in praise of love

i'm not done saying my "f#%& you"s, but i realized something. what matters is not how long someone lives, but how they live.

and for that i am happy and less angry, cause i know that coco lived more than others could dream of.

(last conference before plunging into the Executive Board team together)

(showing love at NPS 2007 :), with the coolest team t-shirts AIESEC ever saw).

i'll be hoping he knows we know he lived a happy, joyful life, full of love and friends and that we're thinking about him.

rest in peace, coco. you will be very much missed.

forgive and forget?

(late night feverish rantings)

they say that. forgive and forget. they say forgive and forget, but i mostly just forget. i tend to avoid forgiving altogether, because of the massive amount of baggage it comes with, but i am still lucky enough to be comfortably forgetful to not have to worry too much about it.

if you forgive and then forget, what's the point?

you cant even feel like the better person, cause you forgot. and if you are the better person for real, you dont need to feel like that, therefore you dont need to forget cause you'll be all humble about it anyway.

but there are some things you cant forget. nor forgive. indifferent to your abilities. and if you can find those people who did those things and toilet paper wrap their something, you'll be well again.

so yeah, who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop is important, but who was the silly man who said forgive and forget?

help the blind, or else!

as i was walking up and down in the backyard, lost in thoughts, i see these two men coming towards me. one is guiding the other, who has a stick in his hand, seems like he's squinting his eyes and is keeping his hands forward, like a zombie or like cartoon portrayals of frankenstein. i didnt have time to make all these analogies in the split second between seeing them and having them speak to me, but i know that's what i would have thought.

so i see them, i think it's weird (i did have time to think that), and this guy says to me, in a very imperative tone: "help the blind, god will help you!". and by imperative i mean the kind of tone my mom would use for telling me to clean my room for the 5th time. not nice.

it's a simple syllogism:

where L is letzu, B is blind man, and G is god. but one without a conclusion. maybe more like a vicious circle.

so if god will help me if i help the blind, why doesn't god directly help the blind himself? obviously, being the allmighty he is, he could help them more. i'd give them 5 rupees. he could give them anything ranging from 5 rupees to eternal bliss. and what happens to the B-G relation?

is god trying to teach me a lesson? why does he have to use such transitive formulas?

god, if you're reading this, i dont get it.

by the way, i said i wouldn't help the blind and noticed the smirk on the guide's face. that is another thing i didn't understand.

vorb-aia, mâna întinsă care nu spune o poveste nu-şi primeşte răsplata.

fuck you, cancer!

if any of you ever said life sucks repent now. i am. life doesn't suck. death does. so it goes.

i worked with coco in the same team. we were more than team mates. we were friends. one time, when i was feeling down (and stupidly felt its the end of the world), coco gave me these little green pieces of paper which i spread in the room when i was running for president, 9 months back. i couldnt believe he kept them for so long, but he did, and gave them to me as a sign of support that we was already showing anyway, but giving me those just made it so much more special and i still have them. i wanted to give them back to him when the time was right, when i heard he was sick, but i didnt get to. i loved coco and i think he was a great person, he was full of life, enthusiasm, craziness, kindness and love. and i mean it. he was the kindest and most loving person i met. in my life. in my whole 25 years on this very strange planet.

yesterday i read these words: "coco is no longer". i froze in front of the computer. in disbelief. but my reaction is of little importance and absurd, anyway. coco really is no longer. the most kind, fun and loving person i ever met is gone. at the age of 23. how does the world make sense? it doesn't. but he's in my heart, he will always be in my heart, even when it will get rusty and days when i won't even think of coco will come. in my heart, on my blog, and in so many other hearts, i know it.

my dad, before he died, wrote in my notebook "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". that's when i decided: no more plans. just taking it a little bit at a time. you might think it's impulsive, i think it's the way i want to tackle life.

whenever i'll hear someone saying life sucks i will slap them. that is my commitment. i swear. i will slap them so hard they won't know what hit them.

coco, i will miss you a lot. i hope you can read this.

and cancer, fuck you. you're the dumbest, meanest thing i ever got the chance to know.

ring a ding ding

escape boring/unwanted conversations by using ring4freedom. you give a computer command and they call you back and you can pretend to have an important conversation.

but what happens once the pretend conversation is over? wouldnt you have to go back? and

what if you dont have a computer in reach?

still, i like it. if it's not crazy enough to work, at least it's crazy enough to make me laugh.

(ps. you must see all of them!!!)

on photo fags and life

i never told anyone what i think about (some) photographers, but i will do so now. my opinion has no scientific back-up, but it has a logic that convinced me. and even less than that was reason enough to write about stuff in a very confident manner.

since photography is an art, that theoretically makes photographers artists. and that's completely wrong. there, i said it. i think photographers should not consider themselves artists. at least not all of them. at least not nowadays.

i know what you might say: her camera broke so the grapes turned sour. first of all, grapes don't turn sour because of cameras and, second of all - no, no! i feel photographers can call themselves artists if they have other (verified) means of creative expression as well. if all they do is peek through a visor and wait and wait for the right shot or even click incessantly (maybe something cool will come out - like i do) - all that on their super amazing cameras then what they are is lucky bastards with a lot of patience and advanced technology.
yes. even a panda can do it.

and a question that has been bugging me is why are there so many famous photographers and no famous camera men? it's the same thing. the squinting, the peeking through a visor, the sitting/standing behind a large lens, the usage of technology etc. ok, its almost the same thing. so why?!

the whole post could've just started from meeting too many self-absorbed talentless people who need to cover it. sometimes you have to cover it, or else you're a pervert, but in this case, let it show. :)

why are girls so strange?

(click to view the entire strip)

actually, i dont care. just wanted to share TheDogHouseDiaries with you.

and then i though it would be fun to see what google has to say:



so most people are curious why girls are mean. why?

how printeresting!

Dont know if its true, but it seems that the quarter of the century (my own) is the right time to get business cards printed. And ever since i read Breakfast at Tiffany's i dreamt of having a business card that said "wanderer", just like Holly Golightly. Back then, the rationale was that if my card would say that i'd be having all these great adventures. Right now i'm doing it sort of to celebrate the ingenuity of the older days.

So i made the design, pretty much (and unintentionally) inspired by Up! which i recently saw (in 3D) and loved. next step was printing. In case you didnt know, I live in New Delhi. And if you do know Delhi for sure you know Nehru place, the ultimate piracy place. Well, besides that, Nehru place is one place in Delhi where i never thought i would go by myself. Ever. But i'm there, i find Amit's printing joint, a place easy to get to, guided by orange spit marks on the walls. I go in, say i want my business cards printed, "ek minut" is their reply. After five (or more) of those, a guy who speaks some english comes and takes my memory stick. i show him the file, i tell him i want it in 200x200 size, he is saying things to me in hindi. I really hope its about the business card, but by the giggles around i'm afraid it might not be. He prints the first A3 page and i am stunned - he has printed 17 by 24 cards on one A3 sheet. that means a lot of nano-cards, 1,5x1,5 cm. i try to reason and my argument is "i actually need to use them". he understands and i'm grateful, he goes back to his desk, does some measurement with his ruler and figures out the right size, prints again, right size this time, the colors all smudged, i dont even mind, i just want to get it over with.

then, while going to the basement to get them cut, guided by similar orange spit marks, i dont even know i'm in for the biggest surprise of all. they cut all those manually, by the way, there is this job, of being a cutter boy, its along the lines of all jobs that end in "boy". so he cuts, tries to rip me off by asking for 25 rupees for cutting one A3 sheet, i give him 20 cause i simply cant explain i know i'm being ripped off since he doesnt speak english and i also ask him to tear them apart and put them in a bundle. and now the surprise: they're stickers. my business cards are stickers.

Wish i could have kept the super small ones. So now, with 40 stickers, maybe i'll start a blog mini promotion campaign. on rickshaws!

In conclusion, next time I'll stick to what works. I promise.

my birthday wish

i met coco in 2006. in AIESEC. i was a stressed out vice president talent management, he was an enthusiastic new member. he joined my department and when i became president he was part of my team as vice president marketing. coco was the cherry on top of our team, he changed moods, he knew how to talk to people, and with words pretty much failing me right now all i can say is that he is someone i feel proud and happy and humble for knowing.

right now, coco is really sick and though i feel like constantly saying it's not fair, i know i have to do something else. he is, beyond everything, my friend. and because of absolutely selfish reasons i want him to have a chance to live because he does it with passion, with excitement, with enthusiasm for the simple beauties of it.

my birthday wish is for coco to get well.

please go to: http://www.constantin-botezatu.net/ and for once give away the future of what you sooo badly wanted to buy for the future of a real, warm, incredibly positive and plain awesome human being!