By the time... there will be no time

How can anyone forget the expression our parents used in relation to being drafted in the army. Every time the hot pre-election topic of the draft's service duration was brought up in the political sphere, boys always thought of a future time that will require of them to join the army and protect the rest of us from the evil enemies. ''Ως τον τζαιρό σου εν θα έχει στρατό'' [Until your time comes, there will be no need for an army]. As if the army can just be disregarded from our lives. 

Well, my time came and passed. No sign of the army's demise has appeared up to now. On the contrary, the army justifies the war-dominated narratives. It may be a manifestation of war. We see the Protector cause we don't want to see the Enemy. Then, the image of the enemy is created as an extension of the protector that justifies his own position in the power structure fuelled by the cultural dominance of the fear of the other.

How can the use of the expression be explained? I cannot see how locals could have thought that the army could be discontinued until the boy's time had come to fulfil his national duty. An explanation might be irony. This weird sense of male-dominated sarcasm that diminishes the concerns of the child through a rejection of the manufactured reality. Since, he will not reject this manufactured reality, the statement contradicts the man and can be justified through sarcasm. The apathetic consent to oppression and state terrorism.

In other words, it is not that the man hopes that the army will be dissolved by the time his son will have to join, rather it is his need to have the boy silenced until that time comes. The amount of years needed before the draft, may be detrimental to the state of society. More likely, a continuation of war rather than an everlasting peace. 

I would like to believe, some parents use the expression believing wholeheartedly that the army will be dissolved. Peace will prevail and the absurdity of the army will end. Yet, it is not enough. The child may feel disconnected from the peoples struggles thinking that his time has not come. "Ως τον τζαιρό σου"  signifies a time that has yet to arrive for the child. 

Though, daily life presents the reasons why anyone should join the fight for freedom and many of us do long before our time has come... That is because there is no time to come. It has never finished. All time and every time is an opportunity to resist the manufactured reality and approval of society.

Yet, all things run out of time...  

erections for elections

 I have had the chance to attend a political rally of a candidate for the upcoming mayor elections. At this session, the candidate presented his proposals to improve the unsufferable traffic conjunction that always demolishes our humanity when one enters and drives a car. The rules change into a chaotic moral spectrum that can best be described as a battleground.

To transport oneself from point A to point B. Most likely, to a human-made material space that one legally occupies. A flat: an erected building occupying a certain area of the physical world and divided into blocks for individuals to thrive within them. The urban life.

Yet, life can be jolly when nature is blended in and within the urban environment. There seemed to be a vision for the betterment of the city. With public transportation, less cars and parking places the inhabitant can and should enjoy the life outside. It all sounded so good that couldn’t be true…

The most striking aftertaste of the presentation is my inability to trust the upcoming politician. Though, it is not him i am unable to trust rather, it is the lack of trust to the centralized forms of governance maintained under the state apparatus.

No good has ever come from a government. Labour rights were won by the labour itself against the inhumane capitalists. It is the middleman status that justified the existence of the state.

Another obvious example for the inability of the state to educate us is gender equality and its inexistence in our everyday conversations. I believe, sexism is manifested firstly in our thoughts. It may be that our truest self might exist firstly in our thoughts. The enforced projection of a superiority against women and other genders is later expressed behind closed doors and among ears one trusts since society has deemed sexist remarks inappropriate…

Empty promises have become the norm. A pessimistic belief diminishes our hopes for the betterment of our social lives. The things one sees in the ex colonial countries cannot even be conceptualized at this island.

At the very bottom, it is the respect for the citizens that can best describe the admiration one feels when visiting an ex empire. After all, nationalism must require some form of respect for the prospect soldier that will be called to defend his beloved life. If that life is not worth fighting for, nationalism might be less vivid.

The above paragraph might require some further analysis to illuminate the importance of the quality of life in encouraging nationalism to grow. Most importantly though, it is the unquestionable declining progression of the quality of life and the reappearance of nationalists. There can only be one explanation to maintain the above argument: It is the standards that deteriorated. There was and still is no further expansion of the quality of life and the reason might be the lowering of our standards. Even, we may have gained more up to now than what we are willing to lose.

Of course, this might have been encouraged from mass media that presented these gains against a war flattened land which indicated that “you should be grateful this is not your hometown”.

Even though the government and the state are two separate entities that the former justifies the latter’s existence, the separation is not apparently obvious anymore. Besides the ideological connection one feels towards a political party, real change in peoples lives happens within smaller localized communities. Most importantly, among people and interpersonal relationships…

Then, after all these, how can I still trust the so called representative democracy that plague our island? When nothing seems to be benefited besides the class that was created to represent us. When private businesses can control the policy to increase their sales and revenue regardless of the impact any of these will have on us. It is a story as old as time and my frustration will once again reside and use my citizen right to vote.

I will vote because of the old excuse that may be correct. From bad to worse. I do not have an answer but maybe hope hasn’t fully evaporated just yet. The uncertainty and contradictory nature of the analysis and the action has been attributed to my generation apparently and our times. Regardless, it is a creation of the digital realm. Just before capitalism fully enclaves us to a world detached from reality, fully controlled and monitored.

Limassol - the city of dreams, light and other sellable descriptions

 How should we approach conversations on the city of Limassol and it's modern-day becoming?

Clearly, there are two non mutually exclusive points of view on the matter. One is the narrative evolving around the political decisions that allowed for the uprooting of whatever we may call local culture. The neoliberal understanding of a modern state in which markets run freely with the help of the corrupted public institutions, allowed everything - every piece of land and its surroundings, native populations and the quality of the job market to name a few, to be exploited by the highest bidder.  

The other perspective focuses on the consequences of modernization as an improvement to our well-being. The job opportunities and the erected apartments, the newly local branch of another multinational company indicates to them a sign of improvement. As if, progress is measured with the vivid signs and the height of buildings covering the sunny sky. For them, the local culture is a petty and laughable preoccupation that only hinders the modernization process. 

We may identify local culture as what has been left in our memories of the city. To me, it is the scattered tripods one could see every morning at Molos (the jetty) occupied by elders, painting the early morning sky and its reflection on the Mediterranean sea leading up to the horizon. Mostly carrier ships disturbed the blueish colours of the chosen frame. All of them, except the carrier ships, have disappeared around the time of the latest upgrade of the jetty. As if the elders were covered with cement as well, leaving their bodies bound to the artificial land of the jetty..

In any case, there is still a certain population grinding through the emissions and inequality. Despite the hardships new forms of communities emerge while the suffocating systems of oppression kill the idealised standard of individual prosperity. There is a need to distinguish polites from the polis. The city feels like a warzone ready to swallow any one at a moment of absentmindedness. That doesn't necessarily mean that forms of cooperation and mutual aid have disappeared. On the contrary, this aggressive environment prioritises them. The local culture has not actually been eradicated but shifted to match the social conditions imposed to the locals. 

Some of the influences of modernization are being claimed by the the locals in an effort to express and distinguish themselves from the powers that be. You can only claim the identity and no one can do it for you. Of course, re-enacting some of the viral trends from social media in domestic workplaces does not contribute to the liberation of people but merely and romantically presents a monetized consequence of the techno-globalization of the world. Denying to partake in folly  activities such as this, does contribute to the liberation of people from the influences of digital capitalism. I suppose it is of importance whether one is conscious of this motive or not. 

Raising awareness and framing the struggle must be beneficial to the cause. A narrative evolving around the historical forces build up to this day reminds us that history is not finished.  The resistance is as broad as the influences of the bio-practises of capitalism....

Scarcity

 An observation that remained true for me for quite some time now is that the fundamental drive for the development for human civilisation has been the scarcity of needed resources. The very existence of a shelter or of a spoonful of warm soup on a cold night garnished with all the right ingredients, require a certain amount of resources. 

Of course, needed resources change according to the knowledge of a given society and their understanding of what is best for them at any one time. Revelations happen that shift our relationship with the natural world. All in the effort to conquer or mimic the wonders of nature. Then, another drive appears that might justify human civilisation and it is the will to dominate. Even so, at a further reading, domination derives from the material restriction of one to another. Power has been practically quantifiable through the possession of resources and/or the deprivation of them. Also, to dominate nature that hindered our lives and wellbeing in the most horrendous ways...

And yet, nature is the sandbox that we get to realise and exist within. There is no detachment of the species from its natural environment. There is fear for this environment hence, we create artificial ones. It is this negation of nature with our safety that created all this. Negates the paradoxical approach of dominating nature when it has given us life. 

Dominating nature might be the ecological destruction to build more facilities and expand the reach of our artificial environments. Another, to minimise our dependency on nature through synthetic diets and virtual realities. And yet, all these creations are fuelled by natural resources. Even so, there is also the mental dependency of humans to nature. We began making art while struggling to survive in the natural world. All our development has also been guided from this struggle. Then, for humans to live and die in artificial environments will unavoidably affect our own human nature, in ways that i can best describe as being a "vegetable". 

Even if you do want to live and die in artificial environments, always bear in mind that the people who created and preserve these realities only care about you as an exploitative subject that will preserve and verify their status of power. How can you still want to live in a reality where nothing was build in your best interest? Nothing. 

To draw parallels with our existence in the natural world - as the so-called social darwinist would love, might be that "the unforgiving nature doesn't provide everything in your plate and so, you shouldn't expect everything from social arrangements and institutions". There is a variable that is missing from this narrative. Our own deaths and misfortunes benefits other species that will thrive where we did. The struggle of humans to survive does not mean that other species struggle as well. When humans cannot survive in an environment other species with populate the area and thrive. Of course, humans missing from a certain ecosystem diminishes the richfullness of the various species but we do not have to live and thrive everywhere. 

Then who does the exploitation of humans by humans through wage-labour and our enclosure in artificial environments, benefit? No other species will thrive where we sweat and moan labouring the fruits of our efforts and progress. It is not another species but certain social classes. Then the argument goes to waste because when nature does not provide me with the necessary tools to survive other species will survive through me. In the artificial world, our survival and deaths benefits its creators for which a sea of blood has been formed from wounds and deception, still and untouchable with no breeze nor birds chirping, only affected momentarily by the constant drops of blood creating ripples that eventually fade away. 

Maybe consciousness is the ability to imagine one self with no material restrictions. An abundance of resources to match all the caprices of humans. (Do mouflons dream of endless fields with grass and different warm shelters? Different partners and scandalous sexual arrangements?). 

political party on human diet

 Let's say an anthropocentric political party appears out of nowhere with a clear and definite agenda for their time in power: Improve the dietary options of all the citizens. 

There are two possible approaches: 1) disregard the food market and establish public cuisines that will accommodate the hungry. 2) regulate the food market to viable standards of eating. 

why? For a rational human being the answer must be obvious and no explanation should be necessary.

Why why? A political party with a unique agenda cannot fall for the established predatory political parties and their vocabulary. There will be no exploration to the fetishized foreign affairs that politiks enjoy. This is a governmental project for the betterment of the people living in an unobjected area.

The enormous food market will come after us. Imagine what would happen if the party supported the legalization of all D's with government-funded control of the substances and monitoring the users and their dosages. All hell will break loose. When the groundwork has been laid and the idea has been distributed, they can never eradicate it. 

The more compromises you make the less your enemies will be. In regards to the context of the menu we envision, it's a menu without harm made to produce it. We are what we consume and we cannot accept to consume any more death from beings that were brought to life only to be slaughtered later on. The man- in the patriarchal sense, of the 21st century, shouldn't be depended on mass-produced farms only trying to make some more profit. This is what you eat man with a gym subscription, weekend hikereer! 

I would very much like to live in a world where everything is made with care and grace and when someone will lose the joy in the activity, another will take her place. 

Conflicts

The need for this essay derived from the latest bloodbath in Pal****ne. As each word is expressed or deleted, more unaware Pale******* die from i**ael* bombs. It seems that regardless of the westernised ways of classification (e.g. civilian or terrorist), every Pale******* must be annihilated. 

Watching the news and as usual, Ham** is always to blame. Beyond the terrorism, there is something that regardless of the quantity of bombs dropped, can never be eliminated. That is the need for freedom from the plaguing nation and the daily terror Pale******* go through. To the washers of the crimes, this justifies the total annihilation of the population, since one can never fully eradicate an idea, a belief or purpose. All Pal***** are a constant reminder and remainder of a country that is being denied its right to exist. What about pal***** that live abroad? We are not aware of any disappearances but only of censorship. It is known, after the violent uprooting of the natives comes settlement and according to UN resolutions, it is made illegally within the Pal***** territories (ref). Even so, there will never be enough land to claim but with the various acts of terror, the aggressor makes sure to empty it from humans and any other living organisms, endlessly being burned from phosphorus until some freshly-made ruins violently turns them into ash.

Some will say we are anti-zionists or even anti-semites. On the contrary, as we have described elsewhere we believe and practise multiculturism as a principle for change. Ironically, to have any anti prefix on any thesis, presupposes an exclusion -of sorts, of the initial thesis it (the anti-) is being mirrored from. Fascism excludes the majority of the populace. An antifascist movement then must include those who are excluded. If a fascist regime falls and the crimes they have committed - the horrors humans can do to each other, are shown with disgust, all the supporters will lay low and once again hide their predatory behaviour. Until another opportunity will rise and they will again be able to express themselves in horrendous ways. In other words, a thesis needs its antithesis in order to distinguish and identify itself in this patriarchal world we recreate daily. An identity shouldn't be killed by another. 

Self-defence. Where do you set the line? Is there a need to dwell in this question? When one appreciates how vicious the cycle is between aggression and defence the outcome can only be death. 

Words like retaliations or retributions, should only be used in our conversations about the past. There is no room for the present to be filled with these sorrows. Even so, our romanticism will not stop the terror, but that shouldn't prevent us from stating our goals and the ways to achieve them. On the contrary, it is these silly remarks that may lead to new ways of socializing and coexisting. 

I would like to know, where do you stand on this? Not in a pick-a-side fashion but on the future of the world through the resolution of the conflict. There is no doubt your belief will have no impact on the massacres committed - even though your actions will, but it certainly does affect the future of us all. To visualize this, imagine a straight line indicating the passing of time. The signifier C shows the beginning of the conflict. The signifier I, shows each and every one at the present. Now, you are alive reading this text and the conflict is alive and kicking. Neighbourhoods erased at the blink of your eye. Then there is the signifier F, to show the beloved future that seems so close and yet so distant. 

-C----I-F-

To support this, we shall need to describe how the conflict is being assimilated into the I. That doesn't mean a resolution of the conflict nor its disregard from our existence. Rather it is an open wound that pushes away the future. There is no future in which people die unwillingly from the actions of other people! There is no doubt that a peaceful coexistence is possible. Where diversity is encouraged rather than being violently avoided. 

Bear in mind that life cannot be assumed in a line. Rather, life is full of these lines which are not really lines. Every point (or pixel) has it's own conflicts that affects the various Is consciously or not. Like a tree demonstrating gloriously life in whole. We are the farthest leaf sprouting at the very tip of the 4th branch at the 7th branch from below to the right. Can you spot us? 

The topic of this essay remains the various conflicts that haunt the present peoples and obscures human progress. How a person is undoubtedly affected by a past conflict or even massacred by its toxic present-day treatment. ADDED: It is the interconnectedness that tries to be justified in this chaotic essay. 

Conflict is being encouraged. The western domination was established through violence. It has set the standards on how nations can thrive. The monetization of war is still the most precious industry as it ticks a lot of boxes. The war machine keeps turning from the unending production of bombs that will later massacre primarily non-christians. Capitalism and all fears of Other peoples are being fulfilled. With our own produced kill machines, we let them annihilate each other and diminish their numbers. Or we shall use drones that do not require men on the ground and allow for an effective annihilation. After lots of kills in the virtual world, all screens feel the same and the act of killing through it, has become the norm. One may momentarily forget that the green figures flashing on the screen are real people and that the heat that fills the human figure is life within them. Probably, that is how one manages to press the button. 

This is beyond cruelty. What lies beyond cruelty? It may be apathy. Not felling anything, not even cruelty. Killing out of boredom shouting that life is meaningless...

how to change the world vs. the world is changing

 There is no dualism. Only life in motion. 

At the very root of it all, the world can only change when we change how we use language. Any language we use to communicate our selves to each other. The phrase to change the world cannot be reduced to a mere moment. Since life itself is best described as life in motion, change must also follow suit and become changing. The world is always changing. To change the world must then mean to acknowledge the changing process, and guide this motion into what you subscribe to. Since we were born in this ever-changing motion, we are part of the movement even in moments of stillness. As long as there is life within us we are actively changing the world. 

To generalize further, it's our actions that foster and recreate the world we all live in. For example, a world without violence isn't being realized through violent actions. Conclusively, language-in-use, is just another human activity that we have chosen to focus on in this essay as a (ironically) revolutionary medium we need to reclaim from the sketchy figures of authority. 

It is of no importance when these old figures have acknowledged the power of language in their quest for validation: To feed the people with certain moral values and later, the same well-fed people, will find solace and accept their authority unquestionably. Similarly on the receiving end, the language one uses shows the moral values they support. We do not believe that the effect of propaganda lies on the ballot turnout, but rather on the lives of the people that fall for it. Language-in-use, from the top to the bottom of any society, instructs the content of our conversations and obviously our thoughts. If for example, the state-owned tv stations regularly presented the various schools of thought that emerged in different epochs of the human civilization on - let's say, political economy, the political dialogue between the citizens would be a completely different experience. 

It is important to know why these silly fundamentals are not promoted to and by the general public. It is a toxic relationship that one needs the other to justify its own existence - or in this case, non-existence. Simply, if we did critize, we would surely take away their status of authority. For the religious, that doesn't mean elimination but rather the exclusion of the religious leaders from the political. When freedom to exercise one's own beliefs are guaranteed, and the concerns of the followers are dealt with utmost care, there is no space left for the involvement of the religious leaders. 

a changing world is the context of the content of our lives. 

...

It is the same old story. There is always a glass half filled or emptied, with water. The importance of it lies in the different beliefs human maintain about the same object. In a similar manner to the pessimistic and optimistic generalizations one can deduce from the observers and their attitudes towards the glass with the water, we maintain that phrasing ourselves differently, also recreates the world that the glass belongs to.

Being aware of the shared experience is a celebration to the evolutionary history. We are not aware of a response to the above question such as the following: with joyful tears and celebrations for their ability to create this situation in which they share this sensory experience and can duel in theoretical conversations. Similarly, you reading this text is also a celebration to the wonders of the human intellect and civilization. 

Not for a moment we forget and separate humans from nature. Evolution has provided for this. Mastering, exploiting and then raping our own first nature to create societies will always be an  undoubtable fact. Even so, we must not fight to return to previous stages of human civilization. Instead, we take full responsibility for continuously exploiting the earth and each other which have allowed us today to enjoy breakthrough individual technologies. 

we need to heal our relationships with nature and each other. Conclusively, the social structures and the reign of domination that has penetrated deep into our individual beings. Innocent expressions or realities (attitudes, perspectives) echoed from the depths of the history of patriarchism, only show how we unquestionably accept the current state of affairs - capitalism and neoliberalism, as the basis of our own lives and in essence our vocabulary: The content of our thoughts and even the flow they are generated. To bring up the contradictions and duel in self-reflection - for example, on the outdated cringe expression you said patronizing homosexuals, can only be achieved with the same language. Not necessarily to learn new words but to form sentences with the already known ones in helpful ways.

We created science searching for answers. Instead we got more complicated questions fuming out of the catastrophe we created. First out of ignorance then out of profit.  

..