Writer Between Worlds

Soulful writing about humans and places

Category: Culture

I feed on the unspoken

You call it this, I call it that, the thingness of a thing is beyond our babbles labels come and go what is truly real is quiet and dark its depths crushing and warm and full of moisture like the savage mouth of an intractable lover. Like love, the world may be screamed, sighed, sucked,…
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What language do you dream in?

The brain is a funny thing. And funny things happen when your brain goes on vacation. I consider myself bilingual (Romanian and English) and I’ve been living in Germany for more than 15 years now, but never would I have thought that the German language would end up infiltrating… my dreams! My dreams, yes. For…
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Quote of the day

“Surely, inspirational language to create a secure consensus is still used, in our time, to cover up serious conflicts of interest in that consensus, and to cover up, also, the omission of large parts of the human race.” Howard Zinn – A People’s History of the United States (Harper Perennial, Reissue Edition 2015) #language #languageandpolitics…
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Quote of the day

“Every man who believes in something in an absolute fashion is the mortal enemy of “truth“ and “reality”. Fanaticism – vibrant stupidity bewitched by a ludicrous Unconditional. Transforming one facet of Becoming into the sole reality; converting one aspect of the spirit into a fixed point of reference; elevating an “event“ to the rank of…
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Quote of the day

“Education, in the sense in which I mean it, may be defined as the formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world. (…) The search for an outside meaning that can compel an inner response must always be disappointed: all “meaning” must be at bottom…
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Epidemiology

One epidemic calls forth anotherand one infectious protein spawnsinfectious thoughts.Mental representations spreading like viruses.Unchecked. Alert! Long lines before inoculation centers.Demand for fiction is high.Trust has been thrown off-kilter.Too little truth producedto fight this lethal disease. No medicine as yet against the fever ofconviction. Maintain a safe distanceand epistemological hygiene.Refrain from visiting the specters of panic.To…
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Linguistic Research Project – Humble Request

To my dear readers: Hi guys, I hope everyone is doing well! I was wondering if any of you might like to help me with my new linguistic pet project. I was wondering how far the equality of the sexes has come and what it feels like to be a woman in our day-to-day interactions…
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Quote of the day

“In itself, every idea is neutral, or should be; but man animates ideas, projects his flames and flaws into them; impure, transformed into beliefs, ideas take their place in time, take shape as events: the trajectory is complete, from logic to epilepsy . . . whence the birth of ideologies, doctrines, deadly games. Idolaters by instinct,…
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Inarticulate

So little left to express. Spleen? Acedia? The signifiers have lost their signifieds and are straying. Ideas, heavy as rock, sink to the bottom of rivers waiting to be swept away by a sudden flood of effervescence or settle, with the mud, along the banks of dam lakes and rot. Occasionally, some debris resurfaces –…
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Quote of the day

“Understanding a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity. (…) It renders them accessible: setting them in the frame of their own banalities, it dissolves their opacity.” Clifford Geertz – The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books Classics)
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Words of wisdom, cautionary words

On creativity: “If too few opportunities for curiosity are available, if too many obstacles are placed in the way of risk and exploration, the motivation to engage in creative behavior is easily extinguished. (…) So, if the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-confidence, we must educate them to be original…
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On migration and diasporas

“To live “in diaspora” is to reside in one place but to keep in motion an emotional, cultural, or political relationship with another, whether it is the site of one’s nativity that subsequently became a point of departure or an ancestral “homeland” virtually conjured but never visited. (…) Diasporas (…) are platforms where received notions…
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