Meditation is better than Drugs

Hello.
I dont think that this will be new news but as a chronicaly depressed, full with social anxiety, neurotic dude - I am easily bound to be addicted to stuff that changes that, even for a short period of time and with hughe risks.

Butttt, I dont like seeing myself end up robbing some poor old woman just for another fix, so I rather stay sober.

Cigarettes and sweetned stuff (drinks and snaks) are my only addictions I carry out and allow myself.

Alcohol - two beers an evening once a while (~ every 2/3 months once).
Cannabis - I did, for a while, but I am a natural stoner and the two together (me and canabis, that is) is rather depressing. No thank you.

I, to be honest, enjoyed a combination of a tiny bit of LSD and ecstasy.
I didnt dance, I did nothing but cry at the beauty of the world I saw and how wonderfull it was to love the people around me, and that without exeption.

I was shocked and affraid and amazed. But when you are given a tool to eradicate all your problems superficialy at the expense of reality, at least I dont have to think twice: This can and will never happen again. Its too great to even allow myself to try that once more and that this thought, after 7 years still makes me sad is quite telling, I think.

Blabla, "MATTHIAS why no mention of Meditation so far, when its in the title?"

If thats what you are asking yourself, here the awnser.

I can recreate this somehow.
When I meditate I have a 1/10 chance of something like that and its always the same.

First my vision starts to slowly fade into whiteness. Tiny stars forming. Just like when you are about to pass out (just in white, not black) or your hyperventilating. Then suddenly my vision turns entirly black (I meditate with open eyes). In the center of this blackness its even more black. In fact everything else is nothing (therefore black) but the middle is entire blackness and not just nothingness.

This blackness explodes, into millions of colorfull nebulas. Galaxies, Stars and Planets alike form. Past, Present and Future all happening at the same time while I am watching from the middle of the "Universe".

Sure, I gave those things names, by what I associate with them and I just see those things because they resemble what I learned looks like that but bla.

Its amazing. I can see what happens in the whole galaxy as well as on atomic level and everything in between. Colors grow to live on these planets, form species, they extinct, new one gets born. This happenes everywhere and then everything gets suddenly slower. usualy I loose focus and regain conciousness but once I continued.

The whole colorfull brightness slwoly got colder and dim and at its darkest point it was like the beginning. Everything than moves slowly to the center, getting dimmer and dimmer. and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz nothingness again.

Everytime I make it to the part or beyond I usualy regain conciousness I cry already when "waking up" as I am too overwhelmed, happy and sad at the same time.

Sad? Yup. I have this thing, this idea, those pictures in my head and I know I cant store them, even worse - as I wrote in my diary when it first happened (in german mind you): "I dont know what to write, it was so beautiful. Everything at the same time. Ah I just stop writing and keep crying happily, its an insult to what happened to even try to write about it, anyway."

The medical explanation of this are propably one of those (or a combination):
hyperventilating
cutting off blood circuit to extremities and head to much
sleep deprivation
or as in meditation supposed: left brain half shuts up
and my neglected and supresesd creative side bursts out as it only has a short time.

Nationalratswahlen 2008 Österreich

There are going to be elections in Austria, this sunday and I already prepared and practiced the various penises, robots, flowers, smiley-faces and other stuff I am going to draw onto the ballot.

Yay for artistic expression!
Yay for voting!

Booo for over-payed soap opera actors and circus clowns in suits.

Carpets, Camels & Beduin-Girls

Hello,

There is this lovley lady on the internets, called Callie, who recently blogged about carpets and old stuff. My old appartment was full of them and most of them where bought by my mother.

If you have loads of cash and are into antiques I think thats what you have to do, but I dont realy know.

When I was younger and we are talking about realy much younger (11 years back = me 16), I backpacked through europe on several summer-holiday-occasions. Also known as Inter-rail.

You buy a train-ticket to "everywhere" known as Interrail ticket. This allows you to take ever train (well not the realy fast ones - but...) for "free". Armed with this, a backpack, clothes, a map, a frying pan (dont ask me and dont laugh) and money I ventured through europe.

Usualy I did what my parents teached me to do, go from cultural site to cultural site and of course, if you sleep 1/3 of the days in some random parks because you couldnt find an afordable youth-hostel, and its in the midst of summer - you start smelling and you start being exhausted.

So somewhere in the middle of spain I decided I would hit the coast and spend 2-3 days relaxing and not torturing my self with more culture. This also was intended to provide me an ability to wash my clothes and dry them. Yup, I only washed them on bathroom sinks and "dried" them IN my backpack (smart, huh?).

For whatever reasons I ended on the sout-coast of spain, where it hit me.

I have NEVER EVER been to another continent and decided this had to change.

I went to gibraltar, bought a ferry ticket and finaly I was in Africa, in Morroco.
It was awsome. Not too diffrent to spain (climate-wise) but there was a hughe friggin bazzar, camels!!! and other wonderfull stuff.

And this is where I met some beduins. They had some inofficial "shops" improvised and eventhough the carpets they sold didnt look to legit and "ancient" as they claimed, I wanted one as a sovenir and gift for my mom.

Sadly - as my trip was coming to an end and I was short on money, it seemed like we wouldnt come to an agreement. I wanted some food and drinks for my last 4 days and my extremly tiring train-ride to vienna and there seemed to be no option, when suddenly that man pointed at my pants. First I was afraid he wanted sex as he pointed at my crotch but I think my reaction and shock was so clear that he waved his pants around.

Anyway, a moment later I was undressing infront of that man and his 4 rather beautiful girls, who giggled and blushed and laughed during the whole process, and some camels that where rather indifferent to my public humiliation.

Anyway, thats my carpetstory.
And if you want to know what happened to the carpet - I fell asleep during my 2 day-trainride (obviously) and someone stole it. :-/