The Secret Sense

Posted on August 5, 2014 by admin

Was Asimov tripping?

“Intricate patterns of brilliant tints formed and faded, beating in silent bursts of color upon the young man’s eyeballs… Somehow, he knew that what he saw, heard, and smelt were mere delusions— mirages of a brain that frantically attempted to interpret an entirely new conception in it… The effect of the hormone became stronger, and suddenly — in one burst — Fields realized what it was he sensed. He didn’t see it — nor hear it — nor smell it — nor taste it — nor feel it. He knew what it was but he couldn’t think of the word for it. Slowly, he realized that there wasn’t any word for it. Even more slowly, he realized that there wasn’t even any concept for it. Yet he knew what it was. There beat upon his brain something that consisted of pure waves of enjoyment — something that lifted him out of himself and pitched him headlong into a universe unknown to him earlier. He was falling through an endless eternity of — something.” Asimov, ‘The Secret Sense’.

These words were my words, these sensations were my experiences as a miniscule amount of a miraculous chemical bubbled threw my veins passing the blood brain barrier. Read on…

Inside

outside

I was in a safe space prepared by friends. I was opening and closing my eyes, alternating between my inner visions and viewing the outer world. Closing my eyes, I saw cheap ‘Las Vegas’ light displays, complicated kaleidoscopic images, people dancing, a black and white image of a woman, animated lizards, huge white ping pong balls bouncing, old colourful pixelated computer game. The images came and went like the wind faster than I could ever describe. The outer world mostly looked normal except for when geometry went all crazy and the room turned into an Escher painting or for the green glow that surrounded my fingers and shone around the words I wrote.

I realised that these visions were just a side effect of my brain adapting to something new. But what was it?

Words were hard to come by especially while writing. It was easier to speak than write. I could speak about anything except what the hell I was sensing. A theory in neuroscience equates consciousness with the ability to report. For me, this experience threw that theory out of the window. I was so completely conscious, perhaps more than I have ever been, yet it was so obvious to me that words were too small, too limited to describe what I was going through.

Normal?

During this ‘acclimation’ period it all felt normal. Even though I knew I was not ‘normal’. Besides the visions, my nervous system was sending mixed signals, I was hot and cold at the same time and my heart rate was elevated. Yet despite this the ‘normal circuit’ in my brain was turned on. Time still felt ‘normal’, the speed of my thoughts still felt ‘normal (unlike weed, which plays with these perceptions by affecting receptors in the short term memory part of the brain). “Your hands are shaking,” my friend said. “No they aren’t,” I argued looking at my hands. I held a glass of water, putting it on the floor for support and sure enough ripples and waves began flowing through the water. How could my brain trick me thus? Was there any sensation I could trust? Perhaps this was what schizophrenic people felt? Normal, absolutely normal.

Lose yourself

Open that door!

“You are looking for a model that will never be complete. The world is just too worldy. The subject is so biased and small,” I wrote as the distance between the outside world and the inner perceptions of that world began growing. I felt the distance between Sense – Perception – Action. One was so limited by the specific senses through which one came in touch with the world. There was so much out there that we would never know or feel or experience, and what did come through and was recognised as our ‘perception’, was so warped by our survival instincts, by our past experiences, by our emotions. “To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system.” As Huxely put it in The Doors of perception, where he described his experience with the Mescalin drug.

Slowly but surely these warps in perception began clearing up. We listened to music and watched Samsara, the images and sounds were extremely clear but the judgement connected to them was gone. Whether something was beautiful or scary it was just an image, just pixels, just photons transferring their energy to my retina. Beauty, pleasure, fears they were all interpretations; they were not the sensation itself.

This was the complete opposite of any other drug I have tried. This was the Buddhists Nirvana. Everything existed as it was without the ‘I’. Words were so weak because they were part of the subject, and the subject was so unimportant. Tears were flowing from my eyes but they weren’t my tears. I’ve always considered my tears a truth indicator and here was a truth I could not deny. “To actually feel that I don’t exist!” I wrote. The ‘professional’ term for this phenomenon is “death of the ego”, yet in this death I felt more alive than ever before.

Please shoot me if I become a hippie!

We watched videos of LSD experiments from the 50 and I knew these people were sensing the same thing that I was and they were just as incapable in describing it.

What would I call this extra sense If I had to limit it to a word? The Paradox sense! I knew it at once, I was sensing the uncertainty principle, I was sensing Gödel’s paradoxes, I was sensing the very limitations of an organism looking on itself. And it didn’t feel bad.

“If I write this I just might puke,” I wrote, “But love, is not an emotion it is the I. it is the only thing that can converge me. The only thing I can still identify with.” I seriously contemplated how one could research the connection between consciousness and love. And I laughed. Oh, how much I laughed.

Most my life I’ve been obsessed with paradoxes, I wrote a whole sci-fi book about them. The philosopher Ken Wilber explains the world in terms he calls Holon, things that are simultaneously a whole and a part. Usually the sensation of these different aspects of the Holon I call ‘me’ or the Holons of the ‘universe’ evoke the sensation of pain, of contradiction. In this state I was fully aware of these contradictions and of the limits of my own being, but there was no pain. Things were as they were and that was a huge relief, a type of bliss. There was no pain and no fear, not even of death. And if pain or fear existed they were not mine!

Masaccio

Paradise Lost

As the perceiving “I” was taken out of the picture I realised there was no telling what actions this organism might decide to do. “Would this organism take care of itself?” I asked myself. “I’m not sure. Maybe,” was the answer?
It was extremely hard to care about this ‘body’ to feed it, to get it to drink. Yet when a pain was too strong I stopped it, when I walked down a dark stair case I held on to the rail and walked slowly as not to fall and I still wouldn’t agree to eat oranges even if I didn’t feel I hated them.
“You would never survive out there like this,” my friend insisted. “Out there I wouldn’t’ but in a safe environment I think I could. I would be functioning at around 60%. But why not live like this with truth before emotions?”
“Where could you find this type of environment?”
“The Garden of Eden,” I blurted. I could go around picking fruit and staring into the air. I could do this. I would never be bored. Was eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge an ingenious metaphor of humanity developing an ego? And if so why couldn’t we go back there?

After some experimenting I came to believe humans could not only live like this, they could procreate too. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that ‘my’ organism could feel horny. Sex itself was utterly clear without any annoying voices in my head, without ‘trying’ to achieve an orgasm. And when the orgasm did come it cut sharply through all my senses verging on pain.

Final words
“This is when you realise so many of the artists you love were trying to express this feeling,” my friend said at some point. “Yes, Art tries, music tries, love tries, nothing can,” I agreed.
My friend, an advocate of Wittgenstein, claimed that this was proof of Wittgenstein’s ideas, that language puts a limit on the expression of thoughts. For me this was proof of the exact opposite, thoughts, sensations, consciousness are so much beyond language. “But how will you express these thoughts and pass on this knowledge to other people if it’s beyond language?” My friend insisted. “Easy, I’ll just give them some of these magic molecules and let them experience it first-hand.”

The Power of the People

Posted on July 12, 2014 by admin

On my first day in Lima I watched as a quiet art exhibition in the center of the city turned into a riot when city officials tried to arrest the artists… Read all about this and more of this crazy city.

Two worlds one city!

I had heard Lima was supposed to be a beautiful city but upon arriving I encountered an urban mess of crumbling, half finished buildings, roads filled with garbage and the tuk tuk was back. The well documented eternal greyness in the winter, didn’t help much. The sky was hermetically covered with clouds, not even one ray of sunshine could filter through.

“How long do you think it will take a city like this to look like a modern European city?” a friend I’m traveling with me asked.

“Never, it will have to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch,” I said.

5 hours later standing on the beach walkway of the Mira Flores touristic district in Lima I swallowed my tongue. Never in my travels have I encountered such differences in one city, it felt like a completely different country. Even the rich parts of Mumbai do not manage to hide the third worldiness of it. The noise, the garbage, the smell filter in but not in Mira Flores where there are no tuk tuks, no honking and there are garbage bins at every corner. Even the people look and dress differently.

It was a slow change from one part to the other, buildings grew higher and more modern, sidewalks appeared, tuk tuks and graffiti disappearing.

The Human statue in silver surrounded by the crowd after the attack.

The transition area seemed to be at the old center of the city. There were old European style buildings that had seen better days but still offered charm and beauty. Roads filled with modern stores and hundreds of people going about. It was here on a crowded walkway that I witnessed police brutality, the kind of which I have never seen with my own eyes before. I also stood in awe as I saw the masses stand up to it.

It began with a simple ‘human’ statue. The center of the city is filled with many artist and musicians but for some reason a city official was trying to shut this one down. The artist stayed in character and refused to budge as more and more people gathered around the scene. Then all of a sudden many city officials arrived along with several police men. The pushed the artist outside the circle and began to beat him. One of the policemen took the shovel that the artist was using as a prop and began to beat him with it.

Suddenly almost as one, a roar rose from the crowd. They rushed forwards pushing the police back with their bare hands and surrounded the artist protecting him. The police quickly disappeared. The crowd kept close to the artists, giving him money and tending his wounds. My friend, a local to south America said that the police were the lucky ones to get out of there alive.

Causa – Octopus and a special type of potato!

I have been to many demonstration, and I have witnessed police brutality but I have never seen this type of reaction from the crowd. It wasn’t one or two people that were brave enough to defend the artist, it was every one including old women and young children. I could actually feel the power of the people. My friend tried to explain this by the fact that democracy is quite a new thing here, people still remember overthrowing dictatorship, they remember their power. People do not trust police, they are still considered as little more than thugs. He explained that in the culture here there is a difference between ‘legal’ and ‘legitimate’. Even though the government is the one that decides what is legal it is the people that decide what is legitimate, and on the street it is the people that count.

Somehow I had a very hard time imagining this scene in the clean and modern district of Mira Flores. It is likely that the police there would not have acted as violently but even if they did I doubt that the people would react in the same way.

Rocoto Relleno – stuffed pepper, and a food festival.

I’ll end with a lighter note, as the one thing Lima did live up to was its reputation of food. It didn’t matter if I ate in the poor area or in one of the 50 best restaurants in the world (astrid&geston) the food was delicious and unique. Strangely enough the price differences between the two parts of the city weren’t that big between 5 – 15 dollars, somehow I would have expected more. Then again as a local I was staying with in the poor side of the city told me, “I don’t know which restaurant is good because I eat at home…”

Ecuador Bits

Posted on June 30, 2014 by admin

I’ve been in Ecuador for almost 10 days so I guess it’s time to tell some tales… read on!

It’s not a poster it’s the view from the window!

Nature in Ecuador is beautiful. The long bus drives are filled with amazing views that can compete with New Zealand or Switzerland. So much untouched nature between one human settlement to the next. Taking that into account the roads are surprisingly good.

Spot the nickle?

Like all third world countries there is a vast difference between the cities and the villages. The cities are cities, Guayaquile could just about be manila or even Tel Aviv. But the villages are a different story. People look different, they talk different, there are no fast food chains and almost no one speaks English.

Ecuador uses dollars which makes things more expensive than some other places in South America but still cheaper than Colombia. The strange thing is they use a mixture of U.S Coins and local coins (and they use a lot of coins!) but don’t use $50 bills! I guess this is the best proof that the whole money system is a belief system like any other.

Sandwich Sandwich

Rolling the boat on the log into the ocean, simple human ingenuity.

Canoa is a strange little beach village in the center of Ecuador. It is dependent on tourism but is still a fisherman village with families rolling their small boats on tree logs into the ocean every day casting their nets for fish and huge shrimp! Not all families are created equal, some have many young men and boys helping, others had old women pushing. It was strange to see that the boat engine itself is carried each day from the house and connected to the boat, theft is a big issue.

Boat loads of dead sardines are dumped back in to the ocean by the ‘corporate’ boat because there is no demand for them. At leas the Pelicans enjoy this feast 🙁

My well documented sea sickness prevented me from joining a local fishing boat that my friend managed to get invited on to. He came back with the most hilarious tales. The fishermen spend the day smoking weed while laying their nets. Then they head out to a larger commercial fishing boat were they begin to negotiate with the ‘corporate’ fishermen. The men manning the large boat stay at sea for days at a time and for a fresh can of soda or some chips will throw some fish into the local fishermen’s boat. When all valuable goods had been traded for fish the local fisherman commanded my friend “Make me a sandwich sandwich”.

“What’s that?” My friend asked.

“Two pieces of bread with another two pieces of bread inside”.

“Oh, you have a sandwich sandwich” said a ‘corporate’ fisherman and traded some more fish for it.

After trading the fisherman return to their nets to collect the day’s loot.

Surfing Vs. Climbing

Art or destruction of nature?

Ecuador is known for its surf but a ‘professional’ surfer I met wasn’t happy with the waves. “They are all mushy,” he said. “And there is no easy path out into the ocean because the waves break everywhere.” The biggest surprise for me was how much your ribs hurt after a day of surfing. Laying on the board and battling the waves gets your chest and ribs scratched up and banged up!

The climbing so far has been surprisingly good. It is a new young sport here and the rock was well bolted and local climbers were at both crags we arrived to. One of the crags just outside of the city was covered with graffiti which I had mixed feelings about.

Ecuador Vs. Thailand

The beaches I’ve seen were not as good as Thailand but this is not the high season so the sky is always cloudy. The coconuts and fruit shakes can give Thailand a good fight but they are more expensive here so once more Thailand is at an advantage.

Only in Ecuador?!? Yes the shrimp is bigger than the fork!

It also feels a lot less safe. Bags are stolen (including my friend’s) and locals warned me not to sit outside the backpackers with my computer or a camera at night. The buses are easy to use and cheap but not nearly as fancy as Thailand buses. I guess for these reasons and more Ecuador is a lot less touristic than Thailand. I have also been using Couchsurfing here which I never did in Thailand. From the locals I learnt that I just missed the Gay parade which had thousands of people marching in it. Although tolerance here is not close to the strange status gay and transgenders have in Thailand it’s nice to know things are getting better (While in Israel the minister of education said that a Jewish state should tell Gay couples they are not a family).

Children playing football on the beach all day, every day.

Ballet For The Masses

Posted on June 24, 2014 by admin

The world cup game is a serious thing in south america. It’s everywhere. On every TV screen, in every pub and every park. In Colombia, one might even say it is a life and death matter. 9 people died celebrating the win against Greece. That was reason enough for me to secretly root for Ivory Coast in the second Colombian match as I was watching it in Cali, south Colombia.
The excitement on the streets started an hour before the game. People in yellow shirts flooded the streets, drivers were honking and driving even worse than usual. The games, as games do, started with playing the Anthem. The Colombian anthem is super religious and by law is played twice a day on the radio so it’s no suprise the players seemed to know the words. I got debriefed about the right curse words to use, a special combination of ‘sonofabitch’ which could be used both in good or bad situations so I couldn’t mess it up.

Celebrating in Bogota.

In Generally I find soccer games extremely boring. Most of the time nothing happens. Instead of the TV anchor saying who’s passing the ball to whom, I wish he would say “nothing is happening, nothing is happening, ok look now something might happen… well, sorry nothing happened…” I quickly learned I could use the excitement of the crowd as an indication to get this information and know when to look up from my phone. I say excitement but I really mean mass hysteria, screaming, groaning, jumping and banging on tables. What I couldn’t seem to figure out was if the screaming was good screaming or bad screaming.

I passed the time eating and drinking with friends, Colombian style. There is a very unique social norm here that I havn’t seen anywhere else. Whatever you eat or drink you pass around and share with friend. It doesn’t matter if it’s beer, ice cream or a hamburger, it is passed around like a joint.When Colombia scored a goal every one jumped up and began hugging but a moment later the game continued so there was no time for celebrations until the game ended. Colombia won and the TV anchor asked people to take care and not drink and drive. I doubt anyone listened. For hours later the city sounded like it was under attack. Explosions, honking and ambulances filled the streets. Well, just as long as the masses are having fun…

Radikal Bogota

Posted on June 4, 2014 by admin

If you are going to lose your wallet in Bogota you might as well do it after you’ve taken some e. It’s been a crazy few days in this city… read on.

Graffiti is legal in large parts of the city.

There are more Maria’s than Jesus statues

It took me some time to realize why Bogota felt familiar. Finally I realized there is a big similarity to Manila. There are a massive amount of people, the public transport is in total chaos, the colorfulness and of course Jeusus everywhere. It is less of a surprise if you realize the Spanish screwed both these countries over and influenced them a lot.

Bogota has a long history of violence, from fighting for independence from the Spanish, to a civil war that was caused because the two ruling parties tried to kick out the communists. For the past few years thing have been quiet but a massive amount of police hang out at every corner of the city.

What I did like about the city is that it’s built very close to beautiful green mountains, so whenever the smog or masses of people get too overwhelming I can always look to the distance and soak in some green. It’s also really fun to discover lots of exotic fruit that I haven’t seen even in Asia, as well as lots of interesting new foods.

Tamal rice and chicken rapped in palm tree leaves.

Bogota is also known for its drug culture. Although use of drugs in public is illegal there are some known parks where the distinctive smell of weed carries to a great distance. The police keeps their distance perhaps because the smokers are rich students.

I also visited an alternative techno music festival called Radikal and despite the heavy searching at the entrance I can say most everyone was on some type of drug or another. There were even people sniffing glue! I found some e from a very respectable source and for the first time in my life I took half a pill. An hour later just as I was thinking this wouldn’t affect me, the music started being much better and I started to really enjoy myself, really. I was completely clear headed, I could even do math. The one thing I couldn’t do was be angry, or sad or violent.

Agua de Panela, a sweet hot drink that you dip cheese into!

Even when I lost my wallet I could only think positive things about the situation. I thought it would be a good idea to put a small wallet on a necklace so I don’t lose it. The necklace broke while I was dancing and I didn’t notice the wallet fell down. Usually I would never be able to dance in such crowded conditions and would feel really violent every time someone would stepped on me or bumped into me but while on e it didn’t bother me at all.

So basically this could be a great solution to bring world peace!

Colorful streets of old town Bogota.

I was worried I’d feel depressed the next day as e uses one’s serotonin deposits but I wasn’t. I only felt really tired but I slept only 4 hours so that made sense. Drugs are a certain doorway into hacking your own brain and what I find interesting is finding ways to teach your own brain to go through those doorways even without drugs. Even now, days later I feel that just by ‘remembering’ the feelings I had while on e I can increase my ‘happiness’ by around 20% which for someone like me who isn’t really good with this whole ‘happy’ thing is quite a lot.

Peace AND Love?

Posted on May 25, 2014 by admin

Tamera is a community in Portugal which focuses on bringing peace to the world through free love and a sustainable ecological model of living. I Just came back from an introduction week there and It was nothing like I expected it to be! Read on…

Entrance to Tamera

My first impression of Tamera was of a German retirement home. There were many 60+ year olds strolling around the 150 hectors and everything was calm, beautiful and… German! I knew Tamera was founded by Germans but I had no Idea that even today, more than 30 years later, it was still a little German colony in the heart of Portugal’s farm land. The main spoken language is German, most people are German and the culture is most definitely German. There are schedules and time tables and task lists. Not what one would expect from a ‘hippy’ community. The upside was that there was almost no ‘mushy’ fake hugging and the usually endless introduction and farewell circles were limited in time, with each person getting exactly 2 minutes to speak, exactly!

The best compost toilets ever! Notice the piece of wood preventing the toilet lid from hitting the wall. German engineering!

I came to Tamera asking myself what enabled this community to succeed for more than three decades when so many other communities broke apart. There is no doubt in my mind that the ‘German’ management is part of the answer.

Daily Life

My daily life there was very different from someone who is a member of the community. In fact, we were kept quite apart from the community. This was another surprise for me. If I were living in a closed community and there were some newcomers coming I’d run to see who they are, but I suppose it might be expected with the amount of guests Tamera gets.

Breakfast was at 7:00 a.m!!! And from 8:30-10:30 we were asked to join Karma Yoga. What the hell is that, you might be asking yourself. Luckily I had heard of this new and improved way to manage slave labour from friends who came across this. You are asked to work for free in order to better your Karma and advance your spiritual being. At least Tom Sawyer had the decency of tricking people to believe painting the fences was fun. Needless to say, I didn’t join the garden work and went back to sleep after breakfast, or read a book, or practiced Karate. I figure my Karma is fucked beyond salvation anyway.

It wasn’t easy finding a small area that wasn’t squeaky clean

From 11:30-13:00 we had a ‘geistic hour’ about one of the core values of Tamera. Geist is a big part of the language of Tamera, along with words like ‘vision’, ‘coherence’, ‘pilgrimage’ and others. It means something between philosophic and spiritual. Basically someone was talking, quoting all these German scholars and then we could ask questions. Somehow my questions always managed to create the most upheaval. “Do you have any proof of the ‘inner goodness’ of humans?” “Are you aware that you sound very heteronormative and seem to ignore the whole queer community?” were some of the issues I brought up. But don’t worry, the instructors from the community made sure things didn’t get too exciting, telling everyone to take a deep breath and calm down. God forbid I have some fun.

At 13:00 we had lunch and then Siesta time until 16:00.

We then met for another 3 hours doing more practical things, such as community ‘trust’ building exercises or experiencing their unique type of group psycho-drama therapy they call ‘Forum’. In ‘Forum’ one person brings up a problem or questions through acting it out and being guided by the Forum ‘leader’ after which others can become mirrors helping that person see parts of himself he might be missing or give him advice.

19:00 was dinner time.

At 20:00 the small bar opened and we could get to know the different members of our interesting group. This went on until 24:00.

And so life went on.

Free Love

Let’s admit it, this is most likely the reason you are reading this piece. As a champion of open relationships, polyamory or anything not monogamy, this was one of the main issues I was specifically interested in Tamera. How do things not get terribly ‘messy’ and complicated in such an ‘open’ community?

Well, part of the answer is they talk about it… a lot! From my prodding questions they seem to talk about it way more than they actually do it. In fact, I wasn’t the only one who felt that the whole environment was far from being ‘sexy’, even to the point of experiencing a libido decrease. Part of this might be due to the underdeveloped practice of movement methods, no morning yoga, no Contact improvisation jams (except for the one I created) and no communal sports games. Instead, their communal time is spent in lectures about current ecological issues. Their Sunday ‘church’ is used to update the community on projects that are going on and sings peace songs (one of which was in Hebrew which was super strange for me). As you can see there isn’t much that might get the ‘juices’ flowing.

Probably the ‘sexiest’ picture I could find. Check out those solar panels!

“There can be no peace on earth as long as there is war in love”

This is the statement from which Tamera’s philosophy of free loves arises and I’ll admit even I like it. But their solution is quite the opposite of personal ‘freedom’:

“We must ask ourselves if each of our actions will create more peace or not and act accordingly, creating an environment of complete trust and openness between all members of the community”.

If you have to get the whole community’s agreement before you can go have some fun with someone, well you’re not going to have much fun are you? Actually, the whole ‘process’ of exposure to the community sort of takes all the spontaneity, fun and excitement out of sex and love.

Autonomy

solar ‘oven’ for use in crises areas.

Tamera aims to produce 80% of all their energy food and water they need. They claim that in a time of crisis a change in behavior patterns will reduce their usage by 20%. So far their greatest and most inspiring success comes from their water retention and soil management plan. They have built a set of dams to collect rain water and through planting support plants and nourishing their land they have managed to stop the desertification process that is taking place in nearby farms. They currently supply 100% of their own water and have managed to replenish ground water levels, creating actual abundance. Their permaculture gardens are well on their way and in a much better state than what I experienced in Australia. They have horses and pigs that do the digging for them (and tractors) but none of the animals are used for food as it is entirely a vegan community. For energy they mostly relay on massive solar panels but they also research and create methods that can be used in third world countries or disaster zones. For instance, creating biogas from vegetables or an ‘oven’ that is created by mirrors collecting, focusing and directing sun light.

One of the water retention areas created.

Compared to these advances it was quite disappointing to hear about Tamer’s financial situation. They are is far from being autonomous. 60% of their money comes from guests and seminars, 20% from donations and 20% from people in the community that work outside. Although there is no rule about having to give your money to the community people working outside the community give around 50% of their income. There are no rules about how many hours one needs to work and community members trust that others are working to their best of their capabilities.

The bottom line is Tamera is in debt of 1.8 million euro. I thought that was really a lot but I guess if you divide it by 150 members it’s ‘just’ 12000 euro each. Compared to their vast knowledge of ecological issues, (which was sometimes seasoned with strange beliefs like prayer reducing radiation!?!?) I found their knowledge in economic issues lacking. For instance they live with myths about the Kibbutz model being successful while the truth is that all the Kibbutz’s in Israel were always supported by the Israeli government or the Jewish agency and their debt had to be reduced and erased time after time to prevent bankruptcy. To be fair, the myth that ‘take what you need and give what you can’ is a good idea probably comes from one relatively new and unique Kibbutz that seems to be making this work. The name of the place is Samar (sorry for the Hebrew link but there is very little information about them out their) and on my next visit to Israel I’ll be sure to check them out.

It was especially sad for me to see how they used one of the sessions to try to get us guests to donate more money. I myself ask for donations or ‘crowd funding’ for my free self defense books for children so why did this bother me? Perhaps, as George Orwell explained in a brilliant article ‘Why Are Beggars Despised?’ (a link Amanda Palmer thanked me for so it’s worth a look!), it’s because of their failure to earn a decent living and the disparity which was present in their asking. This reminded me of the regular ‘ritual’ that accompanied every meal were those who prepared the meal ‘begged’ for people to come help wash the dishes. To me this is just bad management. This is obviously a very subjective feeling. If I would whole heartedly agree with Tamera’s vision and project I would probably be happy to donate money, just as I’m happy to donate to musicians I like (Amanda Palmer again) or the guy from the Free walking tour of Lisbon who was awesome. On a second thought, it might just be the phenomenon my favorite behavior psychologist Dan Arieli speaks about. There are two separate pathways in the brain, the empathetic-social one and the calculating one. We were already paying for our introduction week and thus the whole week I was already in my ‘calculating’ mode. If the whole week had been donation based the situation might have been different. I would have probably donated and participated in the garden and kitchen work much more.

Like Attracts Like

The Founders (pic from Tamera web site)

This is probably my main realization after a week in Tamera. Tamera’s history started out with two very strong and charismatic leaders (Sabine Lichtenfels, Dieter Duhm). Only after there were enough people with the same mind set the community ‘democratized’. Joining Tamera is a very slow process that takes at least two years (in which one must also pay for their stay), thus weaning out all those who are not of the exact same mindset as the rest of the community. Every new ‘electron’ added to this community ‘atom’ must fit in without exciting the rest of the electrons to a higher energy level. So if you want to join you better be a careful, meticulous and calm person who chooses to believe in the ‘inner good’ of humanity, romanticize the ‘harmony’ of nature and refuse to accept any violence in your life. I might be generalizing but I can see definite WWII post-trauma syndromes in this behavior. As for me, as one of my favorite writers put it:

“Violence is a language, perhaps the most primitive and primal language of them all.” Forgetting this language will likely cause part of ‘humanity’ to atrophy, much like a muscle that needs to be hurt and destroyed in order to trigger new muscle growth. If this is the ‘new human’ Tamara people are attempting to build and if this is their ‘heaven’ people like me don’t have a place in it. But we already agreed I’m going to Hell right?

Despite all my criticism I am very curious to see how they develop and hope their experiment does survive because I’m all for variety which makes for a more interesting reality, just as long as they don’t become the stifling majority.

Desert Storm

Posted on April 30, 2014 by admin

A climbing camp to Jordan was a great excuse for me to escape the stifling Jewish holiday of Passover. If my ancestors supposedly spent 40 years in the desert after escaping captivity in Egypt then spending a week in the desert to commemorate that, makes much more sense than obsessively cleaning the house from bread crumbs and starving for a week (although actual history probably has little to do with this fairy tale). Anyway, read on!

Go Pro Pic by Kfir Amir

Passing the border was a long and tedious affair on both sides. The Israelis want you to pay 100 NIS to leave the country and the Jordanians want you to be registered with a ‘guide’. Luckily the organizers of the camp had everything under control so after standing on lines in the heat for a few hours we were on our way.

The small Bedouin village in the Wadi Ram desert seemed to have gone through a zombie apocalypse of sorts. One story half destroyed houses covered with graffiti and littered with junk, spread out in the middle of nowhere. Women clad all in black, only their eyes peeking behind their veil, darted around in the background, quickly disappearing whenever someone saw them. An occasional man on a camel or jeep could be seen passing through.

Some boys playing soccer in a makeshift playground proved that there was some life in this seemingly dead village. A few young girls, still unveiled, were playing in the dirt at the outskirts of the playground. They waved to me and smiled. I did the same hoping that perhaps seeing a grown ‘free woman’ will help them change their future even though I know it won’t.

A few moments before we nearly flipped over.
Go pro pic by Kfir Amir

On the way to the local store I got a marriage offer from one of the young men. No, I didn’t asked how many camels I was worth. The store itself was pretty basic but did have snickers chocolate bars which are turning out to be the one constant food source I’m encountering everywhere I go!

The rock cliffs and canyons are massive and beautiful but the sand stone is crumbly and some holds literally fall to pieces in your hand or under your feet so it’s not for the faint of heart. It is also only Trad climbing and I couldn’t really find people to climb with so I only went climbing for one day and spent the rest of the time bouldering or hiking.

The most popular thing to do in the area is Jeep trips and a few days into the camp we took a jeep into the middle of the desert to camp out there for the night.

The jeep driver was probably 70+ and seemed half blind and deaf. He almost flipped the jeep over trying to reverse down a steep sand dune. Some of us managed to jump out and he just kept driving without noticing he’d left us behind! The rest of the group banging on his window was the only thing that saved us from being stranded there.

The desert seemed endless and empty but actually walking for only a few minutes brought me in contact with other groups or jeeps jumping traversing through the area.

The next day I awoke to a sand storm, rain and an upset stomach, so I cut my trip short by a day and hitchhiked from the Israeli border in Eilat back to Jerusalem which is always a great way to travel.

I Met Kfir and some other High lingers so I have these cool pics that he took.

I Met Kfir Amir and some other High liners so I have these cool pics that he took.

Everything Changes Everything Stays The Same

Posted on March 11, 2014 by admin

An interference pattern of overlapping images form in my brain as I walk through the places I used to call home, the places I ran away from a year and three months ago. I was afraid of this moment but it’s turning out to be a much more interesting experience than I thought.

As you can see my camera got pretty messed up during my travels…

New houses on the street

Then and now, my brain is playing find the differences like those newspaper pictures. There are new houses in the street, many of the trees have died in the crazy snow storm, there is a kitchen where I used to sleep in my mom’s house. People have started new jobs, moved cities, broken up with loved ones or are getting married. Some look older, some actually look younger and some look exactly the same.

It’s like stepping back into old shoes, the first second might feel strange but the patterns of the past are so strong that in a few seconds time the comfort returns. Opening the fridge door, turning off the alarm, driving a car! The second time around is not the second it’s the millionth and one.

Ok most of the clothing (except the karate stuff) is my sister’s but still too hard to choose from…

There is a gap in which I manage to feel both the strength of the memories and their distance from the present, until once again they become the present.

There are some ‘comforts’ that are taking me longer to get used to, like trying to choose clothing from a packed closet after a year with only a small backpack, or detaching myself from google maps even though I know where I am.

During my travels I met some awesome Israeli’s and meeting up with them here is helping me keep the laughter and fun from the trip alive and well. So, so far, uncharacteristically for me, I’m not complaining 🙂

Asia Insights

Posted on March 3, 2014 by admin

I never thought I would travel in Asia, let alone spend 7 months there moving from Vietnam to Thailand, Laos, China, Hong Kong and Philippines! One of the coolest things about traveling is noticing the small differences in culture and human behavior, things we usually take for granted. Here are some of my personal observations on this matter, read on…

Hong Kong High tech shower

Toilets – one of the most diverging points of a society is the bathroom! In China you better be prepared to squat, in Thailand you will use a bucket to flush the toilet even if there is running water in the tap. In Philippines a toilet seat is far from being required and forget about hot water! Vietnam is quite westernized in this department although there isn’t any separation between the shower and toilet so prepare for a wet toilet seat (like almost everywhere in Asia!) while Hong Kong is a different world and you can even choose the temperature of the water!

street market Hanoi Vietnam

Supermarkets – supermarkets are a great way to get to know a society. In north Vietnam there almost aren’t any, all the locals still go to the markets twice a day to buy fresh products. Thailand and Hong Kong have been taken over by 711! But in Hong Kong all the supermarkets are so tiny and overcrowded there are actual human traffic jams in the aisles. The Philippines was a big surprise for me with loads of western products. While in China they have no bread, only dried crackers, but a whole section of different kinds of noodles. Also the cosmetics section which is massive everywhere in Asia (packed with skin whitening creams!) was much smaller.

Bicycling in Laos, hiding from the sun as usual in Asia.

Getting around – It is amazing how many different ways to make a Tuk Tuk there are. Thailand is famous for its Tuk Tuks that seem to be specifically manufactured. In the Philippines they just attach makeshift carriages to a motorbike. In Vietnam there are only motorbikes! In Laos they look like small converted tractors with the passengers sitting in the back but most people are still on bicycles.

Public transportation also varies a lot. Hong Kong is definitely the best with cheap super advanced metro and buses. Thailand is the land of luxury intercity buses (some even have a massage chair!). Laos will use the words “luxury” and “first class” but don’t believe them. Vietnam was surprisingly ok with bus schedules and air con! In China you have to take your shoes off to get into the sleeper buses which are crammed, with no marked seats and not all seats are created equal. The Philippines was probably the worst, with no schedule, no air con, and buses that seem they might fall apart on the way.

Folding money in the Philippines

Money – I mean the actual notes! Vietnam is smart enough to get rid of all the coins although they have an obsession for new crisp notes and won’t accept anything that looks too old. While in the Philippines they are obsessed with folding and crinkling up the notes! Laos has the most confusing notes in my opinion with all of them looking pretty much the same. Hong Kong has some high tech plastic notes. And in Thailand the heavier the coin the less it’s worth!

Utensils – A knife cannot be found anywhere in asia! Even modern Hong Kong will give you a fork and spoon. In Vietnam and China even those are rare and you better know how to use them chopsticks.

Communication – In China you will get shouted at, but don’t take it too hard they shout at each other all the time too. In Laos you might be completely ignored while in Vietnam people might just shake their heads in a ‘no’ motion. In Thailand people will say ‘yes, yes’ even if the answer is no, in Hong Kong people will smile and politely keep speaking Cantonese at you and in the Philippines you will almost always find someone that speaks decent English!!!

Food coloring and bucket of sugar in this Philippines traditional desert

Food – Asia is known for it’s strange ‘delights’. In Vietnam, silk worms, frogs, snails and dogs are a common thing. China will outdo even that with eating… well everything….there aren’t even any rats on the street. China will also over-fry and over-chemical everything. I’ve heard stories of apples not rotting for more than three months. Personally, for the first time in my life I had constant heartburn after two weeks there.

Thailand is queen, king and emperor of spicy food, but also of delicious fruit, fruit shake and fresh coconut water which I will miss forever. Laos was a bit dull while Philippines is obsessed with food coloring and sugar (seriously they add sugar to peanut butter!). For desserts head over to Hong Kong for endless delicious varieties of sweet soups, mochi style rice dough or jelly dessert.

I would recommend staying away from the Dorian stinky fruit which is popular throughout Asia, unless you enjoy the smell of sewage.

Tea house in China

Coffee or Tea? Vietnam has Its own delicious variation of ice coffee and also some strange room temperature teas, in China you will spend a small fortune for a cappuccino so you better stick with the endless varieties of teas served in tiny miniature bowls. Laos and especially Thailand are home of bubble milk Tea but not much when it comes to quality stuff.

Drugs – Thailand weed is great, Vietnam isn’t too bad either but don’t expect too much of the Chinese brand. Good luck finding any in Hong Kong. Laos is rumored to have opium but I couldn’t find any. In the Philippines they smoke pipes since rolling paper is very expensive and the weed had a delayed effect on me kicking in only half an hour after I smoked.

Chocolate? What in Asia? You have to be kidding me?!?!

Love, Yes?

Posted on February 21, 2014 by admin

Love the merchandise

When my dancer/actor friend from Manila told me to come watch his fringe theater performance called “Love Is Not Yet A Musical”, I’ll admit I was expecting one of those ‘we are so cool and sophisticated that you aren’t going to understand anything we do’ performances. I did not expect to survive one of the most thought provocative, experiential, heart breaking, gut wrenching nights of my life which literally ended in tears for me. I’m pretty sure some of what we went through would not have passed the Helsinki declaration which regulates experiments on human beings.

Sarah Slezer, the 21 year old company manager, had explained to me that they didn’t like the way mainstream theater is done and the idea behind the performance was to create something different, something that will move people and get them to participate. Despite this, no warning bells went off and I was not prepared for what followed.

Rehearsals of one of the scenes

The creation process itself was experimental too. The group used crowd sourcing to gather more than 500 ideas, letters, monologs from which they selected and combined to create a whole piece. The whole event was exceptionally managed with a crew of around 30 actors and productions manager for the 60+ members of the audience that showed up. Half the performance was in Tagalog so I can’t vouch for that but some of the English monologs were the strongest I’ve ever encountered.

Spoiler alert!!! I can’t possibly get you to understand what I went through without some specific examples. Personally after much consideration I do recommend you go and experience the show first-hand if you can (showing, every weekend until the end of march in Manila) And if you do you probably shouldn’t read on…

But for all those of you who are in different countries, you know the drill…

It started out by getting the coolest finger led in one of three colors which the organizer used to separate us into 3 groups.

“Can I offer you a drink?” This actor sacrificed his eyes for his art…

We were first led into a maze where actors pulled individuals into hidden cloves performing just for them or asking them to complete tasks. I was giving 30 seconds to express my most important message through writing, heard an intensely sexualized monolog. Truth is I missed out on a lot that was going on because I was mesmerized by an actor who poured a shot of tequila for people asking them “What would you tell the last person you broke up with if you had the chance?” and “Are you still angry with them?”

If their answer to the last question was yes the person was to shout the sentence at the actor and throw the tequila shot into their face, if they weren’t angry anymore the actor would raise his glass and they would drink together.

“You never made me come!” Shouted one woman and threw the alcohol into the guy’s face.

“You should have fought for me,” Said another and raised her glass.

And so it went on.

I thought this would be the entire performance but it was barely an introduction and we were hurriedly herded together with our group and led out into another room.

For the next hour and a half we were led through 4 different rooms. Our guides used body language and very strict words to get us to follow and stay in line. Each room had a different theme. Hot, Cold, Past, Future. Later I discovered they were connected to the ‘gods’ which was the theme of the play.

Throughout the performances, manipulative brain washing techniques were used to get the crowd to participate and follow along. Fake actors were embedded into the group, time and again creating a peer pressure environment and making you not sure what was part of the performance and what was “real”. Loud music, flashing lights, darkness, smell were all used to put the audience into emotionally vulnerable states and cooperate.

Hot
Seduction, sexuality and the craziness of love were the themes of the monologs. The audience got to dance and share ‘the craziest thing we did for love’. Quitting school, becoming a third wheel and choosing a same sex relationship were some of the very intimate things people shared.

Cold

Cold indeed

Doctors with scary masks were giving us instructions in very commanding voices and demanded: “Introduce yourself, Feed me candy, Give me a kiss on the cheek…” and the crowd, as crowds do, obeyed. This led up to the demand “Ask me out on a date?” to which an older women replied feebly “Um, do you want to go out with me?” The actor shouted an insulting NO!

And broke into one of the best monologues I’ve ever heard that completely embodies the reason I will never date anyone!

Next there was a performance in Tagalog revolving around separation and death and we were told to lie down on our backs. A projection appeared above our head. People were looking down at us, throwing dirt and flowers. We were being buried! We were instructed to whisper things we were afraid of. Personally this whole experience made me feel very vulnerable and scared.

Future
Up on the roof we joined a “fitness” class. “Reach for the stars reach for the moon” the instructor was shouting to happy music. The contradiction to the previous room was very intense. “What is your goal? Your dream for the future? For tomorrow?” The instructor asked. “To go abroad, To finish grad school,” were some answers. The fitness instructor was overly enthusiastic and comic performing sit ups “to finish high school,” and encouraging us to reach for our dreams.

A member of the crowd intervened to share his dream. He was talking about how much he prepared for this day where he would be the star. The instructor seemed to cooperate and dressed the guy in a suite. An intense scene in Tagalog developed, with this guy waiting for his wedding day and being dumped at the alter. At one point the guy jumped onto the edge of the roof and threatened to commit suicide. And the fitness instructor shouted out “No, help me convince him not to jump,” As we had experienced this type of manipulation in the other rooms it was quite evident that this ‘guy’ was part of the crew (He was actually, the friend that brought me to the performance). Despite that it was an extremely intense moment and people were shouting, “Don’t jump, come down!” then another guy jumped up on the roof edge too. At this point I wasn’t sure if that second guy was part of the act or not. The borders between reality and performance had broken down.

The scene somehow quickly changed to us creating paper airplanes and being asked to have a conversation with our future love 10 year from now. But I was still stuck in the previous scene wondering what would have happened if we would have experienced this room first? Could someone have thought this was ‘real’? And even if not, what are the psychological ramifications when asked to participate in this kind of scene? Not to view it from a safe passive distance of an audience, but to be standing there with the instructions to take action!

“The Past”
“Then I realize that that smell on your shirt would soon fade away. Slowly, it will smell like all the clothes in my closet. It will no longer smell of you, but smell of me. As I inhale once more …. One last time, I smell your shirt, the scent seems to be gone.” The Nose Knows (Isabelle Martinez)
This heart breaking monologue which was preformed while we were asked to pack boxes with books and clothes brought me to tears, and I wan’t the only one.

This continued with asking us to close our eyes and imagine a previous lover, to caress their hair, touch their nose, their lips… while the actor spoke about memorizing these features because she knew it was the last time she would see this face. Thinking of this now almost 24 hours later still brings tears to my eyes… Then we were asked to draw a good memory that we had with our past lover and share it and finally a monolog from an old women in Tagalog who was crying and showing pictures from an album…

War
As we were brought to the first maze room and were met with a guy playing the piano I thought it was finally over. But the final act hadn’t yet begun. We were told we would be going to war and given 5 minutes to freshen up and use the toilets.

Crushed in a human train? No thank you!

Back on the roof we were told to choose a different color than what we had gotten. I missed the point that we were supposed to choose based on which room we were most connected to and chose entirely based on color. Blue, like a star wars light saber! We were separated into groups when all chaos broke loose. Smoke screens, water, flashing lights and constant screaming from all around. “Stay with me!” Shouted the actor in front of me holding an umbrella as she ran across the roof through the chaos. I was the only one that actually followed her as the rest ended up with other actors or got lost in the chaos. Two other people found us and we were instructed to say things we hate. All the while we were surrounded by screams and shouts from the other groups which were doing other stange activities. This continued to a “cleansing ritual” were we were to sprinkle water on ourselves and “release” things we didn’t want to take with us. We were then told to go experience the other groups’ “rituals”, where they were saying sorry for things they had done while hitting a drum or making promises for the future. By this point I was too shell shocked to do anything.

But it still wasn’t over and a “battle” between the groups had begun. I’m probably getting all of this confused but I think a dance performance between a man and a women was interrupted and we, the past and the cold group were told to convince the woman to leave her partner and stay with us. The other group was told to convince her to stay. Then I think we were told to do the opposite. But who the hell knows…

There was a last crazy “game” where the actors pantomimed a train and told people they could get on or off whenever they wanted. Almost everyone got on and they were surrounded and literally crushed by the actors who got them to run around the roof. Luckily being from Jewish decent I knew better than to be conned to get on a crowded train.

Anyway, somehow the scene changed to a marriage scene and then there was this fire show and a story about this love god getting beat up by children, then this live sweet song came on and every one was giving hugs to each other. It was obvious they wanted to put us through some “healing process” but I had had enough of being pushed around and told what to do so I just sat down and tried to get everyone to leave the white girl crying in the corner alone.

Still In The Trees

anthropological experiences from the fringe frontier