Tag: reflections on life

an oil painting with two old men next to a car in front of the house

Journal (Something more to come)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

I like watching trailers for the films I have already seen. They are like old photographs in a family album—photographs of places I once visited but neglected to return to, sounds still familiar yet distant, feelings kept in the shadows since ever. I like watching trailers because they allow me to fill in the rest of the story in my own tone, especially when the film wasn’t all that good in the first place and I only remember it for the perfect moments, like diamonds in the ashes. I like watching trailers for films I don’t know because they are a promise of something more to come—unlike every day of my life.

portrait of a young woman

Journal (The women I like)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

Getting on the scale has been a bit stressful lately. It’s not that I have a distorted self-image. I simply indulged in sweets (damn dried figs; they were so tasty), and with my sedentary lifestyle, it didn’t take long to see the results. And since obesity is not healthy in general and can even be fatal, given my pre-existing health problems, I try to pay attention to maintaining a healthy weight-to-height ratio.

Since I usually weigh myself after waking up and naked to ensure the accuracy of the data, I have the opportunity to take a good look at myself in the mirror, and generally, I have nothing to complain about in this matter. But this reminds me how often I encountered texts complaining about the negative impact of pop culture, and especially women’s glossy magazines, on our perception of the body, especially when it concerns women. It’s true that I’m not a reader of this type of periodical, but when I happened to pick one up on some occasion, I never found the photos of these anorexic-looking models in strange poses and unpleasant facial expressions attractive. The question is, who attracts me? I think the simplest way would be to have a look at actors, since everyone knows them, and if not, they are easy to find using an internet search engine. So here is my random list of actors I find beautiful: For each name, I add the title of the film in which they made this impression on me.

Elena Saorin in Pictures of Lily
Zoe Kazan in In Your Eyes
Franka Potente in Run Lola Run
Natalia Tena in You Instead
Jessie Buckley in Men
Kelly Macdonald in Puzzle
Aubrey Plaza in Life After Beth
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger than Fiction
Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment
Cristin Milioti in Palm Springs
Natalie Morales in Language Lessons
Anaïs Demoustier in The New Girlfriend

This list could go on for a long time, so maybe I’ll end it here, because it’s probably enough to give an idea of my taste when it comes to female beauty. None of them are the Barbie type, but they are all rather slim. I don’t know if it’s biologically determined or a matter of the culture in which I grew up, but I’ve never been attracted by Rubensian shapes. Does this make me a bad person?

an oil painting with an older man in a suit and hat against the background of a hill and a single tree in the distance

Journal (Wings of Fame)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

What if your life is only enough for a mere autobiography—perhaps written under a pen name so you could sign it twice—and maybe a footnote in someone else’s? Would you simply accept it or rather bother every poor bastard who happened to sit next to you on the bus with your tarradiddles as you cooked them up in hope of finding your very own charming little spot to survive eternity? I asked myself these exact questions while watching Peter O’Toole in Wings of Fame. There is only a lifetime to find the answer.

an oil painting in the style of René Magritte showing a faceless couple ready to get married

Journal (Love is blind)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski3 Comments

Montaigne said that “in all republics, a good share of the government has ever been referred to chance. Plato, in the civil regimen that he models according to his own fancy, leaves to it the decision of several things of very great importance, and will, amongst other things, that marriages should be appointed by lot;” (Montaigne, 2004).

Let’s think about that last part for a moment. Apart from the fact that these were supposed to be temporary marriages made at festivals to orchestrate eugenic breeding (Brake, 2021), the whole idea is not without some merit. Our Western culture embraces the idea of marriage for love, but keeping in mind that there is a good chance that it ends in divorce or makes couples unhappy over time (DePaulo, 2013), I’m not convinced that it actually works very well. There is a saying in my native language that perfectly fits that hunch: love is blind, and marriage is the best ophthalmologist.

So why not leave the whole affair in the hands of fate for a change? Who knows, maybe we’ll have better luck in this case than with choices made under the influence of the hormonal storm in our brains. Of course, I realise that this is not actually feasible outside of a thought experiment, and I can see many things that could and most likely would go wrong—I’m not that naive—but I also have a feeling that there is a chance for something good in this as well. Besides, we already use dating app algorithms for matching, so is this really that much of a difference?

Because what is the alternative? Suffer in silence with this stranger whom we call our spouse out of habit, or finally come to terms with the idea that marriage is only a temporary matter and establish this state of affairs legally by creating fixed-term marriage contracts, for example, for a decade, with the possibility of extending them for another period if both parties wish so.

References:
Brake, Elizabeth, “Marriage and Domestic Partnership”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/marriage/
DePaulo, Bella, “Marriage and Happiness: 18 Long-Term Studies”, Psychology Today (15 May 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201303/marriage-and-happiness-18-long-term-studies
Montaigne, Michel de, “Essays of Michel de Montaigne—Complete”, Project Gutenberg (2004), W.C. Hazlitt (ed.), C. Cotton (transl.), https://gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

watercolour of a man walking in the park

Journal (Every little counts)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

Our modern life is an endless pursuit of new things, but does it really make us happy? Doesn’t the familiar give us a sense of comfort, perhaps even the safety of the mother’s womb? Even when it comes to enemies, the old one is better than the new one, because at least we already know all their tricks. By the way, it reminds me of dialogue from one of the best Polish comedies of all time, Sami swoi (Our Folks), the story of two hostile neighbourly families—the Karguls and the Pawlaks—who meet again in a new place after World War II.

Kazimierz Pawlak (head of the family): Why did you hang your noses like that? If our own people live here, we can live here too.
Leonia Pawlak (his mother): Our own?! Kargul is the worst enemy of all!
Kazimierz Pawlak: Enemy? True, the enemy! But yours, mine, ours—bred on our own blood!
Mania Pawlakowa (his wife): And you couldn’t go anywhere else, ha?
Kazimierz Pawlak: Oh Mania, don’t be nervous; why did we have to look for a new enemy when the old one appeared sideways, ha? Well, that wouldn’t be God’s way.

Of course, I am aware that modern capitalism is based on this endless hunger for the new, and if anything changed, the entire system would collapse like a house of cards. But on the other hand, something has to change because neither we nor our planet will survive the current situation.

My personal life philosophy is based on minimalism in the sphere of needs while using what is given to me to the fullest. Perhaps it is easier for me to live this way because, since I was a child, I have lived in the world of my imagination and the books that nourished it. I don’t feel the need to bask in the sun on the beaches of the Riviera (actually, I would hate it because I don’t tolerate sunny weather very well, and summer has always been the hardest season for me to survive) or touch historic stones (in fact, the sweat from our hands damages them). I don’t have a car because I try to walk everywhere, and when I need to go somewhere further, I use public transport. And there are many other things in my life like this.

It is true that sometimes it’s inconvenient, but it’s a small price to pay for knowing that I’m doing something for the environment. As they say, every little counts.

woman writing a letter

Journal (The forgotten art of writing letters)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

I miss the mostly forgotten art of writing letters. For centuries, millennia really, epistolography was at the heart of our social life, with letters as one of the means of communication helping maintain relationships and exchange thoughts and ideas, but now the only letters most of us are receiving are notices from the government—even utility bills and bank statements arrive electronically, which is actually a good thing considering the environmental impact—and perhaps Christmas cards. Nowadays, it’s not even email that has taken over, but all kinds of instant messengers on our mobile phones and social networking sites. This fragmented, casual, surface-level communication negatively impacts our ability to formulate more complex thoughts. And, by the way, our reading habits don’t help either.

I just looked at the clock on my dresser and realised it took me an hour to write this paragraph. What happened to me? Why am I so distracted? After all, for years, writing was my daily bread because I earned my living as a journalist. And now this! I really hope this journal will help prevent further degradation.

oil painting of two friends talking at a table in a cafe

Journal (Forgive me)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

I envy Étienne de La Boétie. Not only was he himself a man of many virtues, but he was also endowed with a great friendship, which lasted long after his untimely death, with another great Frenchman, Michel de Montaigne. Reading Montaigne’s letters published in William Carew Hazilitt’s 1877 edition of the Essays is moving proof of this.

I have always been touched by friendship, something I’ve never really experienced myself. I remember how fascinated I was reading the correspondence between Stanisław Lem and Sławomir Mrożek, or by the traces of friendship with Jerzy Giedroyć that I found in Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary (it turns out that their letters were also published—the book is certainly worth reading, so I have to add it to my list).

Unfortunately, the one time I had a chance for this type of connection, I ruined it due to my own artificiality of style. No sane person would agree to correspondence clearly conducted with publication in mind. I don’t even know what I was thinking then. This was back when online literary forums were popular. At one of them, I met someone who was a kindred spirit and also a literary scholar. He appreciated my poetry, and when I wrote a satirical drama, he simply loved it. After the forum was closed down, we kept in touch via e-mail, but when, after reading Mrożek’s and Lem’s letters, I started my strange styling, he fell silent. I regretted it, but the damage was done. I guess I wasn’t ready for a real connection with another human being—it was all just a stage play. Stupid really.

We have this saying in my native language: A Pole is wise after the damage. It’s a pity that the damage is required. What can I say other than forgive me, Piotr?

watercolour of a thoughtful man in a coat and hat on a walk

Journal (To say something profound)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

As you desperately try to say something profound, with age, you discover that whatever it is you always wanted to say, someone has already said it, but without your stuttering and with a much better vocabulary. All that remains is to relish the words, pretending not to notice the hint of bitterness in the aftertaste. After all, you are not without a role; you are a diapason that resonates with their sound. Without you, they would disappear into the void.

watercolour with students in front of the historic university building

Journal (Bright but lazy)

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

My education is quite a complicated story. Bright but lazy was the general opinion teachers had about me when I was still in primary school. It’s not that I couldn’t have done more in terms of my academic achievements—I learned all of seventh-grade maths in one weekend to prepare for the end-of-year exam, scoring better than the model student in our class—but it just never really interested me. I preferred to immerse myself in the world of literature. At that time, reading books bordered on obsession. The book was the first thing I took in my hands after waking up. I ate while reading, I walked to school with a book in front of my face (I’m still surprised I was never hit by a car), and in class I read with a book on my lap under the desk so the teacher wouldn’t catch me. Books filled the rest of my day after school, and when my parents finally turned off the light in the middle of the night, I stood behind the curtain and read by the light of the street lamp in front of my room window.

This situation continued throughout my entire education, abruptly interrupted when I failed one of my final exams, and instead of going to university to study philosophy, I ended up in the army. I passed the exams eventually after quitting the army, but at that time, the reality of adult life hit, and I had to find a job.

A few years later, after saving some money, I started a part-time study at Jagiellonian University, the oldest and one of the best universities in the country. I studied the cultures of ancient Rome and Greece, but after a year, my finances did not allow me to continue. My father lent me some money, but this time I decided to be more practical and switched to political science with journalism at my local university. It made more sense because, at that time, I was already working for the largest daily newspaper in the region, and half of my colleagues were studying there. Unfortunately, I devote more attention to work than to studies, and I failed the year. And that was it. Only a few years later, I returned to Jagiellonian University to study comparative literature as an aspiring poet, but again, it turned out to be just another one-year stint.

It required hitting the brutal reality of immigrant life and six years of hard work studying while in a full-time job for me to actually get a university degree. But even that wasn’t without some turmoil, as I started in mathematics and statistics just to switch after two years to computer science. But in the end, I finished it. The odd thing is, it stopped having any meaning for me. Perhaps because it happened at the same time as the breakdown of my marriage. But that’s a different story.