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.

Greece of the Greek Christians (?)

On December 30th I am to receive guests from abroad. Two really good friends of mine are planning to visit me in Athens for New Year's eve and spend a week or so in the "cradle of civilisation" before heading back to Spain. While in Greece, they will have the chance to "live their myth" as the Greek Tourism Organisation's slogan will undoubtedly urge them to. This includes the Acropolis, museums and ruins, greek hospitality, great food and walks around the center of an -otherwise- ugly-ish city.

For us Greeks that live here however, the ones that have chosen to come back and make a living and the ones that will carry on living here after my friends are gone the "myth" is somehow more complicated. That is because we'll have to keep living in a country where 60% of the population describes himself as conservative and where people have a better opinion about "neoliberalism" than the "left".

The Greek "myth", in the form of the Greeks' ideological Atlas was published in yesterday's Kathimerini and can be found here for the Greek readers who care reading it. The non-Greeks should not feel bad about it, for various reasons. One one hand it's true that they are not in the position of reading Euripides or Plato from the prototype but on the other they don't have to live in a country where more than half of the people would like their religion to be declared on their official documentation. Where 65% still consider "marijuana is bad" but somehow manage to smoke in every single restaurant, bar AND hospital. Where every parent is trying to get his dear son out of the army but where an outstanding 66% is in favour of keeping the military service compulsory. Trully, my friends cannot appreciate Aeschylus or Thucidides but neither do the Greeks, who read on average 1.1 books per year, and who are so fond of "knowledge" that 7 out of every 10 demand that the teaching of religion (the ONE religion) in schools be kept mandatory.

Yes, my friends are more than welcome to live their myth in Greece. A country of warm, smiling people, who prosper under an eternal sun. What the Greek Tourism Organization forgot to mention in the ad is that 60% of these warm, smiling Greeks does not agree that the rights of the ones charged (which means NOT convicted yet) with terrorism are to be respected. I just thought I should warn them.

the greatest book ever written

"I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on the pavement".

There are still things to appreciate while in the army, in fact one thing only and this is -I 've said before- time. Time to undertake tasks that would otherwise result too demanding for one's usual 24-hour day. The army provides you with countless hours of idleness, which in turn offer the opportunity for some serious reading. A lot of reading.

Thus, I have grasped this opportunity to delve into a number of unread pieces of my bookshelf, especially the most fearsome ones, those that remained obstinate on the upper shelves resisting me, mocking me for my lack of time and/or daring to bring them down and wonder through their pages. Since there's not much that is really demanding while in the army, this is how I ended up finishing the "Magic Mountain", "Rayuela" and "Light in August" while serving my country at the same time.

The last in this series of great books though, requires a special mention. And this is because it is probably the greatest book ever written. The Waves, by Virginia Woolf.

I know such an aphorism may sound odd to many, especially coming from someone who's not an expert in literature. There is however something so haunting in this book, something unstructured, diffuse and yet profound that urges me to call it thus. Because there are books that give you pleasure, there are the ones that make you want to read more and the ones that make you want to become a writer. And then there comes a book that makes you realise, the one that conveys at the same time the sadness of everything that is worth having been written already and the enormous joy of allowing you to discover it anew.

"The Waves" is not a great story. But it is at the same the greatest of all stories, the story of everybody's life. It is more of a poem than a novel and less of a poem than a play. It transverses all norms and crosses literary barriers that weren't even existent at the time it was written. Most importantly, it resolves the eternal question between content and form with a sublime indifference. In the "Waves", form IS the content. The book's internal rhythm is what matters most. The marginal plot develops at the background forming the bed to the characters' stream of conscience. But it the characters conscience, their thoughts and pondering, their doubts and certainties that makes one feel he is doing something more than reading this book. He is living it.
Above all, the book's greatest achievement, what makes it so inexplicably important is the fact that each phrase belongs to that special powerful kind, the one I have discussed before here. Each phrase in this book gives the impression that it is exactly what needed to have been said.

And I cannot escape admitting that this book is what I needed to have written.

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.

ideas live for more than 101 years

...because there is no substantial difference between the zoologist or the botanist that classifies a recently discovered plant under the name of Elephantopus spicatus Aubl., (a name already provided to him by a system) and an Omaha priest that defines the objective conditions, which will assign the social status of a new member of the clan, by granting him the available name of "old-hoof-of-aged-bison".
In both cases, they know very well what they are doing.

Claude Levi Strauss
La pensee sauvage

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.

just breathe...

...or so it seems. Like you are just breathing.

Then you turn to look back and realize that six months have passed within a single breath. You feel like everything travels at the speed of light, while you are sitting still in the middle of a plain, left in ruins by a storm that grows distant. You find yourself banished, deserted in a world where all which makes sense belong to others, where time is harvested by everyone else except you. You are stranded in the place you really belong. This is your exile. And you just breathe. Life is what takes place in your absence.

You smell the air, trying to follow the path of your own breath. Desperately trying to comprehend the turning of the wind, to grasp what -you think- lies obscure and hidden, absurd in essence, only relatively pragmatic. You realize the passing of time with a sudden blow. You force yourself out of a comfortable limbo. This melody, played backwards, is the only thing real.
You ought to sing along.

"See the path cut by the moon...
for you to walk on...
See the waves on distant shores...
Awaiting your arrival."

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.