Time
passed and the switch became regular. Together we developed ideas that would solve or prevent problems that
would come our way and may uncover our double life. We had to think ahead and
after each switch every single occurrence must be known to the other, the
information accumulated to the point that we had difficulties keeping them in mind,
so we wrote them down, and lead to the idea of a journal, a mutual diary.

At
any cost we would not be allowed to be seen together, outside or inside. When
one did the switch, the other must stay in the apartment. Disguise crossed our
minds but it was not realistic and it was way too risky.

There
were times when my then girlfriend planned to stay with me for her vacations. I
could share my life, but not my girlfriend. He said I shouldn’t worry, and he would handle it on his own. He packed
his things and was gone. But I did worry each day. He shaved his hair short and
stayed somewhere outside the city where no one knew me, he told me afterwards.
And it worked, more than once.

Daily
life became ordinary, boring at times that we began to test people with silly remarks
which would actually give hints to our secret. When my brother would receive
comments like “you look like a good person”. He would reply, “It’s just the
glasses.” And they would interpret it as an amusing answer. Or if someone would
ask me about my nationality I would say that I was a dual citizen with the
double entendre on my mind. My brother had a short temper he hardly could
control, where I’m the one with patience, but we would simply say that I was
moody. People never did bother to notice, the illusion was perfect with the
truth right in front of their eyes. But I knew already that this twofold life
would not work out forever.

The
time came I had no choice but to move to another city, and staying together was
impossible without exposing himself, since I would live with my father and his
family. Eventually, I had to leave, and he stayed until we figured something
out.

I
visited him whenever I could, mostly over the weekends when I didn’t have any
classes. My cover up was having a long-distance
girlfriend, or visiting old friends. And sometimes he would come over here,
stay in some cheap pension outside the city, we couldn’t do the switch, because
he was keeping his hair short, but it didn’t matter since I was new here and no
one knew me yet. I told him that it would not really work out unless he would
show himself. His immaturity pushed me to the limit of my patience, and more
than often we ended up arguing and hating each other.

“What
do you want with your own life??” I kept on pushing him. And the last time we
fought he shared that when he found out, as a fourteen year old boy, that he
was adopted, he wanted to kill himself. He hated his family, and realizing it was not even his own after all, he
never wanted to exist. Finding me gave him something real, at least once in his
life and it was enough for him. He said I shouldn’t worry, and packed his
things. I told him not to do what he had
in mind, and threaten him that I would do the same. He knew I was bluffing and
was gone anyway.

Weeks
passed without hearing something from him. I broke up with my girlfriend from
where he lived with the reason that I needed some time alone to find myself,
which came closest to the truth. I couldn’t
find a start where to search for him, I knew if he would want me to find him he
would let me know. All I could do is prepare for the worst.

Weeks
became months, and I troubled about him everyday. But Faith came and I met someone. It was the
right time to share some company and she helped me to keep my mind from my worries
for a while. I started to like her.

Then
on a Friday night I got a message with an address outside the city and that I
needed to be there tomorrow or the secret would be uncovered, I couldn’t care
less about the secret. Hearing from him after so long, I was upset and relieved
at the same time. He informed me at night, because he knew I couldn’t get
anywhere at these late times since I had to commute, so I had to wait till
morning.

As
agreed I went to the address and I found my brother, with a note. It is still
unbearable for me to write this down. I couldn’t look at him for long and I
didn’t know if I should cry or just get out. But I just stood there senseless.
A dead body is far from what you see on television and movies. And fuck he was
my brother… The note asked me to do the hardest thing I ever had to, and it
still hunts me. It simply said “If you respect me, bury me here.”

Everyday
I tried to compose myself not to break down. Questions of guilt wriggled in my
head and it was hard to keep it all by myself. I couldn’t let anyone see me like this, but with a little help by faith
made it easier to give an answer if ever someone happens to see me having a bad
moment. The girl I started to like a few months ago, decided to leave me three
days after my brother’s death, which was a perfect cover up, plus summer
holidays was near, so I didn’t have to face people. I couldn’t ask for
something better, or did my brother just waited for the right moment?

I
still think of him a lot, and I’m getting better. He wanted me to keep our secret
and live MY life, I do my best. But nothing really matters, I shouldn’t care if
people say this story is fake or stamp me as crazy, I accept my mark of Cain. The
best way to keep a secret is not to hide it and let it become an illusion, or
does it just look like one? Even if someone would find a shred of evidence, it
is still harder to prove that it’s real.

And
the only reason why I’m telling you this is because someone made the ultimate
sacrifice. A sacrifice that gave back my life by taking his, but I can’t grant
his wish me to live mine, because I want to do what he himself never could, to
live his.

(sj)

(h)

And As God asked
Cain where his brother was, Cain responded: “I know not; Am I my Brother’s
keeper?” And God said “what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood
crieth unto me from the ground.” the Lord put a mark upon him so that he would
be identified as the killer of his brother but would also be protected in his
wanderings. Cain is cursed,
always to be a fugitive and wanderer in the earth.