Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Noodle soup.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

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$1: most theories of consciousness still put the human being at the center of it all / that[i]s my problem with them / and i don[o]t like it / it[i]s like thinking the sun revolves around the earth because you observe it to be such / the theories haven[o]t matured in the thought processes / these theories they have now are put out to make the human being feel important // what i[a]m saying is that / from a cosmic perspective the difference between humans and mold or bacteria is insignificant / it[i]s like / nothing // in fact / look at yeast / it can raise bread // <1 can the human being raise bread >1 / <2 what can humans do compared to yeast >2 / nothing / at some level / humans are not much better than a virus / destructive and eating everything in sight / and if we can do better / we[a]re not showing that we can do better / the general consciousness of humanity is going downhill // this somewhat has to do with technology / globalization / and the interconnectedness of everything / too much too fast / inequality gaps increasing between groups of people / and people feel it / they get disenfranchised

In the highly globalised city of Singapore, strong conservative social traditions continue to prevail when it comes to cohabitation and partnership. Here, as an example of old meets new, East meets West, the ornate roof tops of Singapore’s oldest Taoist temple, the Yueh Hai Ching Temple meet the modern glass walls of skyscrapers in Philip Street in Singapore’s Central Business District.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

“Being married is so great, it’s so fantastic, it would be such an achievement to be married.”

That line came from a young woman who sat in a café that served French baguettes and kaffe latte to brunch not just two weeks ago, in Sweden. She grew up in Asia. She was highly qualified in academic credentials and currently has an ascending career in finance. But she’s in her late twenties and it was the general vibe from all back home in Asia, that it was about time she settled down and got married. Her parents were willing to engage a matchmaker to arrange a marriage if that was what it took to get her ‘settled down’ and feeling accomplished as a woman.

Stockholm Strömmen.
Stockholm is one of Europe’s five fastest growing cities and is the first European Green Capital 2010.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2014

Many years ago I watched a man restore an antique wooden door. He had first carefully sanded it down to its original paint layer, til it was soft enough to run your hand over it, til you could feel the warmth of the wood at its core. To get the door to match the rest of the interior of the house, he then began by adding a thin layer of linseed oil. Each brush stroke was carefully calculated in pressure, length and weight.

I soon realized that he carried with him a tacit knowledge that not many others had. But more than tacit knowledge was also a genuine interest in what he was doing. He breathed life back into an antique door that most others would have thrown away and replaced with a brand new one from Bauhaus. He worked with undivided attention and as I watched, I pondered who else would ever come to appreciate the efforts? What came through clearly was that the care he put into that antique door was also a personality trait that you could see run through almost all other things he did.

I realized that this door might well outlive us both, at the cost of some linseed oil.