I feel so little and powerless when I think about Ukraine. The stoics say it is pointless to worry about things you can’t control so I have been trying not to get too absorbed by it. “You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” (Marcus Aurelius). …
Author Archives: Natalia
Yuletide soliloquy
I remember somewhere Nietzsche said holidays are paradoxical because they lack any of the modesty Christianity advocates for. Holidays are about exuberance and excesses – of joyfulness, of food, of laziness and whatnot. Yet, Christianity generally disapproves of excesses. I read this when I was about 15 years old and it really stuck in my …
Ode to Eyes
Nature is amazing. There might be better words to describe it, but “amazing” is unceremonious enough to still be expressive. If let’s say, Pascal won his wager and there is a god, Stephen Fry might be right that he’s an evil, capricious, monstrous maniac. But if Pascal lost and everything happens by chance, then it’s …
Passing time with Bridget Jones
This weekend I binge-watched the Bridget Jones trilogy (2001, 2004, 2016), about 5 years later (or earlier?) than I should’ve. The hiatus between the second and the third is a tragedy in itself. Things decay. Bridget (Renée Zellweger) no longer keeps a paper diary, she has an iPad. There’s no way Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) …
Schopenhauer on <3
If I could have dinner with anyone who ever lived, as the ice-breaker goes, Schopenhauer would definitely be in my top 10. One of his theories that amazed me when I first heard it describes the paradox of love and marriage, which Schopenhauer intuited long before science was anywhere close to proving anything like this. …
confessions of a “flâneuse”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur Long and lonely walks, a malady disguised as melancholy, a flaw that artists and hopeless romantics often have and which I am not exempt from either. Maybe if I walk the streets of London by myself some of this city’s charm will rub off on me. I’ll let my footsteps sing a chaotic ode …
Reveries by the lake
I have heard about Il Lago di Como (Como lake) a few times in the past and I have found it increasingly more intriguing. Apparently reserved for the rich, so occluded for my penniless existence. As in any “rags to riches” type of story, reaching it had a rather symbolic significance to me, for no …
Memento Mori, Memento Vivere
Yesterday I had a headache behind my right eye. It was as if I could feel the shape of my eye nerve all the way from my light brown irises to somewhere in the middle of my head where the pain felt more intense, like the claps of a piano where the pain intensity corresponds …
A Matter of Life and Death in Piatra Craiului
Nobody is indifferent towards their family. Many people would classify it as the most important thing in life (like some characters in The Godfather), while others would openly admit how damaging and toxic their family is to them (like some characters in Downton Abbey). Both categories take pride in their relationship with their family. Either …
Continue reading “A Matter of Life and Death in Piatra Craiului”
Light and Lightness in Sagrada Familia
Although the Rock of Gibraltar is as awe-inspiring and graceful as it has been for the past 2 months which I have spent at its foot, I began to long for a change of scenery. Consequently, we packed up our bags once again and ventured to Barcelona. I could still remember its unconventional taste since …