The function of science is to reassure; the purpose of art is to upset. Therein lies the value of each.

After historical behave of the society facing art or scientific advances, it can not be stated that science has a reassuring function while art upsets. Actually, if we might assume there's a given function for art or science, this function has shown to be morphing through time in both fields.

By starting with the art, and in inverse chronological order: the power of the art to be upsetting is almost completely lost. If not for the staff working at the Tate gallery -as an instance-, a bunch of runners sprinting through the corridors of the museum is only remotely upsetting. Maybe so remotely that you have to look at the prices of such performances for them to be upset. Perhaps at Duchamp's time it was in there the value of the art, but nowadays we should search this value somewhere else or admit art hasn't got any value at all.
Neither historically is the stated point of view valid. Back to the XX's century avant-gardes, the value was found in the ability of seeing the world with new, eye-opening techniques which didn't necessarily present a direct attack to stated topics. As an instance, we can find a great number of religious work, not provocative at all, or purposeless paints or writings consisting only of experiments with forms, colors or rhythms.
Seeing further back into the past, the value of the art came to reside only in the ability of an artist to flatter high society members paying to get the works done. Though many revolutionary valuable oeuvres did actually upset and found through this its value to survive the pass of time, we can't dismiss the fact that truly great advance were made within the safe and comfortable aristocratic world such as the realistic pictures of well stated families, which lead to the develop of the dark chamber techniques; or the paintings of landscapes which brake with the realistic tradition.
Eventually, coming to the origins of art, we find the value of it in the magical notions attached to the symbols printed at jars or in jewels or inside paleolithic caves.

In researching about the value of the science as a reassuring mean, we find that historically science attacked -if not completely removed- the stated beliefs and faiths. As the better instance of such point, the history gifted us with the most influencing intellectual of the history: the biologist Charles Darwin, who even today is found to have a non pretended provocative attitude against the faiths and worships of certain groups. By means of his work "the origin of the species", Darwin directly attacked the deepest beliefs of his contemporaries and created a profound debate which only eventually and after a long time became to be seen as reassuring.
I think, Charles Darwin example shows up that the real value of science has been reassuring only in the scientific ambit, which accepted the results of the theories and experiments and further developed them. But in general, in the society, the real value came only through the removal of deep established topics which lead to a loss of reassured issues.

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Pick me up

Pick up my teeth from the floor if I fall.
Pick up my teeth and my soul
to kiss me at each and every dawn.

Pick up my chest from the sky if I fall.
Pick up my chest and my shine
to smile forth each and every dawn.

Pick up my mind from the void if I fall.
Pick up my mind and my voice
to start off at each and every dawn.

Exams

The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S The exams are coming :S

So wish me good luck :D!

The 道, my 道. (part II)

...Lately I've been reeding a book called The construction of China. It speaks, of course, about the socio-political events that brought China fort, but it also spends many chapters giving account of Chinese philosophy or religion, which is many times of capital importance to understand China.
As a part of the philosophy and the religion, the concept of 道 comes up many times. I read about it, became more and more interested... and became also somehow upset: it screws my symbol up.

My symbol doesn't refer to the any eastern philosophical issue. It referred first at all to a phisical Path which becomes the Path itself I (and each one) web by collecting single fibers of experience.
I like also the eastern approach, though I don't totally agree with all I've read. But that's not me, that's not my symbol...

Between my flat mates and me is coming up the idea of making a tattoo at the end of the year. It's a great idea, though I don't like tattoos. I've been thinking, of course, about a 道.
The location is an issue. First at all: it's private, it's for me and I don't care if it's somewhere where it's not visible. My first idea was to make it on the back of my head, beneath the hair. Then I realized 道 was polysemic and denotes both my 道 and the eastern 道's. I though a tattoo on my head's back would refer rather to an eastern 道... and that's not what I want.
Finally, yesterday night I came to the solution. My 道 is to be tattooed on the sole of one of my feet.

Myself is boiling, I'm wasting myself.

I'm wasting my self. My brain is boiling of things it wants to say, but it doesn't know how to say them. It doesn't know the words nor the names it grasps the concepts and wanna read wanna read wanna know doesn't know.
My head is boiling I don't sleep, I don't stay. I'm wasting my self, my time, my youth; trapped in a society with every thing everything but

I have everything and I don't know how to name the things. I know how to name the things but I forget to make them.

I had the words naming my thoughts tonight, exactly naming my thoughts and I ran to write them down and I onned the computer and the words were fading away and they did so and I hadn't even written the PIN of my web coneXion! I'm wasting my self and my brain's boiling again. And then I was just able to write this piece of bull shit!!!!!!!!!!!

The 道, my 道. (part I)

I promise I did it without purpose. Even more, it took me a certain time to notice it...

When I first came to my approach to my symbol I was thinking in one of my recent chronicles where I wrote:

• "(...) and then I realized I have a train track on one of my hands and a road on the other(...)".
  

(that's one of the many chronicles I send to my friends when traveling, it may become matter of a post...). I was thinking on the path as a way you walk along, as the endless life that merges with one's life neglecting the not-taken sideways.
A first alarm should've sprung (and it didn't in part because of my poor CI...) when reading the Japanese name of the kanji 道 /do/... Funnily, it is the ending of all the martial arts: judo (柔道), aikido(合気道,), karatedo (空手道)... and much more for sure. It becomes even worst: I totally ignored the Chinese name dao or tao...
It wasn't until I read in the book I'm reading these days The construction of China, that I noticed the coincidence...

TOEFL

Yeah guys: tomorrow I'm taking the Test Of English as a Foreign Language!!!

I hope I do alright... I'll miss the help of the corrector while writing and for sure I'll have many troubles with -ght, -gth, thtghgtghgt endings; but I think I can do it!

Two or three years ago I had lot of problems with my English! The high school was terrible for me: it made completely that I lost the interest I had in most of matters, including English. I feel myself as a victim of a system which DOES NOT want to improve.
In the early years of the university I became interested in German and eventually went to Germany with my Erasmus grant. It was the year I understood how important English is, even though I did it well with the German -even won access to the German university-. However, I decided to put if off until my postErasmus depression.
Then I began watching Six feet under and Rurouni Kenshin in English and day after day I became more and more interesting... But it wasn't until I read the best book ever written, that I totally loved the language. Of course, I talk about On the road! I love this book, I love the usage of the language in this book; I love English curling, swirling among the links of the social networks. I love it bending down to a pure drunken semantic chain of sounds and rising up in the fine written British poems.

So tomorrow it's time for me to hand back to the English all the joy it gave me by using it properly. Wish me good luck!