Reading 1984 in 2008

“[C]an human nature be changed in such a way that man will forget his longing for freedom, for dignity, for integrity, for love ... ?” asked Erich Fromm in his afterword to George Orwell’s 1984.

In his haunting novel, Orwell described very convincing procedures through which even the most ardent believer in humanity, “a minority of one” in the sea of an otherwise brainwashed society, could be turned into an automaton, made possible by the concept of doublethink.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... The process has to be conscious or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.

George Orwell, 1984, 1949: 214.

The following remarks are probably personal side effects of being freshly influenced by Orwellian thoughts: Aren’t we all, to differing degree, doublethinkers? Don’t we all maintain contradictory beliefs in our minds as a survival method in evading what would otherwise be too painful of a reality, too unpleasant of a memory, and too feeble of a character?

About (In)visible Traces

For a while I’ve been thinking that the previous title of this blog – Space & (Indonesian) Society – hasn’t quite captured the development of my own thoughts over time. But I couldn’t quite pin point what are the threads of my interests and writings that have been captured within. Yesterday, an idea that has always been there hit me: It’s Italo Calvino’s quotation that I put under the title of my blog, cited from none other than his famous Invisible Cities.

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino told a story of the journeys of Marco Polo, as being told to Kublai Khan. The presentation of the journeys was captured under different headings categorized as Cities and memory, Cities and desire, Cities and signs, Thin cities, Trading cities, Cities and eyes, Cities and names, Cities and the dead, Cities and the sky, Continuous cities, and Hidden cities, with five different journeys for every heading. The beauty of this work, apart from its exquisitely imaginative story and structure, (and I recommend you skip this next part if you haven’t read the book) is because all those journeys describe a city none other than Venice. One city, fifty five presentations/ interpretations: All trailing along different parts and perspectives of Venice.

While this blog is anything but about one subject matter, it is a continuous effort to shape my own thinking and interests, trying to find what connection there is, what may emerge from all this. And without realizing, I have been utilizing the same method that I’m most familiar with as a trained architect, but using a different language: Tracing in words what I used to trace in graphics.

In the world of architecture, to trace is to make lines over and over an older or another drawing (usually a site or an already existing or established design), trying to give a new form to the emerging design, to get to a point when suddenly all the elements seem to fall into place and the solution feels most right and logically elegant. Among its many other descriptions, some definition of “trace” and “to trace” captures many of the things that I’ve been trying to do: copying and quoting other people’s writings, going over certain topics over and over again, and, less often but more personally desired, making correlations among seemingly divergent topics – be they clear and visible or otherwise invisible to everyone including myself.

While I don’t expect to become Marco Polo or Italo Calvino, I do hope, at the end of it all, I will find my Venice.

So, as a tribute to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and my ingrained method of a previous life, I have decided to change the name of this blog to (In)visible Traces. For those of you that have links to this blog using the old name, please kindly revise, and I hope this will happen even less frequently in the future.

My Passion (for Markisa) Fruit

Image source

The months of May through August (or what used to be known as the dry season in Indonesia before climate became quite unpredictable worldwide) bring a certain delight for markisa (passion fruit in English, maracuja in Portuguese, maracuya in Spanish) lovers. I have only become recently addicted to markisa, but I have mostly been absorbed by the beauty of this fruit's structure and texture - which very much heightened the experience of eating this tangy and juicy fruit.

I enjoy cracking the hard outer shell, carefully turning the fruit around its cross section until the brown-dotted-yellow cracks, revealing an inner white and soft shell with the thickness and texture slightly denser of a cotton square. The spongy second shell needs a bit of a tension, instead of a compression, to rip open, which action most likely burst the third thin, translucent, elastic inner layer membrane. Hundreds of soft black seeds clung onto tiny clasps that are embedded onto the inner side of the membrane, organized neatly along three columns that run across the long section, from the tip to the bottom of the fruit. The space in between the three columns is exactly the lengths of two pulps. The black seeds are dulled by their transparent flesh casing, all carefully tugging themselves onto the clasps along the three columns, filling in completely the space within the ovoid fruit.

The fruit is a biological marvel that reminds me of D'Arcy Thompson's On Growth and Form. And although I have never seen markisa flower or plant, it looks very exotic on pictures.

Image source

Here is a more technically accurate description of the fruit:

The nearly round or ovoid fruit, 1 1/2 to 3 in (4-7.5 cm) wide, has a tough rind, smooth, waxy, ranging in hue from dark-purple with faint, fine white specks, to light-yellow or pumpkin-color. It is 1/8 in (3 mm) thick, adhering to a 1/4 in (6 mm) layer of white pith. Within is a cavity more or less filled with an aromatic mass of double-walled, membranous sacs filled with orange-colored, pulpy juice and as many as 250 small, hard, dark-brown or black, pitted seeds. The flavor is appealing, musky, guava-like, subacid to acid.

Maybe I just miss a bit of an architectural talk :)

Laws of Imbalance Attraction

Have you ever wondered why, when meeting a person either for the first or hundredth time, you seem to be attracted to some while appalled by others?

Have you ever met a person, who you immediately felt like you’d known this person for your whole life, and become instant long-lost siblings you never had? And who, you knew, could never cross that line to become your lovers? On the other hand, there are people whose very presence in the same room could send you all jittery inside and whose closer proximity to you seem to recede the rest – people and surrounding alike – into that distant space and time which no longer matter for your current state of being.

Scientists have indeed inquire into these questions of human chemistry, presently and precariously concluding that the rules of attraction has something to do with our senses – vision and smell are the two more affecting ones. The same article said that our attractions have something to do with the symmetry of a person’s genes that find their matches inside the other person’s body through our animal instinct, so to speak.

But it doesn’t explain why there could be imbalance attraction between two people. What I mean is, I’m sure you’ve been in circumstances where you are attracted to some people but they seem to remotely or even blatantly distant to you, when others are obviously attracted to you but you don’t necessarily hold the equivalent feeling? Surely it’s not just chemistry, but what other factors are playing? And don't tell me it's fate! :)

On Age

In memoriam, 1999:

A man’s age is something that creates an impression. It is the epitome of his whole life. It has accrued slowly, the maturity that is his alone. It has come together in the teeth of all the obstacles conquered, the grave illnesses overcome, the pains that flesh is heir to, the despairs surmounted and the risks courted, of most of which he knew nothing at the time. It has come about by way of so many desires, hopes, regrets, forgettings, love.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Letter to a Hostage, in The Little Prince (1995: 112)