CURRENT MISSION

the pursuit of happiness

ABOUT ME

It is a thankless task to even begin to fill out a section entitled "all about you," as if a few paragraphs could capture all the subtle truths of anyone's subjectivity.

In the rest of the profile, I put some citations that I find meaningful. They might give you a glimpse of who I am.

"Hate does not produce love, and by hate one cannot remake the world."
-Enrico Malatesta

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them, the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”
-Immanuel Kant

“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”
-Loren Eiseley

PHILOSOPHY

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
-Bertrand Russell

"To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace."
-Morihei Ueshiba

"A true act creates the conditions of its own possibility."
-Slavoj Žižek

“Tout ce quie est désir de ce qui est bon, tout ce qui est désir du bonheur, voilàen quoi consiste pour tout le monde le très puissant Eros, l’Eros perfide.”
-Diotime de Mantinée

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
-William Faulkner

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
-Rene Descartes

"I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest... No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being — they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom."
-Mikhail Bakunin

Le Soleil, le foyer de tendresse et de vie,
Verse l'amour brûlant àla terre ravie,
Et, quand on est couché sur la vallée, on sent
Que la terre est nubile et déborde de sang ;
Que son immense sein, soulevé par une âme,
Est d'amour comme dieu, de chair comme la femme,
Et qu'il renferme, gros de sève et de rayons,
Le grand fourmillement de tous les embryons !
Et tout croît, et tout monte !
-Arthur Rimbaud

"Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect for whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
-Oscar Wilde

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

"Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos." (I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.)
-Pablo Neruda

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have hosted many people, but the ethic behind couchsurfing has been an important part of my entire adult life.

Interests

i grew up with dostoyevsky, tolstoy, chekhov, hesse, mann, zola, hugo, etc. i like reading novels, but i spend most of my time reading professional literature, so in recent years i enjoy more condensed form of literature, such as short stories by cortazar and borges and poetry in all languages: F. Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Rafael Alberti, Rene Char, Arthur Rimbaud, Alice Nottley, Allen Ginsberg, Yehuda Amichai, Jorge Luis Borges, Bei Dao, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eugenio Montale, etc.

music: my grandfather was an orchestral conductor and i grew up with classical music, which left a lasting mark on my tastes and preferences. i especially like choral music, but not only. i also like to sing and play the guitar. i mostly sing folk songs and revolutionary songs from the balkans and the americas. besides this i quite like to listen to folk and jazz and blues. heavy metal and such things irritate my ears.

"yo busqué, para darte por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen:siempre
siempre, siempre; jardin de mi agonia
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte"
-Federico Garcia Lorca

• arts
• literature
• poetry
• singing
• beauty
• drinking
• reading
• music
• classical music
• jazz
• guitar
• blues
• languages
• law
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

i grew up with dostoyevsky, tolstoy, chekhov, hesse, mann, zola, hugo, etc. i like reading novels, but i spend most of my time reading professional literature, so in recent years i enjoy more condensed form of literature, such as short stories by cortazar and borges and poetry in all languages: F. Garcia Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Rafael Alberti, Rene Char, Arthur Rimbaud, Alice Nottley, Allen Ginsberg, Yehuda Amichai, Jorge Luis Borges, Bei Dao, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eugenio Montale, etc.

music: my grandfather was an orchestral conductor and i grew up with classical music, which left a lasting mark on my tastes and preferences. i especially like choral music, but not only. i also like to sing and play the guitar. i mostly sing folk songs and revolutionary songs from the balkans and the americas. besides this i quite like to listen to folk and jazz and blues. heavy metal and such things irritate my ears.

"yo busqué, para darte por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen:siempre
siempre, siempre; jardin de mi agonia
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte"
-Federico Garcia Lorca

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

drinking La Tache Grand Cru Domaine de la Romanee Conti from 1979