a leash.

i do not know what the following feels like: to live a life that is easy and uneventful, to live a life filled with pain and suffering only, to live a life that is utter happiness. in my case, i am usually wedged in between the very bright highs and the very dark lows.

the highs and the lows of my life do not refer to my moods or my feelings, but to concrete life events. some of them extraordinary, to be dreamed of, some, on the other hand, scorching with pain.

the only way to keep some kind of balance and stability in such a position is to step back at times from both the good and the tragic facts of my life. to watch the things unfold as if taking place on a theatre stage. to get away from the burning heart of happiness and of suffering. to cast a gaze over my shoulder to the distant hills.

sometimes i take this vulnerable soul of mine on a leash and walk it in the streets of stockholm like a dog. nobody sees it, it leaves no paw prints, it does not pee or poop. it just weeps inside, and when the tears clear the chest and the nasal passages, i put it back into myself and head home.

i do not think i am able to choose which frame of life i would like to fit myself into. it is more likely that the frame of life chooses us. if i could, though, it is the easy&uneventful that sounds so enticing. yearning for it. but then again, i would find a reason to complain about it. nearly everybody does. so, it seems there is no other option but to pigeonhole ourselves into the appointed niches. and take a step back when the going gets tough.

chapters.

a year ago a new chapter started in my life, a chapter i thought would never come to a close. but it did. its ending overlapped with the beginning of a new one. other undreamed of endings took place, too, as well as some undreamed of beginnings. there are, in fact, no chapters, just branchings out into the unknown and unforeseeable. the multiple streaks that run parallel, and intertwine, and disappear, and come back again.

it happens frequently when i walk around stockholm, which beauty always hurts, that i become aware of the multifaceted nature of every moment. just like in indian yards where saris are dyed, there commences a fluttering and heaving and waving deep within me, and the threads get loose in every direction - my loves, my homelands, my dreams and my secrets. the music, the adriatic, the hands. the beauty around me. the nordic air. the rain on the windscreen as the radio plays 'sto si ti meni'. the whole world.

if i gave a conclusion now i would betray the main point of the text. novels with open endings have been written for centuries. although i prefer a neat closure when i read a book, missing epilogues are much truer to life. my preference only speaks about my immature desire for certainty in a world swaying on shaky legs.

eighteen years.

in a week i will have completed eighteen years of teaching. the first class i taught was on 'sir gawain and the green knight' back in 1995. i remember feeling at ease and loving what i did. i still feel relaxed in front of the students and i still love it. i guess many things have evolved in the meantime; some may have devolved, too. but here i am, ready to go on, hopefully with more excitement and with new insights. at times i had a lot of zeal, or love; sometimes i was filled with anger; sometimes utterly exhausted. but i've never ever been indifferent.

the photograph was taken in march 1999

disfigurement.

there's a point when the edges of a long nurtured body suddenly get blown away and all the pieces of the whole fall apart. things explode and implode. the world glitters its new scales. then a knife cuts through to the heart of the body. the pain blunts the reason. but the scars soon heal, and new scales, stronger and shinier, grow back. until the next cycle. and the next. and the next. the scars are plentiful, but callous and beautiful. the disfigurement reflects the forces of love and life.

the wire and the pyramid.

the new story has been out for a couple of weeks now. my attitude toward it is just like the one i had toward my previous book when it came out. i am indifferent. it's something i got out of my system and no criticism (good or bad) can overly touch me. i fought with my past demons in it, and i have a feeling i am purged of them. until the new ones come along.

my cathedral.

this is the first time i am publicly mentioning a book i published six years ago. i am not sure why i have been so reticent. there is a lot in it that wanted out in the open, and then when the book came out, i mostly kept quiet about it. there were even times when i wondered whether i should have published it at all. not because i am ashamed of writing a dilettante piece of mock non-fiction, or because i disclosed many personal feelings in it, revealing perhaps even the things that i did not know i was revealing, but perhaps because i have changed in the meantime, changed to the extent that some of the things written there are in no way applicable to me any longer. of course, there's still too much of me in it.

the book is a description of one month, march 2001, that i spent in turku, a town in finland. in the story i tried to follow several strands - my inexplicable closeness to scandinavia, some haunting childhood memories, relationships with family members and partners, hospital experiences, introspection, etc. i think i have have fairly accurately and minutely touched upon many burning issues in my life. however, years have passed since then, and i have moved along.

the point of me unearthing this topic now is that i am publishing another title by the end of this year. it is a very different text, a fictionalized story about the demons of filip andrich. the book will be very short, probably under 100 pages, and the title will be 'the wire and the pyramid'. it took me six years to start promoting my stuff. isn't it progress?

toxic disinhibition.

when i was a student in the early nineties i was rather inhibited in classes and not too free to express my own opinions. however, i would have loved to have had some space where i could share the entirety of my ideas. two decades later this kind of space is available to every single student - the internet. i plan to introduce blogs and forums and other online communication platforms in my teaching, in order to offer the students a channel for less inhibited expression.

disinhibition is a wonderful thing. all the ideas we were anxious to share can now get out in the open, not only to be shared, but also tested and contested, which is a prerequisite for further development.

but do all of us take more freedom in the same way? no sir! some of us get disinhibited in a benign way, saying the good things we were too vulnerable to share face to face, while some of us use this increment of freedom to fire away our frustrations and hates. that is called toxic disinhibition, practiced by 'haters'.

this train of thought led me back in time to the early nineties, when former yugoslavia started disintegrating. the communism, which had not been nearly as severe as that in the countries behind the iron curtain, finally fell, and prospects for prosperity and catching up with the modern world opened up. ideological social restrictions loosened, and people were free to express what was on their minds. i remember my great enthusiasm when western chocolates started flowing into our stores, when bands like the sugarcubes had concerts in the country, when europe was at hand. but instead of using the benefits of the new position, we used our freedom to irresponsibly unwrap unprecedented lunacy and stupidity and hatred from our hearts. the toxicity was overwhelming. it is, i'm afraid, still here, and probably to stay.