I have never heard of “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga until my friend suggested it.

“Listen to “Alejandro Gaga” – absolutely idiotic song, but perfect (!!!) salsa bit.”

I did look it up and watched the official video.

I was partially teasing my friend because I was not at all offended, but knowing him I was positive that he would be petrified if he knew what the video looked like.  Maybe I was wrong.  Assumptions, assumptions.

That is what I wrote in response:

“You gotta be kidding  me.  You made me watch this?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA&ob=av2e

Did you watch it yourself?  I suggest you do in its entirety and we share our opinions afterward.  I really don’t care for the bit.  This is insane.  Even though, I have to confess I was laughing partially because I was drunk.”

And drunk I was.  I was laughing long afterward.

But then communicating with another friend I told him that “Our communication resembles as much sanity as it is in this song” meaning “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga.

I doubt if he listened or watched.

Because what he said was

“thanks for the note…personal side bar can not stand Lady Gaga…but nice you tried to find some music to suit your mood”.

But that is exactly what our communication is.  All muddled up.  I never said a word that it suited my mood.  But boy, did it make me laugh!!!

Sie verbirgt wahre Liebe

This is my version of “Alejandro”.  There is nothing Mexican about the song or the boys in the video.  Given their uniform I would rather say it was inspired by Germans.  And one of the boys in the video closer to the end looked quite German or Russian, it does not really matter.  But that is the reason why I translated (sort of, my apologies to the German speaking people, I used auto translator.  If anybody wants to correct it, you are welcome, but it is mostly done for comic relief, not to offend anyone).

Or you are welcome to write your own lyrics to this video in any language.

So, here we go:

Source:  http://www.hectorcasanova.net/art/pain.jpg

Excruciating pain, yet I haven’t reached that emotional threshold…

It is my umpteenth attempt to get to grips with my life.  I do procrastinate.  I do associate more pain with looking for a job than abstaining from it.  Well, starting tomorrow… Right!

“Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen Leute.”

The Force That Shapes Your Life

Anthony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within”, Chapter 3, page 52

“Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humour and passion.” (Sir Thomas Browne)

What creates a hero, a heel, a criminal, a contributor?  What determines the difference in human actions?  Throughout my life, I have passionately sought the answer to these questions.  One thing is clear to me: human beings are not random creatures; everything we do, we do for a reason.  We may not be aware of the reason consciously, but there is undoubtedly a single driving force behind all human behaviour.  This force impacts every facet of our lives, from our relationships and finances to our bodies and brains.  What is this force that is controlling you even now and will continue to do so for the rest of your life?  PAIN and PLEASURE!  Everything you and I do, we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure.

So often I hear people talk about changes they want to make in their lives.  But they can’t get themselves to follow through.  They feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and even angry with themselves because they know they need to take action, but they can’t get themselves to do it.  There is one elementary reason: they keep trying to change their behaviour, which is the effect, instead of dealing with the cause behind it.

Understanding and utilizing the forces of pain and pleasure will allow you once and for all to create the lasting changes and improvements you desire for yourself and those you care about.  Failure to understand this force dooms you to a future of living in reaction, like an animal or a machine.  Perhaps this sounds like a complete oversimplification, but think about it.  Why don’t you do some of the things you know you should do?

Source: http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/demotivators-depressing-anti-motivational-posters/

After all, what is procrastination?  It’s when you know you should do something, but you still don’t do it.  Why not?  The answer is simple: at some level you believe that taking action in this moment would be more painful than just putting it off.  Yet, have you ever had the experience of putting something off for so long that suddenly you felt pressure to just do it, to get it done?  What happened?  You changed what you liked pain and pleasure to.  Suddenly, not taking action became more painful than putting it off.

[that is, of course, just a story of my life]

“A man who suffers before it is necessary suffers more than necessary.” (Seneca)

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you.  If you do that, you’re in control of your life.  If you don’t, life controls you.”  (Anthony Robbins)

[I love when the author quotes himself!  Well, I am being sarcastic]

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” (Marcus Aurelius)

“Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.”  (Lord Chesterfield)

Though we’d like to deny it, the fact remains that what drives our behaviour is instinctive reaction to pain and pleasure, not intellectual calculation.  Intellectually, we may believe that eating chocolate is bad for us, but we’ll still reach for it.  Why?  Because we’re not driven so much by what we intellectually know, but rather by what we’ve learned to link pain and pleasure to in our nervous systems.  It’s our neuro-associations – the associations we’ve established in our nervous systems – that determine what we’ll do.  Although we’d like to believe it’s our intellect that really drives us, in most cases our emotions – the sensations that we link to our thoughts – are what truly drive us.

Many times we try to override the system.  For a while we stick to a diet; we’ve finally pushed ourselves over the edge because we have so much pain.  We will have solved the problem for the moment – but if we haven’t eliminated the cause of the problem, it will resurface.  Ultimately, in order for a change to last, we must link pain to our old behaviour and pleasure to our new behaviour, and condition it until it’s consistent.  Remember, we will all do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure.

“I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.”  (Michel De Montaigne)

 

Source: http://image.healthhaven.com/Pain.htm

Remember, too, that it’s not actual pain that drives us, but our fear that something will lead to pain.  And it’s not actual pleasure that drives us, but our belief – our sense of certainty – that somehow taking a certain action will lead to pleasure.  We’re not driven by reality, but by our perception of reality.

“Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure… they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.”  (Jeremy Bentham)

Source: http://www.joyonthejob.info/transformingpainintopower/

Let’s make some changes right now

[I consider it my homework]

First, write down four actions that you need to take that you’ve been putting off.

Second, under each of these actions, write down the answer to the following questions:

-         Why haven’t I taken action?

-         In the past, what pain have I linked to taking this action?

Third, write down all the pleasure you’ve had in the past by indulging in this negative pattern?

Fourth, write down what it will cost you if you don’t change now.  What will happen if you don’t stop eating so much sugar and fat?  If you don’t stop smoking?  If you don’t make that phone call that you know you need to make?  If you don’t start consistently working out each day?  Be honest with yourself.  What’s it going to cost you over the next two, three, four, five years?  What’s it going to cost you emotionally?  What’s it going to cost you in terms of your self-image?  What will it cost you in your physical energy level?  What will it cost you in your feelings of self-esteem?  What will it cost you financially?  What will it cost you in your relationships with the people you care about most?  How does that make you feel?  Don’t just say, “It will cost me money: or “I will be fat.”  That’s not enough.  You’ve got to remember that what drives us is our emotions.  So get associated and use pain as your friend, one that can drive you to a new level success.

The final step is to write down all the pleasure you’ll receive by taking each of these actions right now.

Make a huge list that will drive you emotionally, that will really get you excited:

-         I’ll gain the feeling of really being in control of my life, of knowing that I’m in charge.

-         I’ll gain a new level of self-confidence.

-         I’ll gain physical vitality and health.  I’ll be able to strengthen all my relationships.

-         I’ll develop more willpower, which I can use in every other area of my life.

-         My life will better in all these ways now.

-         Over the next two, three, four, five years.

-         By taking this action, I will live my dream.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/technowannabe/562918256/

Mireille Mathieu – Der Pariser Tango

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78a2NYmgGZI&feature=related

Das ist der Pariser Tango,

Monsieur,

ganz Paris tanzt diesen Tango,

Monsieur,

und ich zeige ihnen gern diesen Schritt

denn ich weiß sie machen mit.

Tango

Pariser Tango

ich schenke dir mein Herz beim Tango

die Nacht ist blau und süß der Wein

wir tanzen in das Glück hinein

Bei diesem Tango.

Pariser Tango

Ich wünsche mir

es bleibt noch lang so

ein Leben lang so schön wie heut’

mit dir und mir für alle Zeit.

Pariser Tango, Pariser Tango

In einem kleinen Cafe

nah bei den Champs Elysees

da spielt Robert schon seit Jahren

Schlager

die nie welche waren.

Er hat sie selber gemacht

aber man hat nur gelacht

dann spielte er ein Lied

und es geschah ein Wunder:

Das ist der Pariser Tango,

Monsieur,

ganz Paris tanzt diesen Tango,

Monsieur,

und ich zeige ihnen gern diesen Schritt

denn ich weiß sie machen mit.

Bei einem Tango

Pariser Tango

ich schenke dir mein Herz beim Tango

die Nacht ist blau und süß der Wein

wir tanzen in das Glück hinein

Bei diesem Tango.

Pariser Tango

Ich wünsche mir

es bleibt noch lang so

ein Leben lang so schön wie heut’

mit dir und mir für alle Zeit.

I wanted to make a different post on Halloween.  A poem by Edgar Allan Poe.  “The Raven”.  I thought it would be more becoming.  More becoming my mood and the spirit of Halloween.

My plans have changed.  They usually do.  Something happened and it was somewhat pleasant, somewhat strange and more becoming my melancholic mood and longing for love.

“Gefunden.”  Some things are just strange.  The only thing that I remember from years of learning German was (is) a poem by Goethe.  “Gefunden” means “Found”.  It is about a flower the author finds in a forest while walking there without a thought in mind.  Instead of picking it and letting the flower die, the author digs it out with all the roots and replants it in his garden. 

Und pflanzt es wieder

Am stillen Ort;

Nun zweigt es immer

Und blüht so fort.

The reason the poem has surfaced again was that I met “a friend of a delicate nature” who claimed that he could read German.  His claim turned out to be somewhat exaggerated, since he could not read nor translate “Gefunden” with the online translator.  But that is quite understandable and, to be honest, is precisely what I assumed at the beginning.  Reading a language without properly learning it seems a tall order.  But this story is not about him.  Well, not entirely.

The poem keeps coming back to me.  And this time I found out that Goethe wrote this poem not about a flower, but about his love for a real woman.

I have a dream.  I want to find my love and I found a flower.  Literally.  Where and when?  I was working and walking in circles in the department store full of misplaced clothes.  Of all days, it was Halloween, my birthday.  I did not expect to find anything.  Yet I did.  I found a red rose, slightly battered, slightly faded, smelling of perfume, still beautiful…

I picked it gently and took it home, treating this red rose as a gift, as a sign, as a new hope.

Some things do come out of the Blue.

And my friend with his beautiful deep eyes, seductive voice and a reminiscence of a true love is only a vision of my longing for something or someone whom I will find.

One day.  Out of the Blue.  On the Halloween?

So, “Nein!” – 9 the Movie

It is so not me.  The apocalyptic nature of the film is so unappealing.  Gloom and doom?  I just could not care less.  Why did I watch it?  I read a review a friend of mine wrote.  That made me aware of the film’s existence.  What universe do I live in?  I am no longer aware what movies are out there.  But this one found its way….

So, nein, nein, und nein!  My German flashes are, of course, not coincidental; the Bad Guys (Military) are so unmistakably the Fascists of the Second World War.  They could have used Russians, but maybe the Germans won the Military Fashion and Paraphernalia Contest.

I watched the film with my son, who is only six (not nein yet!).  It was another suggestion of my friend.  If you are ever to watch this film, watch it with little children who won’t ask too many questions.  He was right.  Somewhere near the end, I asked my son, whether he was up to speed with the movie, because I failed to see the point.  My son said that he understood a lot.  The machine is not as clever as the dolls were and the dolls won.  The peace would be restored.  In another form, however.

One little concept I liked, though.  The scientist, who has realized too late what he has actually done, scatters his soul into these little burlap characters.  I thought that my soul is scattered in all the little pieces of writings, thoughts, reflections, sorrows, and unnecessary revelations.  No, this web site is not a diary.  Each post is but a reflection of my soul.  No, there is no device to put it together.  There is no way back.  Change is life, forward it goes with water drops with some green dots in them in the film.  In my life?  Who knows…

new word, new page, new chapter…

another change, new love, new beauty, new dance, on and on

neues Wort, neue Seite, neues Kapitel…

eine andere Änderung, neue Liebe, neue Schönheit, neuer Tanz, immer weiter

Source:

http://9221.portfolio.artlimited.net/image/en/162653

После того как я долго и упорно учила немецкий язык, осталось в моей голове не очень много.  Одно стихотворение Гёте – «Цветок».  Наверное, нужно было учить больше стихотворений, чтобы была возможность возвращаться к ним вновь и вновь.  Ну, что ж, пусть будет только одно.

Ich ging im Walde so fur mich hin

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/36905d74f387888d85b250efb7cf657c/

It has been a long time since I was learning German.  I remember practically nothing or so I think.  I can read, but, of course, I don’t.  But one thing stayed – a poem I learned.  Why?  These things are easier to remember for some reason.  I keep returning to it in my memory again and again.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Little did I know, that this poem was not about a flower at all.  That was I read at the web-site http://www.garten-literatur.de/Leselaube/goethe/goethge.htm.

Well, I did not exactly read, I had to rely on the online translator, the text seem to make sense, so I will take it as an accurate translation.  If you know more about this poem, I welcome your comments and feedback.

At first sight it may be a sort of an “ecological poem” with his appeal to the esteem before the creation.

However, Goethe wrote this poem exactly a quarter century, after he had “found” his Christiane, namely in August, 1813.

Christiane is the little flower which he found; she defended herself against the strange request of a frivolous, short love relationship which would have impaired her social call and with it her marriage ability sensitively – ” should I have broken to the wilted “?

Today the self-representation of Goethe may not fit emancipated women as the loyal-providing gardener who saves the tender little plant Christiane by digging in his (!) garden before wilting.

However, in addition, it is still an extenuation of the facts; since with “digging”, i.e. of the marriage ceremony, Goethe let itself another 18-year time…