released-recaptured

Outside there is a nasty storm going on. I am asleep because of the freaking wind blasting against my window the whole of last night and trying to set up my new netbook while going through some bioinformatics papers with Brad Mehldau keeping me company. Tomorrow I will be leaving for Crete for the first class of my new job appointment. In brief, a lot of things have changed since the last post some weeks ago.

The rainbow seen from outside the window of my new flat is more than three weeks old. Which says a thing or two for how busy I 've been over this period. A new job that needed all the necessary preparations (mostly of psychological and bureaucratical nature), some old projects still pending and a lot of background household life, the thing I dare to admit, enjoy the most.

It seems thus that my wish came true and so soon after getting over with the ironic joke that the military service really is, I am back on track again, more active than ever (or perhaps as active as I 'd like to be), ready for a new start.

Released from the army - Recaptured by life. Lets see if I can stand the captivitiy

the end (is the beginning...)

There are a number of reasons for why "Abbey Road" is the cover of this post, the first of this new year. For one thing, I have come to think of it as my favourite Beatles album. Apart from the myths and legends connected to Rock's most famous album cover, it contains some of my favourite songs plus the coolest medley of short melodic poems ever written (all the tracks from the "Sun King" to the end of the album are a continuous piece of McCartney's genius). For another thing, I recently read that "Abbey Road", although released prior to "Let it be", was actually recorded after it, thus it constitutes the last Beatles album. It moreover finishes off with a glorious "The End"*, a sort of coda of less than two and a half minutes, which at the same time conveys the message of closure and bids farewell.

Such an end of ends, the last track of the last album cannot but remind me the last week of the last of the weights I had to carry (and "Carry that Weight" is not curiously Abbey Road's next to last track) over the past year. My military service will soon be over and I cannot but look back at these last nine months without a sigh of relief. 2009 was the year of great changes, sudden adaptations and an irreplaceable loss. In all I am glad it's over. In some very different way, so must have been the Beatles about Abbey Road.

Still, all the changes that the last year brought about, the closure in many aspects of my life and completing the one last thing that I really HAD to do, somehow mark more of a beginning than an end. I am soon to be starting a new life, something I am trying for the first time, something for which I have been waiting for too long, something that is probably the reason behind all these changes.
I am starting a common life with someone so special, for whom I can only think of the last, the ultimate line of the Beatles' lyrics.

"...And in the end, the love we take, is equal to the love we make."

See that there is a full stop, right there.

---

*the album's last track, "Her Majesty's" is a mere joke and should not count

out in the open

This is just what one needs after two months of keeping with stupid army duties, while at the same time looking for a flat (or rather sympathising with Demetra who was actually doing it). A couple of days out in the open, where one may still pretend to face nature at its purest, unspoiled form.

At the highlight of the trip we found ourselves, Demetra and I and a couple of friends up on the edge of a cliff with the gorge of Vikos spreading -eternal and generous- before our eyes. My current status allows no more lyricism, so I am not going to say that it has been like a revelation. No overwhelming feelings or mezmerized eyes in front of this wonderful view. Just the realization that at the side of all the superfluous, insubstantial obligations that life is burdening us with, there still exist aspects essential and genuine, that remain tangible even from the height of seven hundred meters.

things you tend to miss in the army - staying cool

People who know me can assure you of one thing. I am known to be a relaxed, calm person. Or at least I used to. Because people who know me a little better may bother informing you that of late, I have not been as calm or as relaxed as I once tended to be proud of. I am losing my cool.

The biggest problem is that lately I am also noticing it myself. Which deprives me of the -lame- argument of denial. I cannot but agree with my peers that I tend to be more abrupt in reactions, more straightforward in quarrelling and less patient while judging. Under such circumstances I cannot but resolve to the last refuge of a mature man. Look for excuses. In my case the way out is clear. The army is to be blamed for everything.

In fact, this -blaming the military service and its inconveniences for my bad temper- is something that people tend to accept rather light heartedly. Which really strikes me if you consider that others are willing to justify my mutation on a series of minor changes in my everyday habits. Having to wake up early, not being able to listen to music while working, doing useless night-shifts while your friends are out in some party, all form part of my great excuse to having become a slight bit more unbearable than I used to.

The thing is that by having tried to base my initial defence on such an excuse -and having seen it succeed- I now refuse even more to take it for serious. Being in the army is not an excuse. Yes, I hate waking up early and yes I detest this feeling of utter idleness when one can only read books one after the other being unable to discuss about them with others. (During my time in the army I have only met three -number 3- people who knew who Virginia Woolf was). Yes, it is hard to deal with the absurdity of the most bureaucratic of all bureaucracies, yes it is tough coping up with the laziest and most unproductive representatives of the Greek public servants as superiors.

And yes I am counting every day until I am once again able to stream the suppressed creativity of my 32 years towards something more meaningful than standing attention. But this is nonetheless no excuse for losing oneself. To this test one has to stand with the firmness and will of an Edmond Dantes (they say army is like prison but I don't need to stress, that the circumstances are of a much lighter nature).
For the sake of my friends and for my own sake, I have to go back to being the calm and relaxed person I once was.

a hidden universe revealed - early day commuters

It strikes me just to look at them. All these people...Where do they go? All these people...What are they doing at the edge of the night? Because it is still night at 6.00 am in the "morning", the time I get on the subway on my way to the Athens general military hospital, on my way to my last 9 and a half weeks of compulsory military service.

I have to stress "compulsory". Because there is no other way someone would get me out of my bed and onto the streets at 6.00 am on a weekday. These hours were unknown to me before joining the army. Or perhaps they existed once in an obscure and distant past but only as "coming back home time". These are brutal, savage hours, during which the body is too stiff to work properly and the mind not meant to be working at all. These are useless, worthless hours, whose only eventuality is keeping people frustrated, tired and under-productive so that they can be perpetually blamed upon at the office at daylight and fall eternal victims to TV rubbish at twilight. These are hated hours because they only serve to keep people unhappy.

I am unhappy. Riding the subway at 6.00 am on the way to work must be the definition of unhappiness. Or something very close to it. But all these people? All these people, who are not obliged to show their devotion to their country by waking up at 05.30... whom are they obliged to? What have they devoted their lives to? What have they sacrificed their mornings to? Don't they care to see their children wake up, the sun rise, have breakfast with their beloved? Which kind of work is so important? Which kind of work requires them to be the drowsy card-punchers I pity every morning instead of the active workers they could have been. If they only woke up two hours later. If they had only spent the evening out at the cinema instead of falling asleep in front of the TV.

They are unhappy. Worse than that, some don't even know they are. I am unhappy. Mostly for them. Because after these 9 and a half weeks are past, I am going back to being myself. My happy, active, smiling self, having had coffee at 8.00, reading my newspaper on the subway at 09.00, listening to my happy music, ready for another glorious day at work.

things to appreciate while in the army - Time...

It's 8 pm on a Friday evening. Having just finished my afternoon shift I am wandering around a deserted basketball court surrounded by parked cars. On one side the windows of the dorms where I am to spend half of the night (until my early morning shift starts at 3.30 am). Right opposite, a three-meter wall that separates ours (the General Military Hospital) from the one of the National Air Force. Facing westwards I can make out the sound of cars in the not so distant avenue and the fading lights of a city that is about to start the weekend. Then I turn and look towards the east. Just a few meters outside the wall, there lies the Institute of Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens. A brand new building made out of a mix of robust yellowish bricks and grey double windows, a proud specimen of that arrogant architecture, reserved for newly-founded research institutes and post-modern bank mansions. Down here I am left with my solitary walk, trying to stretch a bit before my early night sleep, bound to be interrupted at 3 am. Up there, young (and perhaps some not so young) scientists are probably adding the final (and for some not so final) touches to today's experiments. And the fact that their lights are all lit at this time of day doesn't surprise me at all.

Less than a year ago, I was one of them, spending Friday evenings in the cosiness of my milky-lit office, trying to put stuff in order so as for my week not to appear completely lost. Less than a year ago, it looked like there was never enough time. Time for working things out, time for getting the calculations right, time for having a new brilliant idea that would change the course of a stagnating project, sometimes not even time for having a drink before going to bed. Less than a year ago, I hated my job (and I have some really angry posts dated from back then to prove it). Less than a year ago I was thinking of my military service as a way out from a way of life I thought I was fed up with.

But last night, while walking up and down that empty basketball court, listening to Explosions in the Sky's powerful medleys of appeasing and awe-inspiring melodies, the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, I wanted my old life back. Despite all the burdens of it, despite all the load that made me hate my job back then. Last night, I would gladly take off my uniform and join the people on the other side of the wall, take up their problems, read the papers they would hand me, allow their problems to bother my little mind. Despite of all the time they would be lacking, the stress and anxiety of getting things done before Monday's group meeting, I would gladly offer to take their place. I realized that all the things that seemed meaningless and boring, less than a year ago, had regained their old electric-like aura.

And I knew that because there, in the middle of that stupid basketball court, in that incredibly uncomfortable uniform, with "Explosions in the Sky" on my headphones and all that time on my hands, all I could think of doing, all I could do, was to take out my small pocket notepad and write down, single-handedly what appeared to be my next "brilliant" idea.

things to appreciate while in the army - Breaking dawn

There is a number of responsibilities that one finds himself burdened with while in the army. Most would agree that those inferring sleep deprivation are the most tedious. It so happens that the great majority of what might prosaically be considered as "army duties" simply constitute of long meaningless hours of vigil.
To my content, the concept of such "army duties" (as well as more or less everything else) is greatly relaxed at my current unit. Staying guard is only loosely connected to the watchful national guards we were in Chios. And those that are to be vigilant guards inside the barracks -the so-called "room guards"- are nor guards in essence, neither vigilant, as I realized last night.

During my first on-call duty at the 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, I merely had to stay awake for a number of hours and make sure that during those hours my on-call colleagues would wake up on time for their shifts. This proved to be somehow chimerical for various reasons. One: nobody preceded (or succeeded) my shift, which resulted in my waking up accidentally five minutes before my shift started. Two: nobody really cared about being woken up so I actually had nothing to do apart from chatting with my friend Tassos, who was the one who woke me up (for having someone to talk to I guess).

Then Tassos left for his own shift (a useless patrol around the hospital) and so I found myself sitting at a lonely desk at 6.00 am with the company of a sadly boring book by Steven Pressfield, which instead of keeping me awake with its (assumed) engaging plot, brought about drowsiness in constant waves. To this my only escape was standing up, strolling up and down an empty, humid corridor until I eventually made it outside the building in the foggy dew-covered courtyard. There I saw it.

It was about 6.30 and a late autumn dawn was breaking above the Athenian skyline. It was nothing spectacular, given my position, surrounded by the tall buildings of the hospital, the time of the year and the rainy weather. It had little to do with vision and was more of something that appealed to the rest of one's senses. The smell of the soaking leaves on the wet soil, the sound of distant thunder and the chilling morning cold which I suffered with an inexplicable satisfaction in my summer uniform. I could not help thinking that it was not the dawn itself I was enjoying, but simply the approaching end of my shift, (which also suspicuously coincided with the beginning of a four-day leave). Still I tend to believe it was a mixture of all that, the sense that there are some brief moments (as all moments are) that one can only appreciate while being in the army, a series of little things that harm noone, while at the same time one would never bother doing.

Staying up all night and watching the dawn break, even a dull, urban dawn like today's is one of these little things.

coming back to life

It's official. I am back in Athens. From today on, I will be able to walk down alleys like this one whenever (or almost whenever) I want.

As my army gear and clothes are soaking in a bath-tub filled with scalding hot water, which aims at eliminating any trace of bed-bug I might have brought back as a souvenir from my stay at the barracks of the 96th Sanitary (?) Regiment, I take two days off to retrospect.

Has it been fun? No -freaking- way. Whatever people may tell you about missing the days in uniform (and whatever I might have been telling myself before getting there), being in the army is the exact opposite of fun. Even if you are lucky enough to enlist in the Sanitary (famous for bearing a "light" load of army-crap). Even if you are lucky enough to meet genuinely interesting people, of the kind you would -and will- be friends with outside the army. Even if you get to be on a Greek island during August and September.
It is still NOT fun at all. Simply because waking up at 5.45 at the yelling of some complete imbecile whose faint attempt to pronounce something remotely similar to speech barely makes it to "Wake up" is not fun. And with this I think I have summed up most of it.

Has it been worth it? Certainly not. There have been a large number of discussions about the necessity of the military service during some long night patrols in Chios. My colleagues -my poor colleagues whom I shamefully admit to have abandoned over there- would agree with me. There is nothing to be gained from army life after the age of 25 (at least). A mature, decent man with a minimal sense of responsibility already knows how to make his bed, be respectful to superiors, kind to women and responsible while doing his job. If we are to assume that the scope of the army is to deal with people who lack these qualities, there are a number of mental institutions that would be up to the task. If, on the other hand, the service aims at making one accustomed to the absurdity of the Greek public sector, its corruptive routine and its infamous drive towards the utmost forms of laziness then "Thanks, but no thanks!".

Would I do it again? You must be kidding me. I have a bit more than a hundred days left to suffer the stupidity of the uniform and deal with the scum of this country (the mentally retarded or/and lazy asses who choose to become inferior officers instead of getting a real job and a life). I am not exactly looking forward to it but I can assure you of one thing. As with all shit in life I can still take some fun out of it over the next 102 days. I can drive them crazy since they did not manage to drive me.

This is my last master-plan for the army to be put forward starting from tomorrow.

PS. This one goes out to my co-soldiers back in Chios. As they struggle with the our most painful responsibility towards the Greek Constitution, my thoughts cannot but be with them.

ChiosBios #3. Life after rain...

So it is official. I am not gonna get my first permit from my island prison before mid October. We still have one more full month to go, which means I want see friends and family until after I 've spent two and a half months in Chios. Since I was advised to keep a positive attitude I can only say it could be worse. Worse being having broken my foot while patroling the barracks at 3.00 am and while it is raining cats and dogs (which almost happened last Friday). Or worse being having no governement after the coming election, which will mean our permits will be once more postponed until Allah knows when...

So, we are crossing fingers...

Autumn seems to be here for good. Having spent the three last Autumns in Barcelona, where September mostly means rain, I was kind of expecting that. It is hard though to be on a Greek island and face the cloudy skies so early in Autumn. It gets harder when you get to have half of your clothes wet, (because the Sergeant does not allow clothes hanging on the string during the day, as if they were going to dry overnight) and half of them being lost at the drycleaner's (good news, I located them this morning!). Under such conditions, the aforementioned positive attitude becomes a hard to bear task.

But it has happened before and it is bound to happen again. The rain will eventually stop, the sun will rise above the island (third sunniest place in Greece if what the locals say it true), the clothes will finally dry and then mid October will be here and I will be boarding a boat back to Athens, to meet beloved people, catch up with friends and my mom's adorable craziness, see Branford Marsalis live and forget about the army for a couple of weeks.

Come to think of it, it will be hard to come back here in November and it will be probably raining, but then again, this is not positive thinking at all...

ChiosBios #2. Not having a life...

While in the army, I received the -finally- good news of getting a paper published. (Weirdly enough it made it to the cover of a well-respected journal). This would not have happened without the strenuous efforts of my good colleague Hagen and the perseverence of my boss Roderic. This work belongs mostly to them and my name is on it more or less due to an accidentally good idea. (But then again most of the good ideas are purely accidental).

The fact that I choose to post about this -very, very- late publication, to the final acceptance of which I only marginally contributed, can only be highly indicative of the lack of any interest whatsoever in my life, nowadays. Truth be told. Over the last weeks in the barracks I have a reached a point of utter boredom and idleness. Not that I am not doing stuff, quite the contrary. It's just that they mostly consist of activities that could only be described as offending to the the human brain and worst of all they leave absolutely no time for useful thoughts -let alone deeds- that all one can do is to whine about the lack of meaning.

Then again I feel like I am repeating myself over and over and that this post is only here to let me -indirectly- brag about my work (seriously, what has become of me?) and whine -once more- about the army. It's just that, of late people who actually read this blog, (yes there ARE some), were curious about the lack of posts. Not exactly the best way to make them feel I back and active, but still.

Promise to be able to talk about something more interesting next time. After all, football season is on its way.

ChiosBios #1

So this is it then!

The Army starts now! (as a lot of my superiors were fond of stressing out this very morning). As from yesterday afternoon I am part of the 96th Regiment of Sanitary in the picturesque island of Chios (whose beauties one cannot appreciate from a simple look at the map but you can trust me, they 're there.)

Thanks to my very good friend Charis the habilitation process has started quite well. Still the idea of spending some four months in an environment which falls far from being considered idyllic is not very appealing. They say that one can get used to practically everything and I 've always thought of this as a really bad aspect of human nature. Nonetheless it can only prove useful in the army, where letting time pass by is all that one really needs to worry about.

I am still looking for the Holly Grail, that is a way to make army time useful. It looks tricky and has become even trickier here. But then again it wouldn't be the "Holly Grail" if it was to be that easy, would it?

The dark art of wasting time

There is a certain blessing that transcends all races, latitudes and eras of mankind and that is that men, at the prime of their youth hold a firm conviction that they may -one day- change the world. The military service aims exactly at smashing this wonderful -yet dangerous- aspitration.

There are various motives behind such hideous an operation. Superstition, Conservatism, Backwardness and pure, powerful Stupidity to name only a few. But even if one is to accept the inevitability of the nature of things and submit to the idea that his time in the army is to reduce him to a mindless, opinionless, frightened peon -and consequently a burden to society-, there still remain inherent difficulties in grapsing the way this transformation is to take place.

I am writing this on my small notebook, having completed three hours of sitting at an empty hospital waiting room, where I am supposed to stay guard. Gurad of what exactly I am unable to tell, given that it is only 5pm, all the doors are still open, the cleaning ladies have not yet left the building, not to mention my superior officer who is -rightfully?- browsing the net in the office right opposite my post. Over these last three hours, I have grown weary with reading and bored of strolling up and down. My mind has become numb in absence of any possible stimulus and I dread to think that two more 4-hour shifts of pointless guarding nothing await me before dawn breaks over this blessed, military hospital.

I know that people who have already served -or still serving- and are reading this post, will by now attempt to decide between a lawful scorn and an ironic grin. After all, I am -at the moment- serving in my hometown and under circumstances that for the bulk of the Greek Army dwellers would be considered comfortable beyond any possible hesitation.
But that is not the point I am trying to make here -if any point can be made or is worthy of making. What my desperate, silent, solitary cry is attesting is that there is one thing in stripping a man of all his vigour, energy, will and right to become a productive citizen and it's a completely different one amputating him in such a way by deliberately enforcing on him the practice of a deep, unjustified and meaningless nothing.

It's the passivity of this art of time-wasting, that kills all that is good in us. How many books can a man read before he decides to quit reading altogether? How many songs can a man listen before he grows tired of music? How many blog posts can a man draft while strolling up and down for half a day, before deciding to quit his stupid blog once and for all?

But then again, how much more time need be lost before he concludes that if this world was ever to change the military would be the first thing to wipe out?

at the wrong place, at the wrong time

As life in the Army is a constant exercise in the Art of the Redundant one gets used to facing the ancient dilemma. Get utterly bored with doing nothing or get overwhelmingly frustrated with doing something completely useless? Today I confronted secret option number three. Which is doing something that is both useful and not boring but which you would strongly prefer to avoid in its entirety.

While in the army I have been asked more than ten times to elaborate on my computing and language skills and provide additional details on my PhD thesis. After careful consideration of all my qualities my superiors decided that I should better indulge into any sort of possible drudgery, thus providing me with a variety of activities NOT to choose from, which include mopping floors in the barracks (rather dull since it is always dirty), washing dishes in the restaurant (personal favourite) , carry boxes in and out of army trucks (veeeeery dusty boxes) and -last but not least- today's (and tomorrow's and the day after's) task of reorganizing a huge pile of garbage.

The latter, highly demanding mission -therefore the fact that the select group of seven included three University Degree holders- consisted in sorting out a small hill of garbage that contained debris, used hospital material (mostly mattresses) and junk in general into smaller piles of the aforementioned categories. It lasted more than three hours until it was interrupted temporarily due to the unfortunate event of the discovery of two medium-sized wasp nests in the depths of the pile. It is to be continued tomorrow with slightly increased protection measures.

It looks like somewhere on the way, my eagerness to serve the country and my country's needs decided to follow different paths.

L' enfer, c' est les autres

People who know me can speak for my defense. I am known to be rather tolerant. In the sense that only very, very rarely do I complain about other people and their behaviour in general. I am more than averagely easy-going and I tend to find excuses on behalf of others. Nevertheless, it seems like one and a half month in the Greek army can put this extreme tolerance under extreme stress.

Let's face it. Having to live in the same building with 250 more men, with whom you share a -very moderate- burden of responsibilities is not a simple task. Still, it would be manageable if only the majority made an effort to minimize this burden in a collective way. But they don't. In fact, I have come to believe that the army is the last resort of men (let's just leave women out of this for the moment) against the contagious virtues of solidarity and cooperation. Everyone (or almost everyone) is simply doing their best to avoid doing anything, which mathematically leads to a situation where most of the tasks are carried out by a few men, while the rest of them just sit and stare. Under such conditions, even tolerant people like myself find it hard to go by.

You see, I spent my last week in the Training Centre of the Sanitary Department in Arta working overtime just because most of my colleagues preferred to do nothing instead of the -very little- that we were asked to. The term "working" here needs to be adjusted to army standards, which translates to "unable to have fun outside the barracks". There is absolutely nothing fancy or complicated with army work. In my case, the frustration was only caused by the fact that "the others" were taking such a cruel advantage of the few of us. Thus, although I thought I 'd never say it, I remembered Sartre's famous words that give the title to this post. "Hell; it's other people."

Truth be told, I don't believe it. I just find it appropriate for the barracks (and perhaps not all barracks). I am still positive towards others, most of them, if not all. On my way back home yesterday afternoon, I found myself carrying some 35 kilos of luggage and having to make a 15-minute walk home due to works in the metro station. There I was, in the midst of a hot, Athenian June afternoon, in full garment and sweating like a pig (or like a soldier). A car passed me by, it stopped five meters ahead of me and the door opened.

The kind stranger who was offering me a lift home, came as the proof that in most of the cases "Le paradis, c' est les autres aussi".

The Kingdom of Rust

Speaking of the army. Again.
The councel I got from all those who have gone through it already is unanimous. Getting through the military service is like going through war. One has to try to suffer minimal casualties. And in the context of a propagation of a series of daily, pointless activities, not suffering casualties simply translates into trying not to be bored to death.
Trying to follow this (easy to say, hard to go by) advice, I am taking some small but important steps.

One is, I am reading as much as I can. And this means a lot. I have always been saving books for my retirement. Tough, thick (and very likely to be boring) books. Books of the kind that everybody talks about but noone has ever read. I am now through with Mann's "Magic Mountain" which had moments of greatness but could have been much, much shorter (except if it is meant to be read during one's military service). I have some good candidates lined up for next. I am talking about "big fish" and not the normal novels. Of those I read one every two days. Regardless of the boredom, this is something I really appreciate about army life.

Second step, I am trying to work a bit.
Scary.
That's why I am doing it in a slow and steady way. A little bit of reading, some thinking, a few notes on the margin of my small notebook, (already filled with stupid army info). It is still kinda fun and lets me think I am still into it. Perhaps it becomes productive in the future. Only time will tell.

Step three. The crucial one.
I need to change mode to be able to do all this. I look back at previous posts and recognize the source of painful nostalgia in the sound of music. Music that accompanied moments of joy, but moments that hold me back.
Punchline: I need a new soundtrack. New melodies to invest everyday life in this newly discovered Kingdom. This Kingdom of Rust.

The Doves sing about exactly one such "kingdom" in their latest album and Patrick Watson talks about a "big bird in a small cage". My case exactly.
So here I am, I take my books, my notes and my new albums by the Doves, Patrick Watson and Sonic Youth and set out to become the King in this new Kingdom. First I have to spend the next two days on guard for four hours every night.

But then again, as a great poet has already said:
Rust never sleeps.

the works and the days

The "Works and the Days" is one of the oldest poems ever written. Its chapters contain a large number of the most popular myths of Greek Mythology. In contrast to his other great work "Theogony", Hesiod chooses the "Works and the Days" to talk about the five ages of men. Therefore the "Works and the Days" deals with the "works" and the "days" of humans, not Gods. It thus states what might now sound perfectly obvious, which is that only humans may undertake "works" and that "days" have meaning only for them, contrary to the eternal Gods who neither have a sense of the passing time and whose existence is self-contained -even if the Greek ones always had a certain tendency for "acts" ( and often rather dubious ones). In this sense, people throughout history have always been meaning to pass their "days" in strong connection with some kind of "work" to leave behind.

In my -humble- case (as this STILL remains a personal blog) my "works" and "days" have been quite disconnected lately. Being in the army is the closest I can think of to being imprisoned, not just because of the obligatory confinement but mostly because of the utter boredom that the repetition of a useless life cycle brings about. In this way one has to face a paradox where on one hand the passing of time is what mostly matters while, on the other hand, the days pass with almost zero production of "work". One has to admit that there is an inherent impossibility for the conduction of any productive, constructive or by any chance meaningful task in the military environment but this only makes the frustration bigger. And which may become even bigger when it is combined with a relative necessity for work, work that cannot be carried out merely because the circumstances do not permit it.

Such were my thoughts last week when I found myself riding the bus back to Arta after a short weekend leave. In front of me lied a bunch of papers containing the comments on one of the papers I had finally managed to submit right before joining the army. And there I was, keeping notes on the margins, replying to some -often suspiciously- mean remarks, thinking over some parts of my work that could be considerably improved, accepting in the end that most of all this was quite useless. I was going back to a place where nothing of what I was thinking could be done, as there are no computers in the army (for the recruits), nor internet access (for the soldiers), or a way to download scientific papers from the web.

In the end I was simply trying to convince myself that my "works" over the last years were important enough to need some more time.
In the end I was deceiving myself with the thought that some "work" of that kind could still be done while in the army.

As I went on turning the pages, listening to Coldplay, I remembered the last time I rode a bus listening to the same album. Some one year ago on the way from Seville to Cadiz, (instead of Athens to Arta), while on holiday (instead of the army), in the company of good friends (instead of on my own), reading a nice book (instead of a paper review). I remembered that back then it seemed that all the "work" could be done in the next few "days", while now it looked like all the "days" I have are not enough, not even for a paper revision.

Most of all, it seemed like the time of the innocence had irrevocably passed by.

Life in the barracks

Scientifically speaking there is an easy and straightforward way for one to grasp the relativity of space-time and that is through a rigorous decoupling of its two components. If one manages to keep space constant, he allows time to clearly manifest its complete set of properties. And this is the kind of experiment I have been running for the last two weeks.

I know that living in the barracks cannot really qualify as a scientific experiment but things are sometimes better seen as something else than what they actually are. It helps. My military service is much, much more easy-going than I might have expected so there is no real reason for me to whine about something that has been suffered by almost all of my male friends. Being in the amry is no big deal. True it can be frustrating in many ways but one should stick to the positive side of things and if the military service has one such, it can be no other than the spare time it provides to the soldiers. For a 31-year old who has already changed home, job and lifestyle three or four times the mere idea that he only has to care about when to eat or sleep is radically liberating. On the other hand, it can also be close to becoming shockingly, painfully boring and in this way I had to devise a way out. My space-time experiment is the best I could come up with (for the time being).

For my first two weeks in the recruit camp of Arta I chose Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" to be my literary companion. I could have hardly picked anything more relevant to my situation. A young man's semi-voluntary confinement in a sanatorium on the Alps, where "nobody asks about him, and he asks about nobody". It may be somehow depressing to parallel my 9-month military service with Hans Castorp's seven years residence in Berghoff but the one thing I find we have in common is the opportunity to explore the relativity of time in its fullness. So, like Hans I found myself repeating the same routine daily, I tended to think about the importance of time and change and I hesitated on whether I should count time passing by with days, weeks or months. Like him, I am looking for ways to exploit the passing time and like him I find it difficult. Like him I have vigorously reflected on the essence of time. And unlike him I have found that if one keeps space constant, time also appears to slow down.

It thus looks like my experiment has already concluded. Which leaves me some 262 more days to think about other things.

today

One might say that waiting would mean to perceive the duration and the present not like a gift but like an obstacle. To deny and destroy their value, to leap over it with one's own imagination. Waiting, they say, is always too long, but in the end it is not. It is exactly the opposite, it is short, too short and damaging since it consumes time that falls behind unused, un-lived and wasted.

Thomas Mann
The Magic Mountain