Notes

A musician striving to express an idea without his foreign origins ringing a false-note accent Milan Kundera’s dying father, finding it all oh-so-strange. A dancer performing in a stadium before an audience of 10.000, but nary a person to connect with The celebrated father’s son, paying forward to reap future crops, dividends-to-be. A victimized Iraqi rewarding the small-minded around her with gushing torrents of love, from the far side of evolved consciousness.A photographer, fresh from a tribal migration, whose blueprint for survival is social embedding – and Mujahedin dinners. The Iranian in Latin America who, embargoed by his passport, earns 72-hour tranches of freedom by becoming a pilot. A long sojourn in Algeria, and an encounter in Oran’s student protests with a baby-faced Ahmad Batebi, in a pre-sentiment of a turbulent future. Stabs at individuality struggling against the era’s homogenizing artificiality.

Start to see little by little The frightening feeling I felt yesterday has faded as I began to enter every corner of this house, my house. Each reading begins to speak to me and to resonate in the situation I am living as if each word guided the other with the sole purpose of filtering possible ways. We meet to read some fragments of “Letters to A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke. I feel something similar to joy, the joy of having answers, of having the opportunity to simply stop and observe. “Dig into yourself for a Deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity…” “..You must be patient like someone who is sick, and confident like someone who is recovering; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are also the doctor, who has to watch over himself. But in every sickness there are many days when the doctor can do noting but wait, and that is what you, insofar as you are your own doctor, must now do, more than anything else.” I begin to feel something that I had never felt before. I begin to recognize spaces that I had not opened or that were accumulated behind piles of different objects. “Life is in the right, always” Rainer Maria Rilke.

Am I the fisherman or the tourist? Quantifying time has always been one of those tricky discussions as each person’s perspective adds a weight worth observing. We are 9 people from 8 countries with a minimum of 32 years worth of experience now being shared around one table, offering much layers to conceive. “Yes, I’m in a hurry. I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give. I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts… We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one. “ – Mario de Andrade Personally, for me, the hurrying to live as to not waste time is one of those paradoxes that resembles saying – Hurry up and wait. What’s the rush? If I were to look at “valuing” time I would consider ways of how that one second, one experience, one something can be prolonged. Maybe adding awareness to each moment and decision, by engaging all the senses? Does it really matter how long you live to do all rather than doing that one thing in its fullness that the result of its experience seems to last a lifetime? Greg Ellis, a professional percussionist and drummer, pointed out to a notion – Why not replace time with energy? Is it not energy that is running out and not time ? – I couldn’t agree more. We fear on missing out mainly because in time our body can deteriorate because our brain may function less because our ability wears down and we no longer can accomplish the things we once thought foolish when we were in our 20s. Once our experiences accumulate our thinking slowly demands depth, our emotions bring perspective and so we worry if we have not put it enough in use. We watch our friends pass away, people we believed would be our witnesses, and time (energy) again becomes a concern. “The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us and more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate; and later on, when it ‘happens’ (that’s is, steps forth out of us to other people ), we will feel related and close to it in our innermost being. And that is necessary…” – Rainer Maria Rilke So are we the fisherman or the tourist? How much are we in control of our decisions in our various circumstances? Do we know when we have fished enough even when there is still room to fish more? Can we prolong our energy instead of time and not hurry to photograph…

A crowd of fishermen content in their indolence; marauding maddened pachyderms, discontented by jilted Empire’s reluctant reps; whip-yielding convict executioners flexing in dusty Rawalpindi execution fields, their stretched biceps wooing dazed, lusting crowds All commenced a mad stampede, on Thursday, through the muffled hallways of a 15th-century castle in the Loire Valley Thundering under elaborate chandeliers, past peering portraiture of yesteryear’s regal gentry, past the encrusted blood of a woman’s handprint – vanished overnight in the 1920s – and the etched hopes of jailed Jews consigned to the peeling walls of SS-commandeered attics What a noise, what a hullabaloo! Only the enclosing forest’s massed ranks of trees could hush the fuss, muffle the amok, preserve sanity. And they did. Escape into the forest, its muddied, ambiguous lakes, enigmatic thickets, unbroken treeline stretching away into Time.

It’s an odd sensation, on land at least, to be cut off from mobile phone reception and wifi in rural France. In the air or out at sea, it feels less alien and anxiety provoking — for now, at least. In time, perhaps not. A small window of time (in the quiet of the night) and space (in the living room by the rustic kitchen) for connectivity is both welcome (for family news) and unsettling (for the intrusion of the unrelenting bus(i/y)ness of the world. Day 1 began with Ahmad providing a background to the genesis of Culturistan. Inspired by his fellowship at the Aspen Institute, Culturistan differs in a few key ways — it is considerably shorter, more age-inclusive, and driven by process rather than results. Whereas the Aspen fellowship culminates in a project that improves life for a specific group of people, Culturistan is designed for the longer, and more intangible, term. Hence the blogging requirement, which aims to document the day-to-day process of discovery and reflection. A series of ice-breakers came next, the first of which involved teams of two, with one person leading his/her blindfolded partner through a Post-It minefield. Of course, Ahmad made every effort to thwart our progress, particularly singling out Greg and myself by strewing ever more fuschia Post-Its in our path. Next came an exercise in active listening to new partners introduce themselves, and then recounting, on their behalf, those introductions to the rest of the group. The discussions on the readings were somber, reflective affairs. Mario de Andrade’s ‘My Soul has a Hat’ challenged our ideas of wanting to be the fisherman from the Check-In readings. Suddenly, we were in a hurry. A ‘hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give’ and a jolting revelation: ‘We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you have only one.’ The second reading comprised Letters I, VII, and IX from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. Mixed feelings from the gang on these, from the sincerity and value of Rilke’s advice to the development of a more honest, mutually revealing conversation between Rilke and the young poet over the course of the letters. Here, we saw Rilke shift from being a benevolent expert and authority figure keeping a studied distance, to be more introspective, if not reflexive pen pal. In the VIIth letter before taking a turn, arguably, in the IXth to a kind of mild exasperation with his ‘dear Mr. Kappus’, Rilke writes, ‘If only it were possible for us to see farther than our knowledge reaches…perhaps we would bear our sadnesses with greater trust than we have in our joys.’ More fundamentally, we…

How do we know what we know? Today I consciously direct my attention towards how to conserve and use my energy most efficiently in this new ecosystem of people and artists being created through Culturistan. For example, how can we more authentically convey sensory, personal, conceptual, factual and experiential shared knowledge, moving from the 3D into a flattening of information through text? In a world saturated with technology, where human movements and connections are being erased; can liminal spaces be occupied through this newly formed community of strangers through exchange and collective discussions?

Day 1 of Culturistan kicks off, and my concerns about my daily life back at home are starting to escape me. The location and setting where this deep dive into the world of authenticity takes place really add an extra layer of introspection to my state of consciousness. The Chateau de Grillemont is a 45-minute drive from the closest train station, which is hours from Paris. As a rather non-committal adventurous type who identifies as the hermit/social butterfly, this is a challenge for me. I tend to walk away from being a part of a group for too long. I’m not sure if it’s because I believe that all groups conform if they spend time together long enough or if I’m just someone who likes being on my own a lot. Even more to the point – not having access to a car or a car sharing service is a further challenge for me as I don’t have the freedom to take off and explore on my own. To travel from San Francisco into the French countryside takes a mental and emotional adjustment. In the West, we have so many easy ways to “escape” from our feelings of discomfort and pause. Not interested in doing something? One can find a million ways to numb out or disconnect from turning inwards. The external world is calling and it’s asking for your attention. But one thing I’ve realized since being here is that I am slowly chipping away at having a fully booked professional and social diary. While there are a lot of discussions throughout the day, there is far more free time, and nowhere to go except out into nature and sit with the trees and the plants and the fresh air. I spent some time walking by myself today in the forest surrounding the Chateau and felt so filled with presence, which was a beautiful reminder that where I am is the perfect moment. Today we read articles from “My Soul Has a Hat”, “Letters from a Poet” by Rilke, and “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. All of these articles had a very distinct resonance after reading and discussing them. In short, I walked away with the idea that social conditioning and social conformity makes it difficult to be authentic and go against the group and turn inwards and stay true to oneself. In order to stay true to oneself, one has to question existing social programming and negative beliefs, and dive into the solitude of one’s own mind and heart.

Our first full day. Ideas shared. Some accepted some rejected. Opinion became interpretation; debate became dialog. I feel a sense of mutual respect from everyone here, which is the basis of authentic conversation. I’m not sure what else to say now. I want to stay in the moment, not demanding immediate reflection before fully processing.

Arriving from the Zagros Mountains of Iran to the Castle of Grillemont in France. Two distinct worlds, yet both holding the same stillness, nature, and disconnect. Zagros, a challenge to one’s physical body, a testament of endurance within a raw harsh environment and now Grillemont, a challenge to one’s patience, a testament of endurance within a consistent calamity. In the past month, I lived every day with my colleagues, with no time to take a break from one another and in constant motion. Now a new team is introduced where again we will live together yet in only one place, with a schedule where we practice our individualism together instead of our coming together for survival. There is no urgency but our discussions of life, purpose, and philosophy seem to trigger that similar sense of urgency, in our thoughts. So much similarity in so much difference. “I’m the hero of a story Which has neither a story Or a hero”Abbas Kiarostami How easily life comes and goes, adds and subtracts, moves forward or stands still. It constantly offers stories where heroes, faces keep changing. Yet at the end of it, all something remains a value. How this value is interpreted, maybe through a name, form or character is then up to us.

Showing up is the hardest part. Only then is one able to even consider authenticity. This was made clear through everybody who showed up today. Many of us had our doubts about just being able to be here at all. Yet despite the unknowing of what this experience will be for us, I’m looking at a room full of people who showed up. And at the end of this first day, that is as authentic as can be.