nassosv

Του παρελθόντος χρόνου

2011-11-27T01:02:00.000+02:00

Ανθισμένες οι νεραντζιές ψιθυρίζουν το όνομα σου στο πάρκο απέναντι απ το πολεμικό Μουσείο.

Δύο κύνες θηρευτικοί περιδινίζονται παίζοντας, η κίνηση, αναμνήσεις δύο σωμάτων ανασύρονται από καλοκαίρια στη Σαντορίνη των μετεφηβικών μου χρόνων.

Όμως, τώρα, μου αρκεί αυτό - η μυρωδιά των νυχτερινών νερατζιών και η ανάμνηση απ τα χείλη σου, ανθισμένα κεράσια του Κυότο.

Cosmos

2010-07-21T20:10:00.003+03:00

Αγάπησε το Καθήκον και άλλαξε τον Κόσμο. Αν αποτύχεις φταίς εσύ.

(via Agis - my dad)

Withdrawal from mathematics

2010-01-17T12:57:00.001+02:00

As of the spring of 2003, Perelman no longer worked at the Steklov Institute. His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely. According to a 2006 interview, Perelman is currently jobless, living with his mother in Saint Petersburg.

Μηδείς αγεωμέτρητος εισίτω μοι την θύραν

2009-10-09T13:40:00.001+03:00

The British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell once wrote: "Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture."

Russell may well have had Euler's Relation in mind when writing these words.

One of the great wonders of mathematical world, Euler’s relation is like the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Niagara Falls rolled into one--what you see depends on how you look at it.

You’re probably familiar with the famous optical illusion of a painting of an old crone which suddenly changes into a beautiful young woman as your mental perspective changes. Both images are contained within the picture—they are different aspects of the same pattern of lines on a page. All you have to do is alter your internal viewpoint to see the difference.

Euler’s relation is a bit like this famous optical illusion but on a vastly grander scale. Imagine walking across a featureless landscape and stumbling across the raw natural beauty of Mount Everest. You’d have good reason to be pleased with your discovery but as you continue your journey you reach the breathtaking expanse of the Grand Canyon. And beyond that the thundering majesty of Niagara Falls.

The equivalent of Euler’s relation is a final vantage point that shows how all these entirely different wonders of the mathematical world are actually the same. The new perspective simply gives you the insight that connects them together.

Euler’s relation links five of the most fundamental concepts in mathematics in a simple and elegant formula. It says that when viewed in a particular way, the concepts of one and zero are the same as the concepts of the exponential power, e, the imaginary number, i, and the irrational number p.

And yet Euler’s relation is even more powerful. The equation in this work is actually a special case of a broader relation that links two entirely different branches of mathematics--geometry, the study of space, with algebra, the study of structure and quantity. Perhaps that's why the physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman called it the most remarkable formula in mathematics

Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic

2009-10-01T00:25:00.001+03:00

"... a much misunderstood phenomenon in the history of philosophy — the refutation of one system by another, of an earlier by a later. Most commonly the refutation is taken in a purely negative sense to mean that the system refuted has ceased to count for anything, has been set aside and done for. Were it so, the history of philosophy would be, of all studies, most saddening, displaying, as it does, the refutation of every system which time has brought forth. Now although it may be admitted that every philosophy has been refuted, it must be in an equal degree maintained that no philosophy has been refuted. And that in two ways. For first, every philosophy that deserves the name always embodies the Idea: and secondly, every system represents one particular factor or particular stage in the evolution of the Idea. The refutation of a philosophy, therefore, only means that its barriers are crossed, and its special principle reduced to a factor in the completer principle that follows."

The work is done...

2009-08-27T16:14:00.000+03:00

...bitter aftertaste.

Redemption

2009-08-27T16:07:00.002+03:00

Mango

2009-08-22T15:42:00.004+03:00

Στην Ηλιαία -ένα ασυνήθιστα κρύο βράδυ για καλοκαίρι- έσκυψα και φίλησα το πρόσωπο σου. Χιλιάδες φαντάσματα πετάχτηκαν τότε μέσα απο τις πέτρες, χειροκροτώντας την πιο αβέβαιη πράξη που τόλμησε ποτέ κανείς.

Cover me with flowers

2009-07-25T00:42:00.003+03:00

When all the empires fall away,

all that remains is

the memory of those precious moments we spent side by side.

Squares A and B are the same color

2009-07-13T22:13:00.002+03:00

Cedant arma togae

2009-07-08T15:03:00.007+03:00

"When the only tool you have is a hammer,

everything begins to look like a nail"

Δημήτριος Γαλανός

2009-07-07T15:45:00.002+03:00

Εάν είσαι λογικός και άνθρωπος με πλατειά αντίληψη, τότε έλα σε μένα. Αν είσαι παράλογος, στενόμυαλος, λιγόψυχος και έχεις μυαλό σκλάβου, μείνε εκεί. Μείνε βάρβαρος, λαδέμπορος ή οινοπώλης, πούλα ρύζι και φασόλια. Εφόσον φέρεις το όνομα του πατέρα μου, αυτού του μεγάλου και καλού άνδρα, και καθώς ήκουσα πως είσαι οξύνους, θέλω να έρθεις εδώ σε μένα. Έγραψα στους πατέρες του όρους Σινά για σένα, αν αποφασίσεις να έλθεις. Πάρε μαζί σου ό,τι βιβλία, λεξικά και γραμματικές έχεις. Αν δεν έλθεις εσύ, θα έλθει κάποιος άλλος και θα γίνει κληρονόμος της γνώσης και της περιουσίας μου… Αλλά, παρόλο που βλέπεις ότι είναι δυνατά όλα αυτά τα καλά πράγματα, εσύ δε θέλεις να υποβληθείς σε λίγη δοκιμασία, αλλά είσαι και οκνηρός σαν να σε έσπρωξε στο λήθαργο κάποιο μαγικό φίλτρο. Αφυπνίσου άνθρωπε και γνώθι σεαυτόν. Γίνε Προμηθέας και όχι Επιμηθέας.
Όστις μανθάνει, και παιδεύεται, εκείνον εγώ αγαπώ.

I dream of a School that no one will learn by heart...

2009-04-27T01:56:00.002+03:00

...but everyone will remember.

Ken Zen Sho

2009-04-01T16:45:00.003+03:00

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: “The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.”

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

“If nothing exists,” inquired Dokuon, “where did this anger come from?”

Operation salvaged

2008-11-01T14:36:00.013+02:00

one thing i discovered these last days

the most important thing that a human being can ever give you is a glass of water

Desire and Dust

2008-09-18T03:41:00.003+03:00

Clouds and Mirrors

fLUX eterna

2008-09-11T02:48:00.005+03:00

If every man had exactly what he wanted, he would be no better than he is now.

Heraclitus offers a trenchant observation about desire when he tells us that realizing all our wishes will not change who we are; we will continue to live with and as ourselves no matter how much money, sex, power, or material goods we can accumulate and surround ourselves with. We must become who we wish to be independent of the fulfillment of our desires.

Montaigne said it this way: “man cannot discover his needs by consulting his desires.”

I once wrote about magazine ad I had seen for the Visa credit card. The ad copy promised: “it’s not just everywhere you want to be, it’s everything you ever wanted.” This claim left me speechless.

Perhaps we have learned from Marx that the creation of desire is the most powerful tool a culture wields, for if society can tell us what we want, it has already begun to tell us how to live. And so perhaps there is at least one version of what we want, a particular field of our desires, about which the claim in this ad is true.

If so, our challenge may be to discover what, if anything, we want that Visa cannot provide us with. How will we discover, beneath the distracting veneer of our transient desires, what we in fact truly need, and how will we discover whether there is a way to become “better than we are now” that consists in more than getting “exactly what we want”?

Bhagavad Gita

2008-09-11T02:37:00.005+03:00

All is clouded by desire: as fire by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an unborn babe by its covering.

Wisdom is clouded by desire, the everpresent enemy of the wise, desire in its innumerable forms, which like a fire cannot find satisfaction.

Desire has found a place in man’s senses and mind and reason. Through these it blinds the soul, after having over-clouded wisdom.

Set thou, therefore, thy senses in harmony, and then slay thou sinful desire, the destroyer of vision and wisdom.

Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul.

Herbstnebel

2008-09-08T20:41:00.005+03:00

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief

DS

2008-08-16T04:58:00.001+03:00

A picture is a thousand words!

2008-08-05T20:08:00.000+03:00

Out of Chaos, Brilliant Stars are Born

2008-08-02T10:18:00.002+03:00

Desert

2008-07-28T13:54:00.010+03:00

durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

2008-06-21T00:08:00.002+03:00

but Sound without Words gave me Redemption...

Snow

2008-02-18T11:37:00.000+02:00

Word

2008-02-09T22:36:00.001+02:00

Peace.

Pictures of Athens 2

2007-12-17T13:06:00.000+02:00

Dear Mme Gubaidulina

2007-11-21T15:45:00.000+02:00

"I am a religious person...and by 'religion' I mean re-ligio, the re-tying of a bond...restoring the legato of life. Life divides man into many pieces...There is no weightier occupation than the recomposition of spiritual integrity through the composition of music."

Sofia Gubaidulina

Realpolitik (part II)

2007-11-10T22:49:00.000+02:00

How do you know when to stand and when to evade?

Someone once told me: “in matters of tactics you negotiate, in matters of Principle-NEVER!”…

Nothing implies better the spirit of Political Realism.

King Leonidas was facing a matter of Principle: he wanted to make sure that the Persians would get so frustrated so that even if some Greeks (and yes, old Leonidas knew which were the ones) wanted to negotiate, the Persians wouldn’t!

Ironic as it may seem, Leonidas decision is NOT a romantic, chivalric flavored gesture by a Byronian character (as classroom taught History wants us to think) or Hollywood like blockbuster story!

Thermopylae is the ultimate Political Realism act. It is cold calculated, pragmatic and true. It is true to the Spartan Spirit, and Sparta was not a place for philology, believe me! Contrary to popular belief Spartans valued Life more than anyone else, that is why the gave it away only after dead-serious consideration.

This is exactly why that Spirit is significant. In reality there is not a bipolar axis
Heroism←→Pragmatism , this is our perception from the Western Civilization point of view. It is exactly the same case with samurai seppuku (“hara-kiri”): we will never grasp it. What we interpret with our emotions, was done by cold calculation.

There is one point and only one: Imagine their Training!

---

As a matter of fact, returning in this post’s initial question, the answer is: “how do you stand and evade at the same time?”

N.

What was the most beautiful thing you left behind?

2007-11-10T00:20:00.000+02:00

Adonis, in response to a question from the Shades in the Underworld ("What was the most beautiful thing you left behind?"), answers:

κάλλιστον μὲν ἐγὼ λείπω φάος ἠελίοιο,

δεύτερον ἄστρα φαεινὰ σεληναίης τε πρόσωπον

(Finest of all the things I have left is the light of the sun,

Next to that the brilliant stars and the face of the moon)

Praxilla of Sicyon, 5th century BC

Pictures of Athens

2007-11-08T02:01:00.001+02:00

Physical Injury during Practice periods

2007-11-06T00:16:00.000+02:00

How Discipline makes us truly Free

Sometimes you know that you have to practice but you don't want to. It seems there is a second self somewhere inside that is stronger, more powerful than our will, that dictates what is going to happen. No matter what your plans are, you-won't-do-it. Period.

Whenever I think about this, I have an image about that other self: it is as powerful as a lion, stubborn like an ox, ferocious like a shark. And you my friend, are not going to practice no matter what!

Discipline is a liquid. It runs in all of our Life's aspects. You can't be disciplined in one thing and
chaotic in another.

It is part of character and character is built up. By applying it in everything.
Discipline in how you eat. How you sleep. How you do your homework, take the bus, work.

It is from these aspects that you may take any amount of "discipline" to apply it where and when is needed. Yourway of life will support you. You will practice by counting on your own daily routined discipline. You will find the power to tame the lion, the ox, the shark!

I am not suggesting a life full of militarian discipline. Even if you wanted, society (this applies for all countries on planet Earth except for Japan!) is not helping you. There is no black and white, only shades of gray. The chaos that rules other peoples' lifes affects us: the garbage truck that
picks up the trash at noon(!), the guy who double-parked for 5 mins (actually it's 40 mins by now), another strike that causes downtown nuclear meltdown, your friend that came
30 mins late...

All I am saying is that You must decide about your Life. You should choose when to have coffee, when to practice, when to go to the movies. It must be your choice, your decision. Thus you are free. Free to do as you decide.

Injury. Pain as means to an end-another kind of aikido.

All these are meaningless the moment you get hurt. Pain knocks the door of your brain saying: "I am shuting systems down!"...

It gets even trickier... You think it is for the best to rest. To lie on the sofa and watch TV... You are hurt, aren't you? You deserve this...

No. As long as you can walk, you must go to Practice. And do as much as pain allows you to do. Is it only one simple exercise? You do it.

Pain is our friend. Pain is a signal telling us that something is wrong. We must learn to embrace it. Not demonize it! Pain is the best thing our body can do to tell us in order to protect ourselves.

Absorb it and exhale it.

Realpolitik (part I)

2007-11-03T02:18:00.000+02:00

Stranger, go tell the Spartans that here we lie, obeying their Law

When I was about 12 years old, I read about King Leonidas, the 300 and Thermopylae.
I was amazed by that act of Self-Sacrifice.

To make a stand, against your interests but for your Ideas.

To obey the Law to Death, that is the extreme limit of Man, Citizen, Warrior.
This seems to me the ultimate contribution of Ancient Greece to World's Civilization,
the defining moment of Law, the State of Justice, Principle over Self.

Ever since, there is one picture that haunts me: the Persian spy returns to the Great King and informs him that the Spartans are there, getting ready to die, by preparing themselves, putting on their finest clothes, calmly brushing their long hair, waiting.

What a scene! Brushing each other’s long hair, calmly waiting to die…

---

Then came Philip.

To keep myself sane during the last year of high school and the intense studying for the University-entering exams, I studied about Philip, King of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great.

And there it was: "Philip was a genious. He knew when to fight but most importantly, when to retreat, avoiding conflicts that he could not win..."

What? Whaaat? Avoid battle, retreat? "Keeping it low?"

What about fighting? Heroism, Sacrifice?

This way, a hot summer evening, Realistic Politics stormed into my Life!

The Brilliance of BU !

2007-10-31T00:10:00.000+02:00

Shunryu Suzuki

2007-10-25T02:11:00.000+03:00

Hell is not punishment,
it's training.

800 Anno Domini

2007-10-16T08:47:00.000+03:00

Unknown persons(?) vandalized the statue "Κοιμωμένη" by Chalepas.

Now I know the date!

Music is a moral law

2007-10-16T08:03:00.000+03:00

Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.

- Plato

ΜΗΔΕΝΑ ΠΡΟ ΤΟΥ ΤΕΛΟΥΣ ΜΑΚΑΡΙΖΕ

2007-10-16T07:16:00.000+03:00

When all is easy, we all have something to say.

Germanicus

2007-10-05T00:02:00.000+03:00

Bassui, Zen master

2007-10-04T13:03:00.000+03:00

Just stop your wandering,
Look penetratingly into your inherent nature,
And, concentrating your spiritual energy,
Sit in zazen
And break through

None shall sleep tonight...At Dawn I shall win!

2007-10-02T01:56:00.000+03:00

PUCCINI_TURANDOT
Aria_Nessun Dorma

Il principe ignoto:

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma! Tu pure, o Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore e di speranza...
Ma il mio mistero è chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun saprà!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò,
quando la luce splenderà!
Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
che ti fa mia.
Voci di donne
Il nome suo nessun saprà...
E noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!
Il principe ignoto
Dilegua, o notte! Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle! All'alba vincerò!
Vincerò! Vincerò!

"Julius Caesar" - Shakespeare

2007-09-30T02:23:00.000+03:00

CAESAR:

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.--

A drop of water

2007-09-30T01:25:00.000+03:00

Kaso (1352-1428) , Zen master, abbot of Daitoku-ji

A drop of water freezes in midair.
My seventy-seven years
All used up!
Spring water bubbles up from the flames.

Plato, Protagoras

2007-09-30T01:19:00.000+03:00

Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life.

Mother and nurse and father and tutor are vying with one another about the improvement of the child as soon as ever he is able to understand what is being said to him: he cannot say or do anything without their setting forth to him that this is just and that is unjust; this is honourable, that is dishonourable; this is holy, that is unholy; do this and abstain from that.

And if he obeys, well and good; if not, he is straightened by threats and blows, like a piece of bent or warped wood. At a later stage they send him to teachers, and enjoin them to see to his manners even more than to his reading and music; and the teachers do as they are desired.

And when the boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them.

Then, again, the teachers of the lyre take similar care that their young disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief; and when they have taught him the use of the lyre, they introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets, who are the lyric poets; and these they set to music, and make their harmonies ana rhythms quite familiar to the children's souls, in order that they may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm.

Then they send them to the master of gymnastic, in order that their bodies may better minister to the virtuous mind, and that they may not be compelled through bodily weakness to play the coward in war or on any other occasion.

This is what is done by those who have the means, and those who have the means are the rich; their children begin to go to school soonest and leave off latest.

When they have done with masters, the state again compels them to learn the laws, and live after the pattern which they furnish, and not after their own fancies; and just as in learning to write, the writing-master first draws lines with a style for the use of the young beginner, and gives him the tablet and makes him follow the lines, so the city draws the laws, which were the invention of good lawgivers living in the olden time; these are given to the young man, in order to guide him in his conduct whether he is commanding or obeying; and he who transgresses them is to be corrected, or, in other words, called to account, which is a term used not only in your country, but also in many others, seeing that justice calls men to account.

Now when there is all this care about virtue private and public, why, Socrates, do you still wonder and doubt whether virtue can be taught?
Cease to wonder, for the opposite would be far more surprising.

Blasphemous Words

2007-09-28T21:58:00.000+03:00

Discipline, Practice, State <Κράτος> & (...God forgive me) Obedience.

Close your eyes.
Think about these words and their meanings, the Ideas they represent.
Tell me the truth, you felt something negative when you read them (especially "Obedience" & "State"). It almost feels like your human rights are being violated, eh?

We live in times where the main Message is "Life is to short to be miserable", "Enjoy as much as you can" and the sort...

Try to talk (especially to young people) about discipline (!), practice (!!) and obedience (&^%$!)...

I am trying to imagine a pianist who doesn't practice scales, an aikidoka who never does ukemis, a painter who doesn't spent infinte hours experimenting with colours.

Anyway, it's always easier to drink a coffee, isn't?

Our times are dark and we think it's sunshine. Not only we don't master our selves in order to achieve goals, we make it seem bad, we judge the ones that do and at the same time we have embarked in a campaign to destroy all the people (in history) who serve as paradigms for this.

It's easy, political correctness requires for us to be the same (NOT equal as we ought to be), the same but downwards not upwards...

If we all sit down our bare naked ass willl be covered.

Goodnight.

Untitled

2007-08-16T02:15:00.000+03:00

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities
but in the Master's there are few”