Category: Inspiration

Is it pedantry, or misanthropy? I hope the comma will clearly specify that i am at least not implying a dichotomy — i guess pedantry it is!

I will try to justify it a bit further though, and say that i’m a bit wary of mindlessly attributing some special significance to the position of the floating piece of rock we dwell on with respect to an arbitrary frame of reference — although i am perfectly fine with doing so mindfully!

Laurențiu, my generous driver from Bacău to Suceava when i was hitchhiking from Bucharest, Romania back home in Lviv, Ukraine said (and i paraphrase) that “tradition connects us to nature” — a statement i chose to interpret more abstractly and rephrase as, “practice connects us to reality.”

There is truth in both these statements.

But what is the reality underlying the transition from what we have agreed to call the 31st of December into the 1st of January in a world where apples magically appear all year round in our supermarkets, spotless bright red and crunchy, piled up in neat pyramids, and automatically sprayed with fresh water at regular intervals?

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Featured photo: Laurențiu buying brooms on the roadside from a 60-year old man who has been making them since he was four ( Romania, December ’17 )

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‘Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)

Trelograms: inspiration

I always thought my best friend from childhood drew really well (he also takes stunning photos). When i think about it, that has been a huge part of the reason i’d always thought i couldn’t draw myself.

What do you think?

I started making these in June, the day after leaving L’viv the first time i was here, during my last cycle tour. Inspired by a conversation with my then host (and now fiancée!) and the two street artists playing the guitar and passing a hat next to us, i decided to get a pastel set and a sketchbook, and follow up on the realization i had had almost a year before — i cannot draw what i do not see.

I wonder whether everybody who makes art feels similarly.

It doesn’t seem to be about whether they’re good or bad — i’ve been sharing them with my encounters along the road, and quite positively surprised by the reactions they trigger — while most people seem understandably indifferent, those who do express interest tend to do so rather non-judgmentally, asking me questions about the underlying process and what i see in them myself.

What do you see in them?

If you already draw (or paint/sketch/sculpt/whatever), i will be very glad to see some of your art and learn a bit about your process! — and if you don’t make art, then i strongly encourage you to start 😀

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Featured photo: “Potcoava” (November ’17)

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‘Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)

Trelograms: inspiration

— i mean, in public!

The process of putting this website together has been a huge challenge in many ways.

My travels, which are my main source of inspiration for it, used to be very private up until little over a year ago. I would barely share it even with my parents and dearest friends. The last method of documenting them i’d been experimenting with before Not Mad Yet  —  and really enjoying!  —  was to take a limited number of pictures with a film camera, develop them upon my return, and then write on their backs over a cup of coffee.

Now add to that hermetic privacy the academic standard under which i’ve been trained as a mathematician, and you get someone who might forever dread the mere prospect of publicly sharing any thought that hasn’t been thoroughly examined, researched and developed.

It gets easier. The more i write, the closer i seem to get to how i used to feel when the only people i would share my thoughts with was my selves.

What is your life project? Are you working on it? What’s the underlying process? Writing here is to be understood metaphorically. If you know what you have to do, create the space for it, and share the process — and if you don’t, then create the space to find out — and share the process!

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Featured photo: a windmill “bed” on my way to a zen retreat in Vig, Denmark, and what i wrote behind the photo upon developing it several weeks later ( June ’16 ) 

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‘Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)

Trelograms: inspiration

I’m getting married.

The Newsfeed Eradicator Chrome extension replaces all the whining and cat pictures in your Facebook stream with motivational quotes. This was one of my favorites so far:

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

Tallulah Bankhead

Am i ready to settle down? When will i be? — after i ride my bicycle to Cape Agulhas? — climb Everest? — go to the Moon?

I have decided to go against what i have perceived to be an individualistic trend, upon which marriage is increasingly seen as a contract to which two independent parts contribute equal shares of the effort — rather, i’ve come to understand it as a partnership to which two interdependent parts contribute each their best effort — and share the results equally. As such, i don’t see how there could be any such thing as ‘being ready to get married’ — either you want to structure your life that way, or you don’t.

Well, i do!

I also want to take silly photos of her around the World.

We are best friends. We have peeled our bodies, minds and souls naked to each other, and are (mostly?) fine with what we’ve seen — nothing goes unsaid — we share the strongest intention to connect i’ve ever experienced, and the safest space i’ve ever created with someone else — many orders of magnitude over. I want to stay in Ukraine to build a home to come back to from my adventures, and she wants to be part of that.

Congratulations!

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Featured photo: my Goddess ( Chernivtsi, Ukraine, November ’17 )

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‘Trelograms’ is a wordplay between ‘telegram’ and ‘trélos’ (Greek for ‘mad’)

Trelograms: inspiration