I understand oh, really? or maybe I do pretend, while I understand nothing, I keep writing nonsenses thinking it may help me to understand anything your embarrassment: first of all there should be a board with the names of all exchangeable currencies and there's nothing of that kind. And besides the names there should be numbers presented, the numbers telling you what is the value of one currency in relation to the others, what is the exchange rate or how many units of one currency one has to give (or pay) to get (or buy) one unit of another currency. These were the numbers that used to make everybody (or almost everybody) so excited since they decided, of course to some extent, whether we could feel and behave in a visited country like the rich or like the poor or even like almost beggars. Very emotional stuff, indeed. However, due to various consequences and results of these emotions it's hard to consider them healthy. But if I used the metaphor of a stick (and carrot), a nasty sickness would ambush at the other end of the stick, because those very few who paid no attention to the numbers and the numbers had no impact on them, could not be given as an example of really healthy people and if they could (although their good health would be the result of different circumstances not related to the numbers mentioned above), they would suffer a lot of other disasters and deserve a label of the unfortunates ....... Well, I'm afraid I keep writing nonsenses, as usually, so I'm coming back quickly to the numbers, hoping they, as something so concrete, clear and obvious, should dissuade me from such a nonsense writing. Yet I can't be more wrong for they are but imaginary numbers. Absolutely and undoubtedly. Although even phantoms and delusions can be used as bricks good to build of them very logical and non-imaginary systems, it is highly recommended to remember till the very end or as long as possible – sooner or later everybody will forget it and if somebody will not, or due to some bizarre circumstances and coincidences will suddenly and unexpectedly realize it, he will be considered a madman, an insane or at least a joker, a comic, a clown who could entertain people all over the world making them laugh to tears – well, here he should be careful, really very careful 'cause people might get blind due to the abundance of tears or even much worse: they might crack up laughing, explode, and it would not be nice, oh, it would be something really very nasty, just imagine the hall after such a show – yuck! - so please stop imagining, just remember a film telling the story of the Earth invaded by cunning Martians ..... eventually they were defeated by people, quite primitive creatures in fact, with the help from an awful song: the Martians couldn't stand it and their brains closed in big transparent balls exploded, however it was not clear whether these stunning and funny explosions took place due to the awfulness and kitschness of the song or maybe just exactly that combination of sound waves dilated abruptly the tissue liquids and caused the unusual vibrations of greenish substances that this gorgeous edifice is made of delusions: delusions are its foundations, delusions are its walls and delusions are its roof (we have to remember also that minus and minus makes plus while plus and plus don't make minus) ...... Let's take for example an oak leaf. How many maple leaves is worth one oak leaf? The situation is more complex than expected, because there are different oak leaves, in fact there are no two identical oak leaves, however we can assume that the colour, size, thickness, form, pattern, dye, suppleness, pliancy and some other features are not important for the value of leaves, the only important feature is an oakness of this leaf, what is a real bullshit with no doubt – but wouldn't we be taken aback if a foreign currency cashier told us he would pay us less because the banknotes were worn out? Somebody will say: five. Someone else will ask: why just five? Somebody will answer: there's a rule of supply and demand and it says something is worth only what someone is ready to pay for it. Then someone else will add: but don't forget people are mostly ready to pay nothing and get everything for free, which can make us conclude everything is worth nothing, thus prices are sheer fantasy, just a primitive speculation. And someone else will also add: we must remember that supply and demand appear later – just imagine: a new state has emerged and imposes a new currency that nobody knows and nobody demands and in the very first announcement they can hear: the price of one liber (let it be liber) is five ..... where does this five come from? ..... It's clear what's going on later, but the beginning ..... Always troubles with the beginnings. The easiest way to solve this problem is to declare there are no beginnings ..... And there's no board, either. It wouldn't have any sense to put such a board while the rates jump easily from zero to infinity, rates entirely vague and indeterminable, depending only on someone's mood and whim – all pieces of information would be absolutely useless. And how about the names? Yes, names would be very interesting. Well, there could be only names ..... But you can try to imagine another place, entirely different venue. Not a tidy, almost immaculately clean room filled with electronic devices, but an open space, more open than a court, yard or street is – maybe a road, maybe a route, maybe a path, or maybe a vast meadow, steppe, even a desert ...... and a bench – big bench – not very wide, well, just a bench, but not very narrow too – a man could lay on it and sleep, although he would need to be nimble enough and trained a bit, used to sleeping that way – the bench would be wide enough to put on it not only a human body but plenty of various things and objects, on both sides, one opposite another, as if ready to be exchanged ...... but bearing in mind the enormous variety of currencies and their horrifying changeability, as well as the fact nobody would ever know which currency were in effect this very day liber is a free currency and free currency has absolutely unpredictable parameters the bench should be incredibly long, maybe even infinite, thus difficult to be made, very difficult, unfeasible, and if so, if unfeasible, let us not make it, everything can be put directly on the ground, on the grass, among flowers ..... And if there are flowers among the collected objects? And grass blades? If somebody will want to exchange shamrocks for daises? We will face a danger of mixing and confusion. The currency units will mix up. Then they will be mixed up. And that's all. We will have a state of confusion. But this will be an extreme case. The oak leaves will not get mixed up. Nor maple leaves. Nor ash tree leaves. Nor apple tree leaves. But the leaves belonging to different varieties of apples can get mixed up. Wow! What a road! With no beginning and no end. Like every road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rose petals | | aster petals little sticks | | little cones birch bark sheets | | old vinyls flat triangular stones | | mp4s potato peals | | apple cores dead flies | | defunct spiders freshwater mussel shells | | Roman snail conchs morning dew drops | | dried mud clods morning frost | | woolly clouds wee hours wakings | | late night sleepings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What can I see? I can see but names. Just names. Words. That's good. Let them be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . first gulp of just brewed tea | | second gulp of just brewed tea fourth gulp of just brewed tea | | third dip of lips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . black night outside | | rain rain rain vanishing snow flakes | | violent wind blow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a telephone bill not yet paid | | an invitation for an exhibition a film not yet seen | | a song not yet sung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You would like to add something. Or you are expecting adding will be a rule. Then this path would be getting longer and longer like those real ones trodden in the grass. Nothing like that. No way. No. No added words or phrases. Remember, you are in the land where writing books is as welcome as adding notes and comment in the margins, underlining and highlighting are not. It's very interesting: people so casually and carelessly and willingly scribble all over books while they don't scribble at all over pictures hanging on the walls, even if they are cheap and poor quality printed copies. Nor they add any sounds to the music on tapes or records, what is possible although not as easy as scribbling on paper ...... Oh! So many words! Who cares about words. How much is one word worth? How many pears is a word “apple” worth?