Random Musings of a Curious Mind

This is me…..

 

 

…. and I tend to run my mouth just a bit too much!  Mind you, I never regret doing it! lol

On this page I am going to say whatever I like, as often as I like.  My head is full of thoughts and ideas that sometimes surprise even me… 

So come back and visit often, — this page will be the core of  ‘Randon Musings of a Curious Mind’!

Cheers!

 

This is one of my favorite pieces of music; it was written in the early 40’s by a British composer Richard Addinsell.  It’s called “Warsaw Concerto”.

It’s a one-movement piece for piano (accompanied by a full orchestra, of course!).

It’s more beautiful, sweeping and inspired than all of Mozart’s concertos put together (and I love Mozart, don’t get me wrong).  I never really understood how Addinsell went on to write NOTHING ELSE that would be even close to his famous “Warsaw Concerto”.

 

 

 

06/24/2009

It is very difficult for me to fall asleep, or to be exact, — it’s difficult to wind down enough for sleep to be possible.  Somehow, and some days it’s worse than others, I seem to be running on some perpetual natural high…  I never talk about it, but every small insignificant detail of my daily routine gives me intense pleasure, — and I see it with new eyes every morning, so it never gets old.

Perhaps I am getting old, maybe I don’t want to miss out on life, or maybe, since I don’t believe in the afterlife, my experiences here and now are that much more intensified, — I don’t know, and what’s more important, I don’t care.

So, you could say that I am a stubborn atheist high on life!

But back to the subject of sleep, I take Diphenhydramine every night to help me fall asleep.  It’s a non-addictive ingredient in Tylenol PM, — the ‘PM’ bit without Tylenol in it.  It helps a little, but not enough.  It slows down the body, but not the mind.  And the human mind is the most interesting thing of all, mine at least never stops running.

What I usually do is put some music on very quietly, and eventually I may fall asleep with it.  Last night I had my MP3 player set to run through my ‘The Best of Scorpions’ collection.

I’ve been listening to Scorpions since I was a young teenager, my uncle started me on them when I was a kid, — that’s all he used to play in his car.  I love the band, always have.  It’s fair to say that I know all the songs, all the lyrics; Scorpions are like an old blanket that has been shaped to fit my body exactly, their sound is familiar and comfortable.

When the last song was over (at around 3:00 a.m.) I had an epiphany.  It surprised me so much that I said it out loud! 

“I do not know the name of the person who sings the lead…”

“I do not know how many people are in the band…”

“I do not know anything about the band I’ve listened to for 15 years…”

How is that possible, and why am I not interested?  Even having realised all this I have no intention on googling Scorpions to get the information.  I do not care about them as people, not a bit.

So why is it, that some music affects us on a personal level, while other music only barely touches and does not become a part of us?

I don’t have the answer, and again, I am OK with that.

This is my Scorpions-loving uncle BTW:  

Uncle Igor with Dima

 

 

06/28/2009

 

 

 

“If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by”.

 

 

 I used to think that the saying above came from ‘Sun Tzu – The Art of War’.  Sun Tzu is one of my favorite books, simply because the wisdom within it is ageless, eternal.

It’s actually a very old Japanese proverb, the one that I use often in my everyday life.  I don’t think I have a lot of enemies, but I do have a misfortune of rubbing people the wrong way the first time they meet me.  The only way to avoid that, is to not speak…. and not speaking is impossible for me!

I come through as arrogant and selfish, — both of these are true.  I also come through as overly confident and opinionated, — again, all true.  I find nothing wrong with being comfortable in my own skin, and opinions are a bit like assholes… (everyone has one!). 

So, I am all those horrible things and I will not hide behind a mask.  I am what I am, and that’s all there is to it.

There is only one negative trait that I don’t have, and I don’t forgive it in others: Hypocrisy.

I have met a person who had plenty of hypocrisy in them…  It would almost have been astonishing to watch, had it not been so… so… I don’t think I know an insult ‘interesting’ enough to apply to this person!

Anyway, the reason that proverb applies, is because they have just “floated”.

I can’t help but gloat a little about it! lol  I didn’t think I had enough patience to wait for it, or enough sanity to hold on to my mind while the person was still here.

Thank god (insert applicable god here) it’s over!

Cheers to all the lunatics around the world who understand what I am talking about!

 

07/16/2009

 

We change a lot as we go through life.  That change is influenced by many things; sometimes by the circumstances outside of our control, sometimes by our own desire to adapt, to gain better understanding of the world, to better fit in, and to be happier…  Any thinking, rational human being will go through many changes, both major and minor.  To deny those changes is to deny our very nature.  Change is as inevitable as the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

In my early 20’s I was a different person compared to what I was in my teens.  When I was in my teens I knew nothing, yet I was absolutely certain that I knew everything.  It seems impossible to people who know me today, but I was even more arrogant in those years than I am now!  Truly, the youth is wasted on the young.  In my early 20’s life was taking a different direction, and I became more confident, more at peace with myself.  In my mid-20’s I was a different person again, — a great deal of cynicism was added to my essential makeup.  It was necessary then.  Now in my late 20’s, just a stone throw away from 30, the changes are coming faster than I can identify and process them.  And it does not upset me a bit when even the people closest to me say: “Who are you?  I don’t know you at all.”   I am comfortable in my own skin, whatever that skin may be for that particular day.  I am what I am.  I don’t feel the need to hide anymore, — I am what I am.  The good, the bad and the ugly, it’s all out there for everyone to see, — I am not ashamed of whatever it is I have become. 

And that’s why I always say that my mind is free; it’s free from any unnecessary burdens, inhibitions and self-imposed rules.  I just want to be myself, just as I am.

 

If we can’t accept ourselves for what and who we are, then how could we possibly tolerate those around us?

 

My Grandmother….

 

My Grandmother was a very difficult person to love and to be loved by.  It’s very difficult to explain… it’s impossible, actually.  It’s almost as if she wore the aura of unhappiness around her and everything she touched was affected by that aura.

When my Grandmother turned 65 she arrived at a very important revelation.  She decided that her whole life was wasted, spent wrong.  She decided that everything she did, everything about her children and her grandchildren, everything about her outlook on life itself was flawed at the very core.  And she cried for the years spent that she could not bring back, and for the things done that she could not undo.

I was 21 when that was happening; it had a profound impact on me.  It was the saddest thing to watch.  The saddest, most pitiful thing anyone can hear is another person’s regret over a wasted life, especially if that life is coming to an end.

On a more positive note, it seems that thanks to my Grandmother I have learned a great deal that year.  It feels that I have learned more when I was 21 than during all the previous years taken together.  I’ve made a decision then, that what had happened to my Grandmother was not going to happen to me.  I have decided to start living, and it was the first step forward.

 

On God…..

 

I used to be a believer.

 

No, I think I must go further back to explain how all that came about. 

The good old Soviet Union was a secular state.  Up until I was 12 I was happy in the knowledge that god did not exist.  Of course, we all know what happened in December of 1991, — the Union collapsed, and that opened up the iron gates to the West.  For some reason or other, all the churches in the States felt obligated to spread ‘the good news’ to us poor heathen in the former USSR.  In the spring of 1992 even my little town of Sumy was visited by a Baptist church from New Jersey, and all of a sudden it was unpopular to not believe in god!

Well, my Grandmother was the head of the family then, whatever she said, — it went down as the law.  So for the next 3-4 years I was forcibly taken to church every Sunday morning.  I have tried to use every excuse in the book to try and get out of it, without any success whatsoever.  And, since I am ‘blessed’ with a good memory, I’ve learned the Bible pretty well during that time.

The simple truth is, religion sucks you in.  I was sucked in.  It saturates your thoughts and actions, your values and your beliefs, until suddenly you find yourself dependent on it, unable to do without it, locked within its boundaries.  Religion uses two very simple tools to achieve all that: fear and guilt.  Fear of the unknown (that is death) and guilt over every thought you may have and every deed you may want to do. 

Oh, how well I remember the endless, inescapable circle of guilt!

Many changes have happened at home when we started going to church.  It became evil to love music… truer still, it became evil to love anything or anyone that wasn’t God.  My little cassette player became something I could only touch when no one was looking… I could only read my books in the middle of the night and had to remember to hide them under my bed when I was done.  I started spending a lot of time alone, just away from people in general – not a good way to spend your teenage years!  It also became a sin to want anything, and I fought it as hard as I could in the beginning.

I still haven’t figured out how do you tell a 12-year old girl that she is full of sin and is on her way to hell and get her to believe you?  Yes, I was that 12-year old girl.

I spent many years leaning on religion like a crutch, oscillating between a rock and a hard place: between guilt and sin that is.

I know why I haven’t left it earlier, — I was afraid to be left with nothing, to feel hopeless.  In anything I do I always try to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s that light that keeps me going.  For the longest time I was afraid that living without god would leave me with no help, no support, no hope…. No crutch to lean on!

 

My Grandmother died on the 20^th of April, 2007 at 5:15 p.m. C.T.  She weighed much less than I do; after a lifetime of praying and cooking for others she starved to death.  She was so weak at the end, that she could no longer scream in pain…. She needed help opening her eyelids.  My uncle helped her with that.  He said that her eyes were the only thing still left alive on her, and they were pleading for something…. Every member of my family who got to see that is not the same person anymore.  Everyone has been changed by this.

The Bible says: “If you, evil as you are, know how to do/give good things to your children, how much more your Father who is in Heaven, perfect as he is, knows how to give good things to those who love him…” 

Yes, someone like me, evil as I am, (and I am pretty evil)  could not stand by and allow for that kind of death to happen to my worst enemy, I just couldn’t. 

I do not want to know a god who could.

 

I was at work when I have received the news of her death.  I didn’t cry, I finished my day and went home as I normally would.  We had a dinner party that night which we attended as scheduled.  Life went on as usual, with one exception: I was now an atheist, and I will always be a loud anti-religion advocate.  Enough was finally enough.  My family, my friends, all their friends, my acquaintances, and even all the casual passer-bys that I meet along the way — EVERYONE knows what and who I am.  I shout it from the rooftops sometimes…. No, really, I do!

I refuse to be anyone else, I am what I am, and I will never again be afraid to be true to myself.  I refuse to hide my flaws behind religion, I refuse to be narrow-minded, and blind, and repressed.   It is NOT OK to cloak ignorance in religion and serve it up as faith.  It is NOT OK to use religion as a crutch to lean on, — stand on your own two feet, find out who you really are, and don’t be afraid of what you may learn about yourself.  And it is NOT OK to waste life.   I refuse to feel guilt for every single thing I think, feel, and do.  I am just going to live and enjoy life as ME.

Amazingly enough, the things that I was afraid of did not happen.  After leaving god and religion behind I did not feel hopeless, I finally felt full of purpose.  I did not feel that there was no more light at the end of the tunnel, — the whole bloody tunnel is now lit up!  I feel enlightened instead of feeling hopeless.  The relief and freedom that I now feel are indescribable; it’s downright indecent to feel this way, and totally delicious.

When I wake up in the morning I do not think of the day as something that god has made.  The day just IS.  And it’s OK not knowing where we came from and where we are going. 

There are questions that have no answers, maybe coming to terms with that simple fact is the greatest wisdom there is.  Who knows?

 

 

07/18/2009

 

This is my Uncle’s baby Dima… 

  

Dima 1-year-old

    

Dima with his mom Marina

   

Dima Winter 2008 — 18 months

  

Dima and the Lion

 

I have a cute hat!

 

Almost two years old

 

 

07/20/2009

 

 

  

 “Butterflies and Hurricanes”

– from the famous 2003 Absolution album is one of many reasons why I love MUSE so.  Who else but Matt Bellamy, the heart and soul of MUSE, would be crazy enough to play an incredible piano solo in the middle of a rock song?  Piano solo which was influenced by none other than Sergei Rachmaninoff, and played on a Grand Kawai during a show at Wembley to 100,000 very young people… and get away with it?

I love piano… there are not many things that I would consider more beautiful than those weird-looking 88 black-and-white keys.  And to watch the seemingly effortless movement of someone’s fingertips along the keys is mesmerizing to me.

How did MUSE manage to make piano (and Rachmaninoff) actually cool?

And how come every teenage Muser around the world understands what something as random as arpeggios are?

 

“Butterflies and Hurricanes” must be listened the way it was intended to be listened, that is very LOUD:

 

 

“Change everything you are

And everything you were

Your number has been called

 

Fights and battles have begun

Revenge will surely come

Your hard times are ahead

 

Best, you’ve got to be the best

You’ve got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now

 

Change everything you are

And everything you were

Your number has been called

 

Fights and battles have begun

Revenge will surely come

Your hard times are ahead

 

Best, you’ve got to be the best

You’ve got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now

 

Don’t let your self down

And don’t let yourself go

Your last chance has arrived

 

Best, you’ve got to be the best

You’ve got to change the world

And use this chance to be heard

Your time is now”

 

 

Bellamy had suggested a song featuring the band and an orchestra over a “constant paradiddle” to Dom, but “Butterflies & Hurricanes” really took shape when Matt spent a few hours fiddling around on Steinway in a hotel they were staying in:

“I was just alone in this piano room for hours and hours and hours… I found myself playing this paradiddle that goes [imitates paradiddle] like that over and over again. And I started playing that on just two notes, constantly playing it, over and over again until I got to a point where extra notes were sort of finding their way in there, d’you know what I mean? And it ended up building up to the point where I was playing five-note chords with each hand and playing these massive chords on the piano and it was sounding really fucking heavy, d’you know what I mean? And a chord structure started to come out of that, and I was thinking, ‘this could be something’”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

07/25/2009

 

On my Mother…