Perspective Change

Today, it came to my mind how differently people can see and perceive a place, especially a city. Everyone has his or her own experience of a city, even when it is exactly the same day or moment. In Paris, you get to see many tourists. And sometimes, especially in the beginning, you are one of them.

You don't only recognize them by their silly outfits (rain coats on a sunny day tied around the waist- just in case...- seriously?!) and a city map in their hands. They also happen to have an expensive camera hanging around their neck and a baseball cap on that says "I <3 Roma" (guess what they visited before Paris). But you can spot them, even when they have decent clothing, because of their look. How they watch and examine the city. They see all of the boulevards, the Haussmann buildings, the great city sights for the first time. You can tell it from their moves. How they stand there with their mouths open watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle for the first time...

"OMG, IT SPARKLES!!!!" - Every tourist ever

And that's why. They don't know it sparkles every full hour after sunset, or maybe they know and they just don't care. Because they think it's just for them. Like I like to tell myself it sparkles just for me, whenever I see it. As we grow taller and become adults, we learn to empathize with others, learn to imagine that there are things happening meanwhile and that there is a world turning outside of our field of vision. That the world doesn't turn around us. 

But indeed, it does. Everything we see, we see through our own eyes. We can't change that, we're bound to our First Person view. Everything we feel, we feel it through our body, our fingers, our feet. Everything we experience, we experience in our mind, our brain. It is us that makes our world. And all the things that happen are only important to us if they happen to us directly.

It's something different seeing all these locks in a HQ* picture 
than being able to touch them and read them one by one...

That's why nobody likes tourists. Except you're the one who is a tourist. You don't feel like a complete loser not finding the way and staring at Sacré Coeur as if it was the greatest miracle in the world (it's pretty impressive, though). When you come back to the places or visit them frequently, sometimes as a part of your daily monotone life, you take them as granted. You don't appreciate them anymore. That's what I learned while guiding my friends and family all around the city. To let myself be fascinated once again, stunned by the beauty or the architecture and the mood of some places (if not yet destroyed by aggressively dumb behaving tourists or black souvenir sellers).

Perspective change: Level Louvre

In the beginning of my year, I met a French guy (as part of a French-German language exchange-bar-talk-thing at POLYGLOT Club) who told me that he likes to show me the places he knows, to pass me around in the Quartier Latin (5e arrondissment) and to tell me stories about what happened here and there in the past and why this place is called that name. Because showing someone a place and experiencing them perceiving the place for the first time is like seeing it for the first time through their eyes. Reliving the "first time" feeling. And sometimes recognizing hidden treasures and finding new corners, new peanuts and pennies of your quarter that you have never seen before.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.                                                     Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.  -  Marcus Aurelius 

This is also one of the reasons why I recently started watching and loving THE ART ASSIGNMENT by Sarah and John Green. It's a new web series in which the two of them meet contemporary artists and they come up with tasks, assignments, on a special topic. The viewer gets inspired by the piece of art and by the idea/topic and is invited to do his own art assignment and share it on social media with the suitable hashtag #theartassignment. 

They inspire me so much! Especially when it comes to perceiving and reflecting my urban environment. One of them, for example (number 5) was about finding the quietest place near your house by just walking around and "following the silence". It's a totally different thing to follow your ears instead of your eyes on a city tour. The assignments help you to gain new perspectives and a really interesting perception of what is going on around you. Because it's your senses and your brain that create your image of a place or a city in your mind. Why don't influence this image to be more funded, deep and reflected? Not just superficial. 

There's so much beauty in Paris. There's so much beauty in this world. 
We just need to change our perspective to see it, that's all.

So cute I almost died.     Jardin des Plantes, March 2014

*Why is the quality so high? - because my best friend and I made them with his superior SLR camera when he visited :) Thanks & L O V E

Most Confusing Date Ever

I met this guy on tinder. Stop judging me before you even start: I block every pervert and every "just sex no relationship" kind of guy immediately. It was actually the third tinder date I've been on and it tops off everything when it comes to the mindf*ck factor.

In the photos he looked like a nice guy. Charming, a cute smile, maybe a little shy. I judged him before I even met him. I put him in a box called "cute shy nerdy boys" because I knew he studies computer science/programming/applied mathematics and stuff. I started painting the picture of him in my mind. Of how I expected him to be. 

He looked exactly like his pictures on tinder and I must admit he has a very nice smile :) but gurrl except for that he was completely different to what I imagined him to be. And even though we had the best preconditions for a highly romantic first date (Parc du Buttes Chaumont, pic-nic in the afternoon...) it was everything but romantic. But I can't decide yet if I find that cool or deterrent.

Sunny side up (Buttes Chaumont, Paris)

At first, we were nerding about films and books quite a time and I was impressed by his traceable well-grounded opinions on everything he read or saw. He disappointed me by admitting that he had only read the first two tomes of Harry Potter (Bitch,please!) and positively surprised me by loving Artemis Fowl as much as I do. 

In fact, he seemed like a little Artemis Fowl to me. Someone who is brilliant. Simultaneously someone who is very self-assured and wants to demonstrate his brillance to everyone by revealing the difference of their level of intelligence in comparison to his. You could judge him right away, saying "Oh, so he's an arrogant asshole who humilates people and finds himself being the funniest person in the world and is just evil". But it isn't that easy.

He told me that he loves to cross lines, that he wants to oppose authorities and that he likes to observe people psychologically. How they act, their body language, how they talk, what they like and what they hate and what they imply in their actions. He finds it interesting how people react and manipulating them thereby. 

He brought me to think about all this personality/identity stuff again I was struggling with while reading John Green. About how someone is not only this one format you made of him while placing him in a box and using the natural prejudice sytstem in your mind making your world less stressful. About how every person has so many faces and so many influences, experiences, interests and thoughts making them themselves and so f*cking complicated that it's a challenge to figure them out. About how everyone acts differently around different groups of people and about how we judge someone rashly by a first impression that says little about the actual character of the person.

Recent book consumption.
"YOU WILL GO TO THE PAPER TOWNS
AND YOU WILL NEVER COME BACK"

I started the wheel of wondering again about how I perceive people around me and how they perceive me. Who am I in their eyes? How do I look? In which box have they put me? Do I emanate what I want to stand for? Do I represent who I am in my actions? 

And he made me unsure. Because during the date I started wondering about how he can read me. What I show him. Who does he believe me to be? Miraculously, I did not (at least I wasn't aware of it) show my anxiety and my musing in my gesture and talk.

So in the end, I took the courage and asked him this key question: "So...How do you think I am?" And he didn't want to answer. He said it'd be a long answer. 

I felt at the same time relieved and challenged because I wanted to know it, clearly, but at once I was happy that he didn't think I'm simple to read and that he'd not confront me immediately with my complete failure when it comes to my charisma.

No, for real, let's be serious,  I have no idea how I am perceived by others. If they think I'm anxious or self-confident, if they think I'm probably a nice person or a human version of grumpy cat. If I am a arrogant bitch or a shy wallflower... (ok, for sure that's nothing they could say about me). 

And by thinking about it and by writing this entry maybe he got me to what he tried all the time... Maybe he was manipulating me all the time. So I would start to reflect about it all: about personalities, people and psychology (alliteration alarm).

And he somehow managed to keep it connected to him so that as a result he would stay on my mind, so that he could impress me. If this was what he planned (and I really estimate him to be the kind of person who does shit like that) - he succeeded in so many ways. 

Basically me.

But what confuses me even more, apart from him being a nice familiy guy who has a lot of friends and does crazy pranks with them (like putting over 800 post it's all over a car), a nerdy programmer, an enthusiastic leader of arguments and discussions and a bit of a rebellious arrogant superbrain at the same time, is that he didn't try to kiss/touch/fuck (just kidding) me at all. I mean: What's wrong with you? - I'm kidding again, but seriously: Why?You get my point. That was just the summit of confusion! 

In the end, was it not even a date? Do I have to rewrite the title and call it the "Most Confusing Conversation" or the "Most Confusing Guy Ever"? I don't know what to think anymore. I'm just literally mindfucked. 

Sooo, I'm busy getting this confusion in my head fixed, reading some good books, having a beer here and there with friends, hanging out in parks (because the weather is actually pretty nice :) ) and don't forgetting to be awesome.

The Uncertainty of Looking Forward

"Do you mind if I kiss you?" 

Of course I don't. 

Some things aren't needed to be said. Nevertheless, they're cute an they are appealing to me. Is it this sad and this lonely and this bitter for me to do the things I do? 
To imagine walks along the Seine (our last summer...), holding hands, eating ice cream at night on a blanket at the Canal, watching the sun sink down as we stand on the terrace of the Centre Pompidou... to envision all the things we could be?

I can't help but start the wheel of wondering whenever it comes to love. (Don't think I'm in love it hasn't even really started yet -.- )
What is it all good for in the end? Why do I keep imagining this stuff? 
What is going to happen never meets your expectations. That's why I try to never think about what I am going to dream before I fall asleep. Because if I do, I never ever dream what I hoped to dream.

This is the sad truth of life. Am I pessimistic or just realistic for claiming this? Your dreams are not becoming true. I'm sorry. But ironically, I still believe in dreaming. I believe it opens your mind. For the future, for the world. 

"And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.” 
- John Green, Paper Towns

But what do we live for if we don't live for the future? How can we bear all these moments of disease, of pain, of lonliness if we don't have something to look forward to? 
One moment can change anything. Your perspective, your way of acting, your way of seeing the world. And what if that moment is yet to come? What if you kill yourself now and miss the best part (to be very radical) ?

One the one hand, this is what keeps us searching. This is what keeps us wanting more and more and more. This is why we are never satisfied. This can be what makes us sick. Because the anticipation is always better than the trip. 

On the other hand, this is what keeps us from giving up. It is what makes us better people. We evolve, we want to change things, we want to change us. We have ideas. We make things. We grow. Because if you never try, you'll never see. Nothing ever stays. Change is inevitable. Why not go with it? It helps us getting out of hard times. 

It's always fine to hold onto your sorrow.                                                                 There's always time to make it up...tomorrow.  - The Subways

The perfect (but only understandable for some females) example is being on your period. Man, it sucks balls. If I ever kill myself I'm probably having my period at the moment. If I think of every moment I spend cowering on my bathroom floor, crying, not being able to stand up without throwing up, shivering - I bet I would have had to kill myself several times if I saw no future.
Because the thought of tomorrow, of the good times that are approaching, keeps you up. (Or at least gets you to get up again)

Everything is gonna be alright. - Joshua Radin

Fuck it. Now I'm not longer sure what to decide. Which side I prefer. Which way I will choose. Maybe it's like with most things: You have to keep the balance between the sides. You don't have to give up your NOW to the future. But you are neither to stop dreaming, to stop hoping and changing. Maybe "maybe" is my favorite word. Maybe I have hard times with making decisions.
But maybe you can see it in my actions, in what I'm doing. I'm not suicidal and this is not my goodbye letter. 

So... see you tomorrow, I guess.

In the distance, I can see my future. I get to think about all the places I want to go,
all the things I want to see, all of the people that are going to change me forever
and all the thingsI will do...