My bit of L-space

Tarot cards, spells and probability waves

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 18:32:00 GMT

Working hypothesis 1: From any given point in time there is a certain finite number of probable sequence, each with its own probability of occurring. It can be assumed that some of these sequences have a higher probability than others. (For example, while running across the street, the probability of being run over by a maddened horde of elephants is much lower than being run over by a car)

Working hypothesis 2: Some people can see, or sense, these probability lines and/or collapse a certain desired probability function. This can be extended to say that collapsing the waves is easier in certain states of mind or certain places.

For those who don’t know what a probability wave or function is, it belongs to the realm of quantum physics and is best explained by the example of Schroedinger’s cat. This is the simplified experiment, which doesn’t involve nuclear disintegration (bear in mind that it is a mental experiment): You put a cat in a box. You spray acid 9or something similar in the box (without any kind of personal action such as opening the box). Before anyone lifts the lid, the cat is both alive and dead and in the moment when you look you collapse one of these two probability waves and one option becomes real. (It can be argued that you either have a dead act or a very angry cat for being shut in a box and sprayed with acid, in which case it wouldn’t be very wise to open the box).

Now how does all this apply to Tarot and spells? Take any kind of divination method, Tarot, I-Ching, rune stones and so on. The divinatory doesn’t see THE future, but A future with the highest probability. This is why sometimes predictions don’t come true: other factors, such as personal decisions or external factors collapse another probability function. But why, if the persons are the ones that see the probability lines is there the need for cards or stones? If you ever tried to understand quantum mechanics, I’m pretty sure you found it’s hard to get your mind around it. Now imagine you have the actual physical phenomena behind the theory. The cards and stones are the physical means that help fit the probability information in a human mind frame. And maybe dreams fit in here too. Future probabilities sneak into your sleep when they can’t make any sense in your waking mind.

Suppose someone can collapse a certain probability wave: easier for one with a high probability and getting harder as the probability gets lower. We do know something that does exactly this: spells and potions. And more exactly wishes. ‘The legend says: make a wish inside the cave and it will come true’. Well, maybe it does. Some people are naturally lucky: maybe they just walk on favourable probability lines. And prayers? Just a different form of wishes.

This is either a theory explaining divination and wishes or just another literary attempt.

The old tree

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 19:51:31 GMT

This is a story I've written a couple of years ago, one of the few I've actually managed to finish.It was originally in Romanian, so I had to translate it. It's incredible how hard it is to translate something even if I've written it myself. Anyway, here goes. Hope you like it. I'd appreciate comments.

The tree moved his leaves in the warm summer wind. He had always liked the long august afternoons. For a long, long time, he had been standing there on the hill, looking down at the river valley. The view hadn’t really ever changed: the same green meadows, the same river, the same blue mountains in the distance. It’s true, the few houses on the river bank kept changing. Now they were modern holiday houses, to which humans had brought electricity. Actually, they had been called modern before, in their own way. Each owner, in his turn, had been proud of his house and its utilities.

The old tree was very interested in humans. There’d been so many summers in which he had sheltered them in his shade and listened to them talking. And in the long winter months when hardly anyone would stop under his bare branches, he had had time to think and maybe now he could understand them better than they did themselves.

Right now he was listening to two girls stretched out on the grass. They couldn’t be older than 16. They had known each other since they were babies and their mothers had brought them to play around the tree. Each summer the tree had watched them growing older and changing their games. Now they were talking about the new game they had discovered: love.

The scene reminded him of another one, one he had listened to a long time ago. On another summer afternoon, two young girls had been talking in the same spot, about the same things. The other two had been wearing long dresses, gloves, hats and parasols. But deep inside, the tree thought, they were the same. His mind wandered back in time…

“Are you sad?"

“Yes, and angry. Very angry. Yesterday, at dinner, my dad told me that my fiancée will soon be here and that I am to be married by the end of the year! I think, I’ve told you the story before. My dad and his are very good friends and partners at the firm and they decided we will be married since we were very young. To be fair, I always thought there wasn’t much truth in it, that my dad had to be joking. It seems so absurd! I can’t get married just because they want me to!”

“You’ve never met him… Maybe you’ll like him. You never know…”

“Actually, I did meet him. When we were children we used to play together sometimes. I think we even spent a holiday here.”

The tree did indeed remember two rosy kids running around his trunk.

“After that he went to study abroad and I haven’t seen him since. No, I’m lying. I’ve seen him once after that, about three years ago. But he didn’t stay for more than a few hours. And I hardly talked to him. We are simply strangers! I couldn’t ever spend my entire life with someone I don’t know! My parents are taking this too far! I’m not going to accept this!”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. First of all, I’m going to tell my parents what I think. Maybe even today. My mother should listen to me at least. And if not… mybe I’ll run away from home. There’s a whole world out there! Anyway, I’m not going to marry a stranger!”

But it hadn’t been like that. The tree couldn’t know what had happened in the house down in the valley, but the next summer, the two newly weds had sat down in his shade and then their children had played and ran around his trunk, that grew thicker by the year…

His mind came back to the present. Although so many years had passed, the girls’ dialogue was very similar. It was different in something maybe essential, but absurd. The tree would’ve laughed if he could.

“I’ve talked to my dad last night and he said that HE won’t come to stay with us this summer…”

“Who?”

“How could you forget, I’ve told you before! He’s my dad’s best friend’s son. We’ve known each other since we were kids. Actually, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know him. I can remember us playing in this exact spot!”

The tree could remember as well.

“And then he went abroad. I didn’t care so much back then. But then, he came back here a couple of times and I’ve loved him ever since. I couldn’t ever love someone so much again!”

“Isn’t it a bit weird? You don’t really know him at all. How can you say you love him?”

“Uff, you don’t understand anything! You see, we’ve been raised in the same way! You can know someone even without talking to him! There’s a special link between us.”

“If you say so…”

“And now I find out I won’t see him this summer! I will have to wait a whole year! Or maybe he’ll come home for Christmas? I have to hope. I’m sure he’ll love me as well, once we get to spend more time together. That is, if he doesn’t love me already! I can’t imagine myself living without him.”

But the tree knew the way people are. He already knew it wouldn’t be like this. After a few years the girl will fall in love again, with someone much closer to her. She wouldn’t forget this one. She’ll remember him as either a beautiful teenage love or an absurd childhood crush. After a while she might get married and, in turn, her children will play under the old tree.

Late at night, long time after the girls have left and the houses in the valley have been surrounded in darkness, the tree is thinking. He is thinking that people’s stories do happen again, slightly changed, but they do. He believes they should know this. The old tree wishes he could tell them.

West of the sun

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:08:32 GMT

There is something magical about sunsets. (And maybe about sunrises too, but I'm rarely awake to watch them) Maybe because of the light, maybe because it's an end, maybe because it's neither day or night. Or maybe they just are.

After both me and Em had had a horrible day, we decided, after a nice meal and a very depressing talk, to go for a little walk on the sea front in Morecambe. Ok, not the nicest place in the world, but that night it offered a strange view. The sky was clear to the west and you could see the sun almost setting in the sea, but dark storm clouds were massed behind us, giving an eerie light. The tide was out, leaving behind boats stranded in the mud and patches of grass. Looking at this and having in mind our earlier talk and my doubts about everything at the moment, I came to understand better what 'west of the sun' means.

It's an image from Murakami's 'South of the border, west of the sun'. As children, the two main characters used to listen to Nat King Cole's 'South of the border', which for them symbolised a land of pure happiness, as the US and its border with Mexico meant nothing to them. Opposed to this is west of the sun: the land without hopes or dreams. The way the girl explains it is: in the long and hot Siberian summer afternoons, some farmers are overwhelmed by the vastness of the plains and, leaving everything behind, start walking towards the sun, in an endless quest for a land west of the sun.

As the girl says: 'There's no way back. And west of the sun is a very different place from south of the border'. I could always half understand the pure desperation of that story, the lack of hope and dreams and even the wish to hope. But now I feel lost and don't know what to dream about. And now I know: there's nothing west of the sun...

Trust

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:09:09 GMT

"I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze." (D. H. Lawrence)

If there is one thing I truly hate that is lies. I don't mean people not telling the truth, that is different. But if someone invents a whole story, with or without good reason, I lose all respect for that person. And I lose all my trust: if someone's lied once then they can do it again and again.

I like to believe the best of people, especially if they are my friends. If someone needs my help, I'll do my best, without asking too many questions. On the other hand I have a pretty good intuition, so I generally know what's going on around me. Which means that if someone comes to me with a completely fantastic story I'll be in a pretty difficult situation: I can't just come out with the fact that I don't believe a word, but I can't just continue being their friend.

And there is one more thing: I often noticed that people who lie and make up stories just to get everyone's attention, usually do get it. So what happens to the rest of us, who would never do something like that, but still, from time to time, need a bit of attention? I like to believe that in the end lies don't take you anywhere, that it all boomerangs and you end up worse than you started. And people who are just being their own selves will have friends and support in the long term. But then, I'm the most optimistic person in the world...

My precioussss.....

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:58:43 GMT

I found myself today missing home. And I don't mean my brother or my parents, which of course I always miss, but not too much and I'm used to that. Not even the actual, physical home that we live in. No, I found myself longing for something else: the books. Bookshelves go up to the ceiling in my room and others line most of the walls. Books tend to pile up on the floor because there's no more space for them and we keep buying new ones and never get rid of old ones, even if no one reads them anymore.

I remembered an exercise we did in English at school 'Talk about the most precious thing that you own'. I had to think for about five seconds: MY books. Among all the novels, science, history, philosophy books that I have read or not, there are a few that are practically a part of me. Books that I keep on a separate shelf, that I can reach easily, that open up at my favourite scenes. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Umberto Eco, Jorje Amado, Salman Rushdie, Hermann Hesse. Books that I read when I'm tired, or sad, or alone. It might seem strange to some, but going through one of those books always brings me back on track. Always.

I was thinking: I don't know what I'd be if I hadn't read all those books. They've changed me in so many ways, they're so much a part of me that I wouldn't be myself as you know me without them.

Enough reasons to miss those books don't you think?

Procrustes bed and the Dolphin Hotel

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:56:56 GMT

This is an ancient greek legend, part of Theseus' story. Procrustes was a thief who had a house on the side of the road in a deep forest. He offered a meal and a night's rest to any traveler passing by and he claimed he had a bed that would fit anyone perfectly. What he didn't explain was how this was achieved: if someone was too short for the bed he would strectch him on the rack and if he was too tall he'd chop his legs off.

As most legends, it says a lot about human nature. There are some people (quite a few, I have discovered) that when faced with something they don't understand they'll try to re-shape it until it fits their view of the world. It's like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle and instead of trying to find the place a piece fits in, you just break bits of it until it fits where it's easier for you to put it. what you end up with would be a whole different image from what the puzzle was supposed to be. don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that these people are stupid or even narrow minded, but to fully understand other people's point of view just takes a lot more effort than we are usually ready to put into it. And we'd also have to realise that we ahve to make this effort, because most people do this re-adjusting instinctively.

Here is another point of view. It's a quote from Haruki Murakami's 'Dance dance dance', about the old Dolphin Hotel: "Look at anything in the place and you'd find yourself tilting your head a few degrees. (...) Who knows, you might get used to this slant on things? (but if you do you'd never be able to view the world again without holding your head out of true)"

So if strange, different things happened to someone and he'd have to get used to them everything else would seem slightly out of tune, and he'd have to make an effort to see usual things as 'normal' once more.

All this gives me the feeling that we are all living in our own private worlds and just accidentally keep bumping into each other. Slightly depresssing.

How a story is shaped

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 12:50:57 GMT

I've had this story in my head for about 3 or 4 years now and I've tried to write it a few times in different ways and different languages but it lacked an ending and it somehow didn't hold together. Somewhere deep inside I had already given up on it and put it on the list of 'started but never ended stories' (there's quite a few on that list). But last night it finally clicked and I think I've got it all now.

I realised that my main character lacked glue, or rather an inner core, a motivation, until now she was just a vague idea. I just had the actions she was supposed to do but not what was behind them. I now know that she needs to be pushed by blind fury, the anger that sometimes pushes me to do the stupidest and rashest things in the world. And with that added to what she was before I hope I can make her a real person.

I didn't intend to but I managed to fit in something else that has been buzzing through my head for a while now: Venice. Not Piazza San Marco and The Doge'd Palace, not Murano and LIdo, but the maze behind them: streets so narrow you can touch the buildings on the side when standing in the middle, 5 story buildings on both sides, bridges and criss-crossing canals. I don't know if there's a way not to get lost there. And at night there are lightsonly now nad then, which gives an even more eerie atmosphere. I don't imagine it was any different in Reinassance Italy, when my story takes place.

Now the problem is if I'll ever actually manage to get this story to an end, because it will turn out to be quite long. But then, even if I finish it next year, it's still something.

My new obsession: Blackmore's Night

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:11:22 GMT

My brother keeps downloading lots of music off the internet and among hard rock, metal, death metal, black metal blah, blah I managed to find something that I really liked. It's medieval/renaissance music and I think it's absolutely fantastic. Well, actually, it's the only thing I've been listening to for the past 2 weeks.

Turns out the lead guitarist is Ritchie Blackmore, ex-Deep Purple member, so no wonder the music is so good.

The lyrics have a strong fantasy/magical tendency, so I think it matches my Tarot cards and my own mood. At the moment I can't get 'Cartouche' out of my head, I think it's moved up to my favourite song of the day.

The clothes Candice Night and the other two girls wear are absolutely lovely, but I honestly think they should stop dressing up Ritchie Blackmore because he looks a little silly dressed as a medieval ministrel and with an electrical guitar.

Note to self: Start listening to something else too!!!!

First...

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:28:43 GMT

So I was a bit bored after the exams and i've decided to start my own space. Just a place to put up my own random thoughts, as I'm in the habit of writing things and I though I'll share. If I ever get around to typing up my short novel. (It will never happen probably).

There's the slight chance I'll give this up completely and this will be the only entry ever...

Note: No one has to read this if they don't want to and they think it's absolutely stupid.

Book List: Book List

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:01:14 GMT

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the times of cholera