How Berlin converted me to Marxism-Leninism

Well, not precisely. But in one of the cuddling sessions, N. said, matter shapes consciousness – rather than the reverse (or perhaps, much more than the reverse). I have not invested the time into researching whether this line of pop-marxism from the lips of my punk-dyed psychedelic-ingesting Berlin queer friend represents the theoretical plot accurately …

Guitar meditation #2 and autistic learning curves

https://soundcloud.com/sasha_tramp/longer-morning-guitar-meditation I've been trying to teach myself various musical instruments since I was a kid.  I think I tried to play guitar for the first time probably in primary school; as soon as my dad had one. There were always guitars in the house, in an era before youtube or even CD players, when my …

Doctor of philosophy

That's the title of a (Polish) jazz record my guitar teacher made. (In 2014, the time when I was seeking self, meaning and homeland in dusty & martyrological Warsaw and on the side benefitted from spending the British pounds I'd shnorred from the last PhD scholarship on professional guitar lessons with an actual jazz musician …

Ruining zen sketches on Dec 5

I frequently like my sketches much better than my finished paintings.  As mentioned in the previous post, I often prefer not to finish anything because my feeling is that adding more stuff will inevitably ruin it.  An example is provided below.  I enjoyed looking at this, vague landscape sketch. Leaving room for imagination. Pushed myself …

Sketch with monsters (Dec 5)

This started a week ago as spilling some red paint over a canvas to express some emotions of the same colour. There was initially a sketch of an animalistic monster and a madonna (the one from Haczów) in there, but I've covered it up in a forest of abstraction mostly.  I'm not sure I like …

Sensitivity is strength

I've just once again thought of changing the name of my blog. For one, not living up to it. For another, kind of a pretentious title.  Something absurd and witty perhaps.  Then a few days ago, I bumped into an article on "being too sensitive" on everydayfeminism.com. In the context of black people's emotional reactions to …

Human, just more so (2)

When writing the last post, I got tired and actually just stopped – after one section – before I got to the point. There was a point to the title.  It's a quote from somewhere, I don't remember where – one of the last book on ASD I read (Valerie Gaus, "Living well on the …

Human, just more so

Having recently talked to an autism educator (at autismmatters.org.uk) and educated myself otherwise on the matter, I learnt that my current life situation seems to be quite the aspie classic: three degrees, three failed PhDs, no job, no house (residence in 6 countries and counting), constant background anxiety and and bouts of depression devolving the …

Update on autistics in cities, sanity as a currency and tribal apoptosis

Long break from writing. Moving to another city in another country and a different (sub)culture, living with something like a partner, dealing with city, changes, trying to manage arranging an apartment. Too much to deal with to keep a focus on writing. Both good times in a busy way, and just overwhelm from too many …