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The Vow
Before we judge and ridicule anyone who’s ever been a member of a cult or sect, we should be aware of the most fundamental truth that governs our modern day lives. Let’s face it, we live in an age where influencers are born every minute, and consumerism is propagated by business manipulators in ways that we’ll never know. All of our choices are shaped by those who influence us subliminally in every aspect of our lives through social media, physical and digital advertisements, arts and media in general. The name NXIVM came to my attention last year through my work. At the time, I was still translating documentaries and reality…
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Find Me
Since I started reading again this year, I’ve had the great fortune of stumbling upon a number of wonderful books. The quirky and delectable Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, or the wonderful literary gem The Sea by John Banville, even the blood curdling Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. Nowadays I don’t read as much as I used to or as much as I’d like to. Had I known back during my university studies that those five years were the best ones of my life, academically speaking, and also time wise, I would have read all the compulsory classics, for one, and I would have definitely perused more…
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Simplify
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Simplify
The desire to simplify things must be present in everyone. It comes intime, when we realize our lives are finite. Time and again, the imageof Michaelangelo’s Rondanini Pieta haunts me. I remember how I admired(I still do) his first Pieta, scuplted in 1499. It must be one of themost famous sculptures in the whole world, and probably one of themost beautiful ones, too. The difference between the two works,sculpted within decades of each other, is striking, as if they hadbeen burn under the chisel of two different artists. And however muchI admire and love his Pieta, I know that he was closer to the truth(or finding himself, or God, or…
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Find Me
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“Skizó”-nak lenni, ehhez bátorság kell
Nagyon rég nem véleményeztem zenei albumot. Amióta megjelentek a streamelő szolgáltatások, többnyire online hallgatok zenét, nem is keveset, de az utóbbi időben főleg a magamnak az évek során összeállított, különböző hangulatokra, stílusokra épülő zenei listákat indítom be, és mivel némelyik már több száz dalt tartalmaz, elvagyok velük… (Ez a témakör külön posztot érdemelne. Hiányzik a böngészés, a borítók megszemlélése, a szövegkönyvek átlapozása, a kézzel fogható tárgyak „ízlelgetése”, és ha az összkép vonzó, akkor azok megvásárlása, fizikai formában, papírpénzzel, egy hús-vér eladónál. Hiányzik, ahogy a villamoson vagy már otthon előveszek egy-egy nehezen megszerzett, külföldről megrendelt kincset, felbontom a fóliacsomagolást, tartom a kezemben, olvasom a dalcímeket, esetleg a dalszövegeket is, és a…
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MMCP: My Most Cherished Project
The closest I have come to perfection and pure unadulterated joy was through writing. It is also my futile but very delectable effort to leave something lasting for mankind. At first I wrote to entertain myself; later to entertain others. I’ve dabbled a fair amount in fanfiction, which fueled shame and guilt but today I look back at those years with gratitude, because it was through those stories that I truly discovered my aptitude for writing and my longing for it. Also, I just read a brilliant quote by Joanne Harris, who wrote on her Instagram page in July the following: „If you write, don’t be afraid to call yourself…
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Don’t lead, don’t follow
“Believe me: It is no teaching and no instruction that I give you. On what basis should I presume to teach you? I give you news of the way in this man, but not of your own way. My path is not your path, therefore I cannot teach you. The way is within us, but not in Gods, nor in teachings, nor in laws. Within us is the way, the truth, and the life.Woe betide those who live by way of examples! Life is not with them. If you live according to an example, you thus live the life of that example, but who should live your life if not…
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The Vow
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On the hardships of writing
Stephen Fry, you sympathetic genius, you. “The rare words often annoy the punter, but they never think, they never stop to think about a poet’s life. A painter has oils, acrylics and pastels, turpentine, linseed, canvas, sable and hog’s hair. When did you last employ such things routinely? To oil a cricket bat or mascara an eyelid, perhaps. Come to think of it, you’ve probably never oiled a cricket bat in your life, but you know what I mean. And musicians: a musician has entire machines of wood, brass, gut andcarbon fibre; he has augmented sevenths, accidentals, Dorian modes and twelve-note rows. When did you ever use an augmented seventh…
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Enjoy the ride
If someone would have asked me ten years ago the most fundamental and most annoyingly complicated question in the world, who are you, I would have immediately started building a list of bulleted items, churning them out without hesitation. Since then, my convictions have evaporated as if they never existed. The Greeks kept repeating nosce te ipsum (know thyself) ad nauseum for centuries and Thomas Hobbes claimed in the introduction to his work The Leviathan that if you know yourself and understand your motivations, fears, and reasoning, you will understand and know everyone else. The list goes on, my favourite contemporary reference points to the tattoo on the arm of…
