More movies

"The interview" (8)
"Gothika" (7.5)

Back to the Ring

I am rediscovering Richard Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen" and what a masterpiece it is !!!!! The pleasure it brings to my life I can hardly put it into words... Tuesday was Rheingold, Wednesday Walkuere .... yesterday Siegfried and today: Goetterdaemmerung....
How is it possible that such a vast masterpiece be the work of a person. I can not understand it but only stand in awe and enjoy

More movies

- Some kind of monster (9)
- Bully (9)
- The Order (7)
- A touch of pink (8)

Random rantings

What have you been thinking about lately?

I have been thinking about something that's been in my mind for the last days. The fact that the same situation affects different people differently. How everything is coloured by our perception of it. They say that a genius is the person that suffers the most when difficult situations arise. I can identify with that. Not that I am a genius or anything, far from it, but I think that it is only when your ability to empathize grows and become an overwhelming part of your spirit that life in this world becomes almost unbearable.

It's like Wagner correctly pointed out in Parsifal "Durch Mitleid wissend"... compassion. The ability to feel what others feel, especially pain (that's why in German it is Mitleid..Leid=Suffering Mit=fellow... fellow-suffering).

How can someone vouch for the existence of God in a world that is so full of pain, where your position in society depends on things that are absolutely out of your hands like looks or intelligence or even money. How can there be a world so full of injustice where people have a disease that consists of people not wanting to eat to stay thin (anorexia) when there's so many people in this world with nothing to eat. They can't afford to be anorexic, if they find food they eat it because they don't know when they'll have the chance again.
Mankind has progressed so much in terms of providing people with luxury items that were reserved for loyalty in the past (for example as recently as 500 years ago, washrooms could only be found in a king's castle) yet there is something else that we lack as a people. We have to create problems where there's none. Young people everywhere that can afford anything they want to get now have to fit in society and so they have to be "bad guys" and prove that they are the "real deal". No one is interested in art, music, history anymore. Everybody is just thinking about having a good time and partying as hard as they can. For some reason I see no fulfillment in that and that's why I don't partake in it but a lot of people do.
People think that we are here to have a good time and to party it up. After all we are only going to be here for 80 years or so (if we are lucky) so we are better off enjoying it. I agree with it but life is much more than that. It is about love and living life to the full by expressing one's emotions. The love to our parents, the love we have for our romantic partner, our relatives, etc.
I am not a religious person (although I don't know if I would consider myself an atheist) but I sincerely think that if we were to follow the precepts laid out by that brilliant rebel that lived in the first century AD we would all be better off. It is very simple, Love yourself and love your neighbour. Respect people, animals and things because they all have a purpose on earth. Ignore race, colour, religion, etc. because those are things that DIVIDE us whereas we should be looking for things that UNITE us.
Unfortunately the teaching of that great rebel are most of the time ignored and the things that are the very opposite to his teachings are carried out in his name. Who wants to follow a rebel's teachings if I can get my way by using HIM for my purposes by tainting his name? Who would want to do what that rebel taught us? Who would want to follow Jesus of Nazareth's teachings?
I, despite not being a member of any religion (especially Roman Catholic), do.

Movies

Oh and I have been watching quite a few movies... here they are with rating (1-10)
 
- Lawrence of Arabia (8)
- The Godfather (9)
- Calendar Girls (6)
- Cold Mountain (7)
- The butterfly effect (9)
- Brief crossings (7)
 

Catching up

A long time with no update!!!!
There is actually not a lot to report lately... the last days have been kind of boring but here we go.
I could finally find a decent exit point for MSFT ($28.50) and CSCO ($24.11) so that I could finally say that I am back at square one compared to the beginning of the year. Pretty much even. However, of course, I made another investment that doesn't seem to be panning out.
ORCL was trading barely below $11 and I thought it was a good entry point; well, suffice it to say that it is now trading at $10.26 so not a good investment at all.On other fronts a good friend of mine just had his citizenship ceremony which I attended as guest... lots of people and with emotional parts such as the oath of citizenship and the national anthem at the end.
Musically, Parsifal has finally lost the grip it had on me. It was difficult but I think I am going to go to other works before going back to it. Right now, the bulk of my music-listening time is devoted to Beethoven's 9th symphony (choral) and also to his 3rd (Eroica). Real masterpieces of art... what a joy listening to those glorious works.. it's amazing that those feelings and how they are conveyed were created by a human being that was tortured beyond its existence, the mark of a real genius.
In terms of reading I have been catching up in my history books (currently I am reading H.G. Wells "The outline of history") and some classics as well (William Blake's "The marriage of heaven and hell").