The Truth Project: On Perfectionism in Art and Esthetic Decision Making

Many artists share a common trait: perfectionism. A work of art (or a piece of literature) can undergo several transformation processes, it may be subject to constant modifications, adjustments, deleting, repainting and so on, or editing, in the case of a writing piece, and the edits can be minor or major, they can affect only certain secondary areas of meaning or the composition, main structure and coherence of the entire piece.

While the creation process is fluid and mostly governed by intuition and can result in a large quantity of artistic product, esthetic decision making is part intuitive and part cerebral. And there are not rare the cases when an artist throws away straight to the garbage, without any regrets whatsoever, an entire piece, because of a part that does meet the esthetic criteria of the whole ensemble.

In art, especially in contemporary art, which values originality, these esthetic criteria are, of course, highly subjective. Each artist has his own set of esthetic values and a personal definition of what is beautiful and harmonious. This is true not only for active artists, but for human beings in general. But it must be possible to find some common grounds and reach a joint esthetic agreement about what is beautiful.

This is what the Truth Project is trying to do: to send collective art to space, after several rounds of (esthetic) definition and negotiation in what concerns perspectives and the associated meaning.

This collective esthetic agreement process should follow the rules of pleasant and respectful conversation in order to be enjoyable (see post on The Personal Level and The Idea Level) and these requirements are mandatory in order to join our community, as we don’t want esthetic quarrels, as it is well known from art history that they may get overheated. Just like every person has their personal set of non-negotiables in relationships, at community level a similar set should exist and the requirement mentioned above is a non-negotiable of The Truth Project Community.

Going back to the creative process and esthetic decision making, there are artworks or literary texts, which the artist may consider good as they are, straight from the raw place of emotion, with its authentic and oh-so-human content.

Esthetic decision making implies esthetic judgement on a case by case scenario, but nevertheless by using the personal stencil: the esthetic set of values.

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The Truth Project: On Effective Communication, a Sybaritic Lifestyle and the Prisoner’s Dilemma again

Effective communication implies that the message, in the way we transmit it, reaches and is understood by the end user, in the form we wanted it to be understood. Blurred transmitters can affect the communication flow by adding their own personal imprint, causing distortions and damaging the link.

While direct communication is always preferable, it is not always possible. Understanding the characteristics of the blurred transmitter, its patterns and its typical communication behavior is crucial for neutralizing its effects and get the link up running smoothly. In the design phase of a communication system that we want to be effective, we can send information back and forth to test its functionality.

The Truth Project will be growing fast and its participants already have different geographical locations at the time being. When the number of participants will reach for instance 20, my personal capacity for direct one on one letter writing (which is something I do with deep pleasure, I could in fact be writing letters all day long), will be exceeded. Therefore, paying special attention in early phases of the project to designing an effective communication system will not only ensure the collaboration for a higher purpose that we want, but my very good sleep at night as well.

Programmers are allegedly known to be lazy (I hope no one gets offended, I am testing mental biases with this positive preconception! :D) It’s that sybaritic laziness, the pleasure of pushing a button and have it done for you by the machine, while you sip coffee, dressed in your velvet robe, listening to the birds sing)

I have already mentioned the Prisoner’s Dilemma as a crossroad between the subjective and the objective, the group dynamics and the mathematics and as possible way to test jerkiness level (hahaaaa). But even among well intentioned people (but not naive), the communication may be subject to misunderstandings. These can be solved on a case by case basis.

I also mentioned before that I envision a mix between the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the block chain technology in order to conduct the project. For those unfamiliar with this, the blockchain is the technology, not what is traded on the network (the cryptocurrency) and what had caught my attention is the Ledger, which is public and for everyone to see. Anyone wants to come across as a cheater? Mmmm no! Okay, in a world populated by humans and neither gods nor robots, maybe coming across as a cheater once would be tolerable, but not 77 out of 99 publicly recorded operations.

People get together in groups when they have shared values or common goals. They collaborate because it would be too much to do on their own. But groups can collaborate for many kinds of joint purposes and some may be not that desirable. So the twist would be: to collaborate for what?

My answer for this question is: to collaborate for a higher purpose. (I will introduce this question in the Questionnaire for The Truth Project Community). This topic is so extensive that I will not explore it here and dedicate a text of its own.
Back to the Ledger. All the information posted for the Truth Project acts as a Ledger (hello mental acrobatics! hello world!)

You may ask why am I so generous with the behind the scenes? Because that’s how I am. (Laughs) And due to it’s uniqueness, it is almost impossible to replicate without a copycat operation entry in The Ledger and our goal here is to co-create, not to replicate.

And furthermore, to find some cool people to have a good time with in The Book Club, The Philosophy Club and so on and so on… all the other clubs (and of course involve the people I already know). If this information is not available, how should the people know what this is about and what they could do? Co-creation is about getting inspired by The Others and showing respect by giving them credit for their work and acknowledging their contribution.

And we are still open for Collaboration proposals from the Arts & Science community for our Futuristic Interdisciplinary Studies Centre or if you prefer, the International Intellectual Cooperation Society

Text and Art (Mr. Wisebird): Laura Livia Grigore

The Truth Project: What it Means to Be a Writer. A Manifesto for Playfulness and the Behind the Scenes of A Literary Delight

The Truth Project has taken an unexpected turn, as I am currently in a high writing flow, exploring a rich path of fantasy. The story I am currently writing is not only a story of magic, good humour and good spirits, but also a literary feast, rich in cross-literary references for my intelligent and cultured readers to enjoy.

What does it mean to be a writer and when do writers perform at their best? Being a writer means nothing else then to posses the ability to transpose your thoughts on paper and to do so in a coherent and appealing manner so that others are able to follow you. A writer performs his best when a series of conditions are met, which include besides harmony between the internal and the external world, also a somehow elusive aspect: Timing. Why precisely now and not tomorrow, I honestly don’t know.
We make the jump when we’re ready, when we feel we trained enough, when excuses and distractions remain just that, excuses and distractions. When we are in full control of our power and believe in ourselves.

Set in a Soul Surgery and Transformation Clinic, “Healing. A magical Story for Cheerful Hearts” by yours truly is not only trying to popularize the basic concepts of psychology and the associated set of emotional hygiene practices, but it also comes with an extensive list of adjacent literary classics references and recommendations. The main characters, Paris and Elena, straight out of the Trojans Wars, keep trying to make love, while simultaneously trying to operate the elusive Blue Dog, a magical realism classic character, fathered by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You would think the playfulness of the writer stops here, but no, Hans Castorp makes his way through and infuses the Andalusian garden, where Paris and Elena perform their flirtatious and sweet intellectual dance, with enchantment. To operate a character from a story written by Garcia Marquez after being diagnosed with the Faust literary syndrome, now call that a challenge! And the literary crossbreeding doesn’t stop here, as other celebrities make their way inside the plot: Scheherezade, Galileo Galilei, Kafka, Van Gogh and even trickster Goran Bregovic manages to throw an unexpected party in The Soul Surgery Room. The Clinic itself is equipped with all kinds of sophisticated apparatus, meant to enhance your spirits and test your imaginative limits. It is also guarded by a troupe of 77 Orange Cat, which will delight the feline lovers worldwide. Enchanting and uplifting, the book is a manifesto to keep our playful spirits alive and avoid the mental prison that The Blue Dog himself chose.

Text and Art: Laura Livia Grigore

The Truth Project: More on Genuine Happiness and the Choice Between the Self-Imposed Prison and Growing Wings

“There are people who try to cut off your wings because they cannot imagine themselves with wings.” I was writing this phrase some years ago and I sometimes go back to meditate on it.

The fable of the fox, who allegedly declared the grapes sour upon not managing to reach them, is related to the same idea.

Life presents a choice in front of us: to focus on the grapes or on the frustrated fox, to focus on the wings and their growth or on the wing-cutters-wannabes.

Fables or richly infused metaphorical stories appeal to our mythological part, as they enhance some traits or tendencies that we nevertheless all share, they are dormant in the depth of our souls:

If I like something somebody else has or does, do I want it all for me or everyone else can still have it, including me? Do I try to take it away and make it mine or do I try to pay attention to how it’s made?

All for me or all for all, that is the question at the border between selfishness and generosity, between possessiveness and sharing.

The low vibrations of the soul impair our capacity for happiness, as they keep us imprisoned in our personal cocoon.

Nothing goes out implies also that nothing goes in, a protective shield can also be a self-designed prison, as we are all programmed to interconnect. We are social beings and, at our best, we draw satisfaction from the satisfaction of the others.

The heartful path would to be to try to develop precisely those qualities that we like, to try to develop ourselves what is subject to our admiration.

The marshmallow test in psychology is intended to determine children’s capacity to wait and think in advance and it is actually a predictor of success and happiness level in adulthood, as we all know childhood is a crucial factor in our development (but not the only one, we can as well keep developing all throughout life, given we preserve a certain openness and we don’t allow the little cynic inside to sabotage us).

Rushing to take the marshmallow, to take the ready-made recipe and make it our own, without too much thinking about its flavour, its contents, how it was made or where it could lead, is just another case of a dissatisfied fox, secretly longing for the grapes, while simultaneously belittling them.

(There’s a link between the fox and the grapes and several possibile decisions on each side.)

It is nevertheless a tendency of nowadays materialistic society to value immediate results, without paying too much attention to how they are reached. A shallow world of appearances, fighting for our immediate attention. It could as well become a materialistic jungle, everyone on they own, trying to appear taller by cutting off the head of the other.

It’s the demon of comparison that hinders us from being happy and Hector knows it very well, after making a thorough list of Happiness rules, he goes on searching for Love and Time.
(François Lelord is the author of the Hector series.)

Even worse, comparison based on the appearances criteria is recipe for soul disaster, as we in fact, don’t really know what’s behind. We take things for granted, without giving them an in-depth look and this childish naivety would be endearing, if it weren’t dangerous, while being practiced on large scale in adult world.

Dangerous for our soul foundation.

We snap a photo of our glorious moment and we think everybody thinks we are always glorious. Or at least, we hope they think so. And while we’re all hoping, we further drift, further and further away from our true selves.
We try on the ready made costume that society has in place for us and then we blame the tailor, if the costume doesn’t fit us well.
But we forget it is our responsibility to curate our own life experience.

And it starts from the very basics, it starts with what we feed our soul with.

The life we live at this very moment is a consequence of our decisions.

“You are how you spend your days”, this is the best definition I have found so far for the human condition.

We are all our repeated actions, we are the sum of all our thoughts, memories and desires. We are the sum of all the people we allow ourselves be influenced by.

And that snapshot of the celebration may be as well a genuine one, if it crowns all our efforts and our daily actions and we are ready and open to meet halfway through success and satisfaction.

The Truth Project: Inspiration, Flow, Happiness and A Day in The Life of an Artist and Writer

It’s him, doozing off in the heat of June. To have a cat friend, whose stripped orange fur matches the stripped orange flowers, that’s a privilege and an exquisite artistic inspiration.

The sea, the seagulls, the books I read, everything can be an inspiration, my friends, my community of readers, my memories, my dreams, the day-time imaginative sessions.

Everything can be an inspiration, as long as you keep your heart open.

To keep your heart open and still be able to see the beauty of life, despite of everything else. It’s a filter we can apply on life, a pair of adjustable lenses, which can be used to expand our field of vision, instead of narrowing it down.

There’s this myth that art comes paired with suffering and it might, but there’s this tendency to over romanticize the struggle of great artists, such as Van Gogh or Sylvia Plath. We should also keep in mind what they managed to create, not because of, but despite off.

Creation is joy of living.

And those of us who have been blessed with powers to see and to manifest, we should always keep in mind that the in born talent remains just talent, unless we practice it daily. Not everyday will result in a masterpiece, but every 77 days it might. When luck comes looking for you, it may be just luck, unless you are able to meet it half way through with the fruit of your creation.

There are always the controllable and uncontrollable parts of Life Experience. And each of them can make the difference between success and failure or, from an internal perspective, between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. There’s a full blend of ingredients which goes into our life experience recipe and they are so many and different, that it would make no sense to expand them here.
What we do and what we like are two key aspects from the controllable side of the spectrum. If they are in harmony, we are in harmony.

Furthermore, what we do and what we like are based on what we think and what we feel. If these are also in harmony, we already have extended harmony: happiness!

It’s simple and oh-so-complicated.

There’s an extensive list of possible reads on the idea of happiness, among which I would mention Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi or sweet and lovely Hector and the Search of Happiness and last, but not least, the Greek classics.

In what concerns me, yours truly, founder of The Truth Project and friend of a highly inspiring orange cat, I am grateful for whatever life gave me. I write all my texts in flow and I can do it anytime, anywhere, if it’s a Friday night, at 1 p.m., it doesn’t matter. Throughout my life I have had periods of highly prolific artistic creation (I have also done no less then 300 artwork so far…I don’t even know their exact number, some of them were dismissed by their creator, some were exhibited, some hang on walls across Europe) and also less inspiring times, which are okay as well.
How does a writer train? In times of not-so-much inspiration, a writer trains by reading. When a writer is not writing, a writer studies literature. And I can say I have been doing this, more or less all my life, since the early age when I learnt how to read. This is my basic passion and whatever the circumstances, it is something no one can take away, it is my personal machine of intellectual pleasure.

I am currently writing a story for children and adults with cheerful hearts, which I entitled Healing. It is written in the magic realism style, a style I am very fond of. I deeply enjoy writing this story and looking forward for its evolution. Writing stories is what writers do, not only to feed themselves, but also to feed the soul of others.

Healing. A magical story for cheerful hearts (8)

“Do you like the Soul Timing Machine, Mr. Paris?”

It’s early morning and after finishing a richly flavoured breakfast, which included figs and pineapple and freshly baked croissants, drenched in the purest honey, and everything else you can imagine, including mixed rolls of cheese and spinach for soul strengthening, Doctor Elena Heart, dressed in a pink silk robe and still wearing the necklace of feathers, healing stones and parts of the tamed spirits of the four panthers, takes the reporter for the Soul Science Magazine, on a guided tour of the Soul Facilities.

“Wow, what can I say, I am speechless.” Paris, the Reporter for Soul Science Magazine, is struggling to find his words. He is wearing the Gentleman soul-business suit, which he found freshly ironed upon waking up in the room where he spent the night in The Advanced Soul Concepts Clinic of renowned Soul Surgeon and Healer, Doctor Elena Heart. He pulled the velvet curtains and for a second, he had the strange impression that he is seeing the familiar and well-beloved scenery of the Red Square in Moscow. “Strange!”, Paris said and put on the pink glasses, which he also found ready to be worn, next to the soul-business suit.
The two of them had left the Andalusian Garden behind and are not slowly walking, shoulder by shoulder, inside the giant crystal building, where all the magic in the world can happen: The Soul Surgery, Soul Transformation and Advanced Conceptual Soul Enhancement Facilities.

The Guard and Chief Totemic Animal, The Orange Cat, was on duty at the entrance and slightly bowed his head, with supreme indifference, upon noticing Paris: ” The only reason why I don’t scratch you is because you are accompanied by Our Lady of The Hearts. So that you know. That’s a warning and I usually don’t give more then one warning. In the next step, I deploy consequences. And you may think I am joking, but what you have seen so far is just a small glimpse of my Full Panther Costume” Having said that, The Orange Cat presents the belly for a routine scratch towards Elena.

“Holly Panther!!!” Paris says and quickly retreats his fingers. What a character!” He feels anger boiling inside and he’s about to add a word of grace or two, when he feels a soft hand, wrapped in pink silk, touching his arm: ” Now, now, let’s continue our tour of the Soul Facilities. Coming across as unmannered would not honour the nice soul-business suit you’re wearing. And btw, nice glasses! Where did you get them from? ” Elena giggles and Paris laughs loudly and here they are in front of the Soul Timing Machine!

Text & Art: Laura Livia Grigore

Healing. A magical story for cheerful hearts (7)

Thank you for your kind words, Paris!

My dear friends present in the room today, my friends around the world, all of you who have tuned in to our Soul Channels, all my love and gratitude for you! Honey and champagne for everyone!

(Doctor Heart pushes a button and more butterflies appear out of the blue. 77 of them make their delicate way through the audience and perform an in-flight, re-grouping manoeuvre and surround the Blue Dog. The eyes of Paris subtly sparkle.)

What Paris was trying to say is that Soul Transformation is an art in itself. We have a list of Soul Good Practices, we have an extensive list of Healing and Soul Enhancement Literature, we have Laboratories where we test our methodologies, everything you need, we have it. We have everything, besides the Solution.

(Silence)

Because The Solution, you have it. And it is as unique as the colours of your soul are.

In what concerns Paris and myself, after years of Soul Practice, we have reached a Joint Soul Solution, which we will reveal at The End of today’s historical Live Soul Anatomy Lesson, when we will also present the latest Soul Innovation, fresh out of the Soul Laboratories. So please, keep your hearts open and stay tuned on our Soul Frequency.

Many, many years ago, when Paris willfully admitted himself to our Soul Clinic, despite not having other symptoms besides increased heart rate and pupil dilatation, I personally diagnosed him with the Hans Castorp literary syndrome. His desire for Enchantment, whether on a Mountain or in Our Andalusian Garden, was deeply endearing. After a series of extensive Soul Analyses, I discovered his condition may require long term treatment, as he was displaying some confusing symptoms, and the soul border between Thomas Mann and Thomas O’Malley, the alley cat from the Aristocrats, was a bit blurred. Paris himself started purring and was very keen for affection. The only trouble we had with Paris as a Patient, were the repeated provocations against Our Guard and Chief Totemic Animal, the Orange Cat. But I made it clear I don’t want fights in my garden. It was not long before I discovered his potential talent as Soul Surgeon. And here we are today, in front of you all, Ladies and Gentlemen, sharing the patent for Our Latest Soul Innovation.

How does a Soul Surgeon reach his mastery? Each and every day, we practice Soul Surgery. And it is precisely this daily practice which makes us happy. The secret is in the amount of passion we invest each and every single day in Creation and Healing and the stars we watch together at night on the terrace. It’s in the spoonfuls of honey, in the peacock feather tickles and in the butterflies we give and receive.

As I already mentioned, the field of Soul Transformation is extremely complex and it belongs both to the visible and invisible world, but if I were to mention only one rule, which is sacred, that is: “Treat The Heart of the Other as you would like your own to be treated.”

For those of you interested in other advanced concepts of Soul Surgery, we have introduced a new class in the Soul Curriculum: The Art of Erotic Storytelling, How to become a Highly Satisfied Soul Surgeon, which is open for enrollments starting June. The class is held by my mentor and teacher, Scheherezade herself, and if you’re interested, you need to hurry.
Among many other available classes, we can also mention Soul Advanced Coloring, which is held by my art master, Van Gogh Himself or How to Keep a Young Heart, thought by my psychology master, Carl Jung. The Mystery Keeping Class is held by Mona Lisa and so on and so on.

In addition, I teach an interdisciplinary class on Creative and Free-thinking, during which we invite you to try on The Astronaut Costume. For years, we keep receiving positive feedback on this Advanced Soul Technique, the participants reporting a high level of satisfaction and sudden increase in general Well-bee-ing, besides creativity enhancement, increased perspective taking capacity and improvement of relationship quality.

Okay, so that would be enough of an introduction. Now we will present our Soul Invention.

(Lights suddenly go off)

Text & Digital Art (based on the Aristocats) Laura Livia Grigore

Healing. A magical story for cheerful hearts (6)

Paris walks on stage, surrounded by a cloud of Amazonian butterflies. Some are purplish, some are blue, others display a golden palette. They constantly move around him, complementing his outfit with a shinning effect, sparkling and shinny.

“Thank you very much, Elena, for the invitation. You are a true inspiration. (Elena smiles)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very warm welcome from my side as well. We gathered all here for this historical event, which will remain in our collective memory. It is the first time in the history of Soul Transformation and all its connected branches, that Doctor Elena Heart is opening the doors of her Soul Enhancement Clinic and presents her latest invention to the broad public.

At any moment, our collaborators will start serving cups of honey and soul infused champagne. Bubbly and sparkling, the mix of these two exquisite ingredients will make your hearts golden and cheerful and prepare you to be fully open for what is about to come.
We all know Soul Transformation doesn’t happen over night. When I willingly admitted myself as Patient at the Soul Surgery Clinic of Doctor Heart, I must confess I didn’t know what was about to come. I thought I was prepared but I wasn’t. “Expect the unexpected”, she used to tell me, and it was only at some point, when I was able to catch the full meaning of that secret message.

I was always on a haste and my soul colours started to fade. And I thought immediate Soul Surgery will solve all my problems. But Doctor Heart is a highly skilled Soul Doctor.
She patiently tickled me with the peacock feather, she kept giving me spoonfuls of honey and she even made me try out one of The Experimental Soul Apparatus.

You may have noticed during the Soul Transformation Facilities tour the multitude and sophistication of our Soul Equipment. We have: Soul Vibration Recorder and Plotter, Fear Removal Mechanism, Dream Analyzer and Dream 3D Printer, Prediction Machine and among many others, The Time Traveling Experimental Apparatus. Also in our Soul Anthropology Museum, we have on display Tuthan-Kamel, the very first golden camel who received golden honey treatment during Egyptian ancient times.

I must confess that when Doctor Heart put me for the first time in the Time Travel Experimental Machine, it was pretty uncomfortable. But here I am today, in front of you all, with a nice aural Costume of 77 Amazonian butterflies, which I am ready to take off and offer as gift and expression of advanced gratitude to Our Lady of the Hearts.

I thought I knew everything about Soul Surgery, but Doctor Heart thought me another valuable Soul Lesson: that Soul Surgery is invisible and before you know it, A New You starts blossoming inside and your heart becomes lighter and lighter and one day, you look inside the mirror and you notice you have grown new wings.

Having said that, Paris bows in front of the audience, Elena gives everyone a bright smile and somewhere in the back row, the eyes of the Blue Dog sparkle.

Text & Art: Laura Livia Grigore

Healing. A magical story for cheerful hearts (5)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to our Advanced Soul Concepts Laboratories. I am Doctor Elena Heart, Healer and Chief Soul Surgeon at the Soul Transformation Clinic.

Today we will perform a live Soul Anatomy Lesson, which is broadcasted live on all our Soul Channels. So please give a shout-out to your friends to open up their hearts and tune-in to our frequency.
From a historical perspective, the Anatomy Lessons, presented as public shows in theatres, were extremely popular in the 17th Century, and originate in the Dutch town of Leiden. They were captured on canvas by Rembrandt himself.

Medicine has evolved meanwhile and it is possible to have accurate brain content descriptions in the forms of graphs, depicting the brain wave response to stimuli of various kinds, either external or internal. But humanity hasn’t fully agreed yet if there is a little man, sitting on a chair somewhere around, inside our heads or our hearts, who is responsible for our Free Will and therefore can be held accountable for our actions. At his best, he sits in the pre-frontal cortex and makes complex decisions based on information given by his complex network. But the little man is slippery and sometimes moves around. If the little man is afraid, he makes decisions out of fear. If he is in love, he makes decisions out of love. If he embodies a marine creatures living in the depth of the ocean, his whole body becomes a sensitive decision-making organ, changing colours for his mate or enemy on the spot, according to each of his intelligent cell’s decision.

So the little man is a bit elusive and makes his appearance in all kinds of costumes. My guess would be that after we manage to fully catch the little man and we start analyzing him thoroughly, we will discover there’s another little man inside him and so on and so. A Matrioska little man! The little man is actually trying to keep us busy, thinking.

(Dr Elena Heart laughs loudly and somewhere in the public, the eyes of Patient Paris sparkle)

Regarding the little man, he made several appearances in literature as well. It was the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa who introduced us to an entire army of little men, as his soul appeared to be multiplying. “Appeared” is the key word here, as the entire structure was kept in place by Fernando Pessoa himself. We can conclude we have a good example of an Advanced Soul Concept. The topic is very broad, so I will not expand it here, you can further read about this in my new book, “Advanced Soul Concepts, How to reach Soulful Scientific Agreements.”

In what concerns the Anatomy Lesson of today, I would like to invite on stage Mr. Paris, Reporter for Soul Science Magazine and Future Soul Surgeon, who will be my assistant during the experiment.

Healing. A magical story for cheerful hearts (4)

Paris willfully admitted himself to the Soul Transformation Clinic of renowned Soul Surgeon and Healer Doctor Elena Heart, despite not having other severe symptoms, besides increased heart rate and pupil dilatation. He hopefully follows her around and accepts the honey spoonfuls and tickles, while simultaneously fending Him off, Him-Who-Has-Become-His-Worst-Enemy: the orange cat!! Paris is prepared at any time to hear the crystal bell ring and Doctor Heart’s laughter, chanting the magic mantra: “Please undress and prepare, now we will perform Soul Surgery.”

But Doctor Elena Heart seems to be a in a grim mood today: ” We have trouble with the Spirit of the Blue Dog. It’s very hard to catch his elusive spirit in a thorough Soulgram. So we tried to check his soul history and my colleagues from The Soul Surgery Clinic in Colombia sent us some very interesting findings. It was actually a full dossier, including One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love In The Time of Cholera.”

The reporter from the Soul Science Magazine, now known by the name of Patient Paris, tries to cheer her up: “Forget the Blue Dog. Do you like butterflies, Elena?” and attempts to tickle her with a peacock feather.

Elena giggles and retreats: “Yes, I like butterflies. And I see you fastly adopted my methods, you are a very good student! Soon you will become a better Soul Surgeon then me.” Having said that, she leaves the Theater Room, heading straight to the Advanced Soul Concepts Laboratory to prepare for the Live Soul Anatomy Lesson.

Paris sighs, thinking: ” But I am not student, I am patient… Maybe tomorrow I get Soul Surgery…” and exits the scene, heading straight to the Wonders of the World Market, to procure 77 Amazonian butterflies.

Text and art: Laura Livia Grigore