mind-pulp

[mind-pulp]

Fragile

We are born frail and helpless, brought into a strange world we don't understand. We begin our childhood phase, oblivious to the challenges ahead, but enthusiastic to explore. Soon our bodies begin to change, and a rush of hormones and emotions fill us with melancholy, a sense of isolation so alienating; we rebel… We rebel until we find ourselves lost in the vast new world we thought we understood. We search for the purpose, for a reason to embark on our mature journeys, but we either end up conceding to the mundane routine or we breakthrough the system and leave our mark.

Nearing the end of it, the journey finally becomes clear, the fragility of us going blindly through the phases, admitting that we were never really in control. We find peace and quiet and let fragility consume us until we completely succumb to our destiny.

But through it all, one thing will keep me wanting to go home, one thing will keep me going. I share my fragility with you, and we will flow through it all, for we shall experience our destinies together, as one.

Model: Nina Neos Marmaras, Greece

[mind-pulp]

Time Travel Paradoxes

Very early draft edition v0.5 (will be expanded and edited extensively)

I'm gonna skip the introduction on why time is a mental construct and not a physical parameter, since it's 4am and I need to sleep. Instead I would like to jump to the paradoxes of time travel in a determined timeline that has the beginning and end created at the same time. (refer back to the non existent introduction to understand why there is no past, nor future).

Cause and effect infinite loop

A depressed teenager that couldn't handle his drunk abusive single Dad traveled back in time to stop himself from being born and tried to kill his younger dad before he got married only to cause him brain damage that left him with a drinking problem. (Story will be edited and simplified later)

What is the first event in this story? The teenager who caused his dad brain injury, and a drinking problem? Or the drunk dad who caused his teenage kid to go back in time and try to kill his father? In a determined timeline both events were "written" at the same time creating a closed loop free of paradoxes where both events cause each other.

Information origin paradox (bootstrap)

A man read a book about time travel written by an old scientist, and he manages to travel back in time using it, so he goes to that scientist in the past to tell him that it worked. The man gives the scientist his book from the future, but the scientist was still clueless about his work, after reading his book, he understands everything and later publishes the same book that will be read by the man in the future.

Where did the information about time travel in the book come from? A Determined timeline fails to explain the origin of the book (information). A new timeline that gets created every time someone travels back in time is needed to explain this paradox; (Multiverse), in a way that the man traveled from a different universe in which the scientist came up with the book by himself.  but this is rather an answer when we can't find a logical explanation. Saying that every decision we make creates an new branch in the timeline feels a bit absurd with billions of them being created every second.

Trying to explain the information paradox using the determined timeline is still possible. The timeline being determined means that there was neither a first nor last event in the Cascade determined events, but rather all of the events where determined at the same time. Time is completely irrelevant in a determined universe, but merely a concept needed for those inside of it to experience the chain reaction of events. These events were all determined and written at the same time, before they were supposed to be "played". In other words, the cause and effect loops are closed determined loops that need no beginning nor end. The information paradox is merely a paradox since it lacks a primal cause; what caused the information to be written? (Well in this case when a cause can't be found, then simply the original cause of the timeline itself is the answer.

Everything points back to the original cause in the end, specially if you follow the cause and effect chain all the way back, it eventually points to the designer, God, the architect, whatever you'd like to call it.

In the information paradox there isn't a long chain of events to be traced back to, but it simply points back directly to the origin. This is why it feels counterintuitive. But frankly everything is an information paradox if you contemplate it long enough. This example merely exposes this fact.

Where did all the matter come from, the rules of gravity, the goldilocks ratios? Let the show continue...

[mind-pulp]

Her Cityscape Window in 2077

She takes a deep breath as he leaves for the shower. He failed to connect with her in any way but physical. She sought fulfilment that left her more empty instead.

She looks out of her 77th floor window into the neon lights on the skyscrapers of Nightcity and wonders where it all went wrong; when did we start to care more for how we’re perceived by others rather than by ourselves? how did we fill our lives with many gadgets but remained empty inside?

She takes a deeper look into this cold steel city of lights and sees how it vividly reflects the irony of our time. We are all alone in a city that houses millions of people. She dreams of a past where we all connected, where values and morals had meaning. Now she dreads to think of the future, of the unknown path we are all aimlessly wandering on.

She realizes that somewhere along the way, we lost what it means to be alive. We surrendered our spirits for a collective individual experience of materialism and egoism.

[mind-pulp]

Normality

A drift away from "normality" gives a better understanding on how uniformly conformed the society is.

Everyday we suppress our random thoughts and behavior in order to align ourselves with the expectations of how to behave; A thin spectrum of acts that is considered to be appropriate. I can't deny that this is somehow necessary, but when conformation deprives the individual from any genuine opinion or critical thinking then this is when we can fall victim to mass control and slip into obedience.  Especially that the outlets that project what's normal (media, pop culture, etc.) can be easily manipulated by a certain few.

She paused briefly, trying to figure out where to look, so I told her something silly that made her smile innocently, and took a photo of what appears to be a crack through her social act.

I then concluded to myself: Maybe it's ok to wear our social mask, as long as we never allow it to influence our true abnormal selves.

Model: Jelisaveta Novi Sad, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

Embraced

From far away land, he embarked on a journey to a better future, a journey that he hoped will fill his curiosity with many adventures. He wanted to give a new meaning to a world that seemed to lose the spark it once had. He wanted to embrace all the opportunities he could find, and search for a new beginning, a fresh start.

Once again, he has outgrown this new city that once embraced him, he keeps on moving on, he won’t settle, he won’t give up. On to another place, on to another adventure, he roams like a free bird, spreading his wings hoping that the world will embrace his biggest dreams.

Model: Amar Novi Sad, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

Introspection

I’ve always expressed myself in these portrait stories through a third person. Making them talk about their thoughts and feelings, to indirectly convey mine. Now, that I’ve written several of them, I feel the urge to just say what I feel outright in this one;

I’m not sure why we don’t realize that from the beginning, why we don’t see life the way it is, a forced endeavor on un-consenting self-aware entities. Whether we can control or merely influence its outcome is another topic.

We are born into this world oblivious of its purpose, or the purpose of us being part of it, we slowly pick up how we’re supposed to feel about it from our environment, where everyone doesn’t seem to mind the fact that they were forced into this freak show simply because their parents wanted to have a kid. We follow suit and think the way they think. Some of us might try to dig deeper and find some kind of a meaning in religion or philosophy, perhaps ending up realizing that we are, deep down, the essence and structure of the universe itself. That gives some of us hope, these Eastern philosophies have a profound influence on those who seek a purpose, but in the end, finding it or not, we are doomed to repeat the same cycle that our parents did, and bring another kid into this world with another cycle of searching for a purpose. Well, some will be too occupied pursing the needs they found written in their codes and human nature that they won’t mind even thinking about why they’re even here!

I never thought I’ll be contemplating suicide in my life, but recently this thought is never leaving my mind, to me, this is kind of a way out, an end to the pointless suffering, the systematic pursuit of our Human needs, and the forced adaptation of the sick socioeconomic system we live in. It will give answers to the questions that haunted my life for so long…

Where you feel the urge to continue living I see chemicals in your brain following self survival and fear of the unknown. Where you assume attempting suicide is caused by a miss guided judgment I see living a normal life is simply ignoring the irrelevance of what we are, as well as being completely indulged in a play designed by a creator for a purpose that eludes me.. No! I won’t fall in line, I’ll rebel.

I had no say to enter this life and I won’t wait until it decides when I leave it, I’ll take that decision myself, that is, if I can make free choices. Otherwise, it was already determined for me to commit Suicide, nothing to blame me for or any of us for that matters.

Yes, being alive is miraculous; we are in striking contrast to everything around us, the complexity of our brain is unparalleled in anything we’ve seen in the universe. The fact that we are conscious might not be simple chemistry in brain cells; a soul can be the origin of that. But if life is miraculous even with its limitations then death in which life is bound by seems more miraculous for it is the only true fact of life, the only end result no matter what happens in Iife. Unlike life, death is immortal, it is not limited by space and time, death seems to be the natural form of being. Life is an exception, a limited way of existence, a distraction from our destiny, a destiny that I shall reach sooner than I was meant to.

As Albert Camus puts it “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

[mind-pulp]

Green Pastures

My journey continues as it passes through steep hills made of choices that keep altering my way ahead, tricky rivers made of mistakes that could have drowned me forever had there been no friend-ships made out of hope that kept saving me from getting lost in the currents of regret. Passing through green pastures glowing under the golden sun which keeps hiding behind milky clouds, creating a shadowy scenery of lights over the rich soil of love.

But sometimes it gets dark, and the way ahead becomes silver-like and fades away under the cloud veiling moon lights, Shadows then begin to over-lay the soft waters that used to be twinkling like Christmas tree lights, and heavy rain starts to burden my journey as it shivers my feelings of love, and I become heartless, as the cold wind starts creeping into my bones like a vampire thirsting for more. Life then seems to wither and fade away as I progress deeper into a darker night, a night that knows no dawn, nor has it seen her beautiful smile. And I become all alone, facing this world on my own, waiting for the golden sun to rise once more, and shine upon the green pastures that died for too long.

Where am I now in this journey of mine? I feel as if I got lost, but actually I don't mind. Beauty lies within discovering the unknown, even though I'm gonna have to do it alone, but I shall be strong for I'm gonna find my way home, and achieve the goals I've searched for for too long. Then I'll finally be ready to die, and leave my friends behind, those who helped me out, whom I couldn't have made it without, and those who made it hard, but helped me guide my heart. I shall thank you all for that, for you have made my journey look alive. There's only one way now, which is the road to awe, beyond that I can see no more, and this journey of mine will have its turn, into a brand new world that knows neither limits nor laws, and holds so many wonders, grace and love. But how my journey then will unfold, I do not yet know. Shall I continue this journey forever more? And have immortality in that world? I cannot bare living this long. I just want my journey to rest and be gone, into a silent land that knows no sound, into a dark oblivion with neither fear nor love. I want to rest my soul, and travel all the way home. Cause "forever" is a word that can never be known; it holds so much weight on my thoughts and bares a heavy load.

So dear soul, I'm heading home, where you'll travel no more, heading beyond death, beyond heaven and hell, into oblivion I shall go, into nonexistence I shall return once more.

My journey will continue into worlds I have not known, but I hope someday it will return to where it once were... -Home-... which is not being anymore.

Model: Jelisaveta Novi Sad, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

The cruelest version of hell would be having to view the life of the alternate-reality you that actually maximized their potential and lived their life to the fullest

[mind-pulp]

Free Will

Draft edition v0.93

We are made of memories, a product of experience, guided by our genetically predetermined nature. Strolling through life as we get shaped by one event after another. Like pawns in a scripted play with the universe as our theater and everyone playing their predetermined role.

Human needs & Desires:

A large portion of our behavior is based on codes written in our DNA, even though these codes can vary from human to human, they still share the basic information about survival, maintenance, desires, reproduction, as well as basic social behaviors; We can see that many of our actions are dictated to us by our genetic code; ordering us to desire, usually, the opposite sex and sexually fixate on specific shapes of the body without consciously choosing so or even understanding why. It also gives rise to many other basic behaviors and needs required for our survival. In the end, that's what makes us Humans; we share these data, and subsequently act generally the same, one way or the other.

Broader and more specific behavior differ a lot from one person to another, this can be attributed to the individual experience we were exposed to as we go through life. The vast amount of information we acquire from our surroundings while we grow up influence and shape our personalities, the further we go on the more the codes in our DNA become merely the base upon which we build our unique personalities and not the main factor. So even though we share this cornerstone of codes, we can differ a lot based on our experiences, and life events.

The DNA codes we inherit from our parents are outside of our control, therefore the cornerstone upon which our personalities are based on is not chosen by us, but rather given to us. Furthermore, the life events and the information we get from our surroundings, that further shape our personalities in details, are circumstances beyond our control, we get no say in choosing our parents, the country and place we are raised in, the socio-economic status of our family, the school we go to, the very first friends we make, and the traditions, religion and customs of our society. All of these factors have incremental effects on designing our very unique personalities. And all of these factors are never under our control, and thus, we start "choosing" according to these initial factors, and slowly start to accumulate more experience based on the results of these predetermined choices.

One can still argue that while our basic human needs are forced on us, we still act based on a bigger set of personal needs and desires that define our individualism. But this other set of needs is the result of a long chain reaction that started with the very first choice that was made based on factors outside of our control. Nothing that we want is truly “our” desire, it's rather implied to us by our circumstances to need, want, or do whatever we do.

The vast amount of information we gather from our surroundings shape our needs accordingly, a materialistic society and upbringing produces people mostly pursuing money and fame, while other societies and upbringing might influence people to seek respect and recognition. In the end, our social desires are vividly a mirror to our upbringing and social environment. A man from an uncontacted tribe won't desire a suburban house with a swimming pool, since he never saw one, and his society didn't portray it as a life goal. Same goes for a child raised 2 centuries ago who will have a completely different kind of social desires.

Eventually, our set of needs and desires we end up with when we grow up are the result of our inherited genes interacting with factors happening outside of us that are governed by circumstances of where we were born, the kind of parents we had, the school and friends we interacted with and the pop culture we were exposed to etc...

Causality:

If we take this further we can deduce that there is no room for free will. How can we entertain the notion of free will if we are the victims of causality? Our choices but a product of our accumulated circumstances. Every choice is dependent on previous interactions. We have no input in our choice making process that has not come from a past experience. We can't add anything to our choice making process that we can call our own, every choice we make has a cause.

Just as the movement of the Earth can be predicted by astronomers for hundreds of years in advance, and yet with extreme precision if they include all the influencing gravitational objects around it. So are humans. Our decisions are no different from the physical universe we live in, they are also bound by the same causality principle. Our thought process is influenced by external factors (parents, friends, events…) and internal factors (genetic traits, and body architecture…) these are the factors that shape our personality. Now how can we think that we created our personality when all of the information we have ever received to create it came from the outside world, and was processed by a brain we had nothing to do with its characteristics. What kind of traits can we call our own? That I’m intelligent? That I’m patient?

Our lives start to seem more like a chain reaction of determined events, and us as passengers in our bodies, perceiving life with no additional influence on its outcome. Our lives are but a process of cause and effect that can be predicted in its entirety by the one with the right equation to calculate all the external influencing factors we face, and the way they are processed by our specific brain. But since no one has that ability, we subsequently feel as if we are consciously making every choice, an illusion of freewill that naturally manifests only from our perspective simply because we don't have the ability to know the processes by which we function. For if we did; we can clearly predict our predetermined path. 

We enjoy free-will everyday even though we have none.

Time is just the barrier that prevents everything from unfolding instantly, preventing this chain reaction from reaching its eventual conclusion. It's there to stretch the already determined events. And we are here merely to witness these events, having no input of how they unfold, but rather playing our parts by the script. A big play designed by a creator for a purpose that eludes me. I can't lie; I do question whether there is a purpose at all. Yet, what can be good enough to be called a purpose for such a big play involving over a hundred billion human consciousness? It might just be as pointless as I perceive it right now, considering that we cannot make free choices, but rather merely perceive our lives unfold before us.

Questioning our Creator:

Religions try to give us a purpose with the notion of heaven and hell, but even with such a system, which might not make sense if we lack a genuine free will, I still can't see a purpose in being in heaven. Hell! I don't even see a purpose for being in the first place! Why give consciousness to bodies made of blood and flesh? Why make things aware of themselves? Why give them certain desires that most of the time enslave them and leave them pursuing things in life without truly understanding if they actually want them? And for how long shall they be aware? Are we cursed to be self-aware forever after death? And even worse; aware as slaves, bound in that status for eternity, since obviously we were created by a higher entity, hence, remaining inferior forever. These questions are all the result of the reality that shaped our minds, which is causal, time and purpose dependent, and can be greatly irrelevant in a greater reality after death. 

Thinking of our creation demands me to contemplate the creation of God. I believe that asking where did god come from (Space bound thinking) or how long God has been around (time bound thinking) is me not asking the right questions. Space and time are 2 limits imposed on our minds and on our way of existence; they define the reality we live in, but doesn’t necessarily define the reality of an entity that created them. So let us ignore these 2 conditions and use a more primal aspect of the logic we have been given and let’s wonder about the causality; since causality affects everything we know about in the universe and is a basic logical structure that “makes sense” if I may say.

Hence, a more accurate question might be inquiring the causality of God; what caused such a highly intelligent entity capable of designing the universe with all its worlds and living creatures? Following this argument leads to an endless loop: if god was created then god too is a slave to the higher entity that created it, and furthermore that higher entity is yet a slave to its creator and so on. Having no end to this loop can render the whole logical process from which we derived the question; insufficient. Perhaps the greater reality has no causal effect!

Limits of Logic:

Maybe we are simply designed to be unable to question our creator, but able to contemplate the idea to a level that satisfies our intelligence and sense of independent awareness. That way we can ignore the question and go on living without reaching an obvious rational block, but only reaching illogical answers that we can simply dismiss.

Reaching a rational block is infuriating to any intelligent life; it can reveal their logical limits and render them unable to encompass the whole truth, thus pointing to a creator and a greater reality. We are obviously not in the greater reality, since we can easily reach a rational block when contemplating our creator. Knowing that something is not limited by time and space, oblige us to think of (excuse the conflicting language ahead):

First, a place without time: this can cause the rational block when imagining a place where no time passes by. Imagining everything frozen forever doesn’t remove time, since you’re assuming an external observer where time is still passing for them that they can notice stuff frozen for a duration of time, now remove the passage of time for that observer as well and you can feel a circuit fried in your brain. To help you a bit, having a reality with no time doesn’t mean events are frozen, quite the opposite, it means that all events happen simultaneously. Pretty much irrational. 

Second, a place without space: Don’t try to think of empty space between Galaxies since it is not void of space, it's full of it. Space is the underlying fabric that allows anything to exist. The notion of empty space is like the notion of empty space in your hard disk drive inside your computer; the lack of data on it doesn't mean there is no space on the hard disk. Similarly, a place without space is a place where no data we know of can exist and will always be beyond our imaginative capability, forcing another rational block.

The Awareness:

A creator is not the only thing we can think of that can be in a place with no space and time, there's also a more familiar concept than the thought of a creator: Our consciousness! Consciousness doesn’t require space to exist, I'm talking about the sense of awareness that perceives all of the information from the brain, and not the brain itself. This awareness uses our brain and body to interact with the world of space and time, but the sense of awareness doesn’t happen in any specific place in our brain, it doesn't take up space, and thus is not bound by it. (This was a brief conclusion that requires a longer discussion to prove itself, which is not feasible here)

It also doesn't seem to age, our body does, the sense of time is purely given to it by our brain. But the awareness that we are seems to be timeless. (again, a more detailed explanation is needed here, but you can simply ponder over the feeling of “you” from elementary school to university to right now, do you think that feeling of existence aged? Or was it merely the body which hosts you that aged?) Here we can come to an assumption that our awareness is in the same "place/greater reality" as with God! Free of space and time. This justifies why the scientific realm is still unable to clearly define consciousness and whether it even has physical properties or not, it’s a mystery, and indeed it is as it violates one of our core structures of logic; space, among other things as well.

We wonder about what lies outside of the universe not realizing that the awareness, which we are, has never been in it to begin with. The edge of the Universe is not billions of light years away, the universe is infinite but it starts from our collective minds. We are at the edge of the universe! The borders between reality and the greater reality.

Further Readings and Discussions:

In the philosophical field, this note can be considered under Determinism and furthermore in the philosophical position of Hard Determinism since it eliminates free will. Having mentioned the soul and a creator the note might lean more to theological determinism which states that all events that happen are pre-ordained, or predestined to happen, by a monotheistic deity. This still doesn’t conflict with an absence of free will, but merely attribute the entire cause and effect process to be supervised and designed by God. Further discussions about the different positions of determinism are beyond the scope of this note.

The awareness, not being bound by space, might mean that it can’t be separate from another awareness. The idea shared by many of the Eastern religions and philosophies that we are all One might be pointing at that direction. This can really alter the concept of the afterlife, it eliminates the individual experience, and suggests that we are all the same entity, and shall be conscious as one, perhaps we are no different from God rather parts of it.

Al-Farabi a renowned philosopher known as “the Second Teacher” after Aristotle adopted a similar view but left space for free will that resides in an immaterial soul that he divided into 4 faculties: “The appetitive, the sensitive, the imaginative, and the rational, which is the faculty of intellect. It is also the only part of the soul to survive the death of the body.” The first 3 are a consequence of the workings of our brain while the 4th can be considered the awareness we talked about in the note. He writes that any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), it will become one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect (God) and enters a realm of pure intelligence.

The idea that the universe is a simulation or a hologram is not a far-fetched one, it does not contradict with any of the logic used above. The awareness that lies in the place free of space and time can be the link to the world where the simulation is run, with every mind plugged in to the system through it. (The movie ‘The Matrix’ offers a great representation of such a simulation) The philosophy in that movie also states that free will is impossible and that our choices have already been made, but we are here to understand why we made them.

Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005)

Maya, a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy is the believe that reality which is solely created by the brain must be an illusion, and that we are essentially deceived by the brain, through its perceptions, into believing that its reality is our reality. The word Maya means illusion in their language, and that was at the heart of their philosophy. Our awareness being free from space and time, yet our universe is not, suggests that the universe is but a grand illusion pulled upon us, and the brain is the tool that imprisons us with its perceptions.

“Our bodies are prisons for our souls. Our skin and blood: the iron bars of confinement. But fear not. All flesh decays. Death turns all to ash. And thus, death frees every soul.”  -The Fountain

The more we contemplate about the essence of our existence the more bewildered we become, but I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m lost in awe over our creation.

[mind-pulp]

Art

Expressing our inner thoughts and emotions is at the core of creating art. Art is the reflection of the wonders happening inside us; of thoughts, feelings, desires, and the mystery of our being. Art surpasses the materials that constitutes it; we never admire merely the colors of a painting or the words of a poem, but rather the overarching experience achieved when trying to understand the message behind the work of art. It is an attempt of a self-aware entity to express a fraction of the world residing within it, and by doing so they try to better understand themselves through their work, by looking at a reflection of their inner selves. Art lets them leave a fingerprint on the physical world that will carry their spirit through time.

It’s an immortal demonstration of what happened when a consciousness, even for a second, expressed itself to the world.

Model: Dejana Novi Sad, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

Heaven

She sat peacefully by the window knowing very well that I’m about to disturb her thoughts. I wondered about what Heaven meant to her. She told me she was disappointed by the collective notion of Heaven held by many people she met. For her; heaven was freedom, freedom to be whoever she dreamed of being, freedom from the constraints of our society and the limitations of our bodies.

She wanted to fly with the birds, smell the flowers in the thickest forests. She wanted to swim in the depths of the oceans, and connect with everything that ever lived on earth. She wanted the freedom to roam outer space, to touch the valleys of the moon, to admire the mystic colors of a nebula from well within. She wanted to be free from time, to explore the evolution of our kind, to witness the ages unfold before her eyes.

Heaven, to her, was down here on Earth! It was everything the universe has to offer that she couldn’t reach or fathom.

Model: Dejana Novi Sad, Serbia.

[mind-pulp]

Fading Memories

Another day without her, another sleepless night, and he still feels her flowing in his bloodstream, thinking she might have gotten under his skin.

He lays in bed with thoughts of her playing in his head, and images of her innocent smile keep him awake, wondering if he will ever see her again.

Memories of them are slowly fading away, while he yearns to relive them again, he concedes it’s time to let them fade away; it’s time to let her smile and hazel eyes fade into his subconsciousness, it’s time to let go of the warm feeling he had in his heart each time he felt her gentle touch, each time their lips swiftly locked, each time they temporarily became one.

The more he tries to hold on to those memories, the more toxic they start to feel. So he still got miles to go before he sleeps, he still got miles to go before they disappear.

He can’t help but let fading memories of her steal away his sleep, he can’t but keep thinking that she was too perfect to be real.

Model: Alice Belgrade, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

Daydreaming

Our thought process always amazes me, that subtle voice in our head that accompany us throughout life. It tells us what we want for breakfast, it overthinks about what our crush meant by merely saying “Your hair looks nice today” and of course, it’s the voice that elaborates endlessly on future scenarios when we daydream… Is this who we truly are? That subtle voice? If so, then who’s the one listening to it? Experiencing all of this?

The secret of Consciousness will forever elude us, for it is the greatest mystery of the Universe, yet it plainly exists in every one of us! I got to see a glimpse of that mystery when gazing into her eyes, I have felt -even if only slightly- a part of the complex world of thoughts and emotions residing inside of her.

Her eyes were a portal to the same mystery that we all share.

Model: Elena Vienna, Austria

[mind-pulp]

Hope

At the end of a long summer day, as the sun casts its last fading rays, and the warm wind starts shifting into a steady cooler phase. I stand on top of an abandoned building wandering far into my messy random thoughts. I feel the aliveness of this concrete city, I feel the soft energy of this mesmerizing sunset, creating every hue of orange my eye can perceive, saturating my senses into blindness. I wonder about how I can even wonder; this mystery itself gives me endless hope, it gives me confidence of our potential to shape our lives, to perceive it the way we want. To give it as much meaning as we have found in ourselves, for life is merely a reflection of our inner selves.

She folds the words she just wrote on an evenly torn piece of paper, and hands it to me silently with a hopeful gentle smile. Hoping that her messy thoughts will somehow make sense to me.

And they definitely did.

Model: Katarina Novi Sad, Serbia

[mind-pulp]

Royalty

Golden days are so far away, and there’s black rain up above, I walk my path following a trail; dark as night, cold as ice, I walk astray, I breathe in dread.

As lost as I am, as broken as I become, I glance her light passing by, shining through the darkness of my night, melting the icy steps ahead in sight.

She takes my hand, and guides my way, leading my soul dwelling in despair, and smiles, as she pulls it away, she smiles, and gives me back my golden days.

She moves like the wind, and floats away, far from reach, ever close to recede.

Like a dream, very unreal, I try to wake up, but realize she’s actually real. Her eyes glaring through mine, seeing right through my act.

I surrender myself to her, and embrace her right into my heart. She elaborately becomes… The Queen of my heart.

Model: Alice An apartment in a communist bloc in the heart of Bulgaria!

[mind-pulp]

Contemplation

It was a very quiet place, the sounds of the waves echoed, splashing gently against the rocks. I asked him “Do you come here often?” he replied “Not as often as I’d like, this place gives me strength to continue my life journey” He then turned his head and looked at the setting sun with keen eyes, his mind wandering off somewhere else, then he explained further: When one’s mind is at peace one should contemplate about the very essence of his existence, a self-conscious entity questioning its origin and purpose is always defying its limits. Crossing beyond self-realization and not dreading to even step further into a realm of meta-physical existence is the key to serenity.

This certainly is paradoxical, but yet, isn’t “The words of truth are always paradoxical”? -Lao Tzu Finding serenity in the perils of doubting our own mental-construct of reality proves that this dreadful practice pushes and breaks our set limits, placing us one step closer to Freedom.

Model: Rami Otočić Maškin, Rovinj, Croatia

[mind-pulp]

Photoshoot

“What got you into photography?” She asked casually to start a small talk.

I don’t exactly know when this passion started but I always had a desire to capture the extraordinary jaw-dropping ‘life-tape’ that keeps unfolding all around us, to freeze chosen instants from it and make them mine, make them last an eternity. This made me vigilant, searching for beauty everywhere, and paying attention to details. Photography changed the way I look at the world, I no longer take its infinite creativity for granted; I appreciate it. I’ve come to realize that photography doesn’t start by taking the photo; it ends there. Photography is the pursuit of that photo, the pursuit for the perfect moment, the pursuit of harmony in lights, objects and composition, and finally to frame them in your own style, to deliver your very own message; an instant from the life-tape that will last forever…

She interrupted me saying “OK, are you gonna take some photos now, or are you gonna keep babbling about the pursuit forever?” “Oh, sorry” I replied, coming back to my senses “why are you on the ground by the way” I wondered. “Well I got tired listening to your monologue” she exhaled “never mind, this might even be better. Ok! Give me half a smile and look sexy” *Shutter sound clicks*

Model: Alice Brno, Czech Republic