The spring brought a lot of excitement, a kind of flutter in the air. Less clothes to carry around, new shoes, the flowers...
The first urban flowers I remember were the Forsythias
http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/viewsingleimage.html?mode=singleimage&handle=NodWag&number=27
Not the most spectacular, but when in out park the bushes turned yellow, it was spring for sure. We always brought back three small flowered branches- and always talked about how it was not allowed to take flowers from the park... yet the flowered branches lighted up the room and the winter had to leave the house.
Spring cleaning meant that is warm enough to take the carpets out and wash the thick window drapes - they would dry and catch the fresh air of the outside in between their fibers. March was tricky and it could always turn a bit colder, so we hunted down the best day for spring cleaning and changed the atmosphere in the house.
The parks were the main attraction. From one day to another the leaves would push through their buds and the flowers would fill the trees. They competed with one another to flower, yet they lasted longer that today, once blossomed...
The sky was clear, and the next destination was the farmers' market. Green onions, red radishes, lettuce and spinach... the market was wet and noisy and brought the smells of the earth into the city. I did not particularly like some of the edible spring signs, but there could be no discussion about it... Even more exotic salads like the ones made from baby daffodil leaves were on the table. Then the new spring potatoes, boiled, salted, prepared with butter and dill. Then the new tomatoes, heavenly with the salted shepherds' cheese, if there was any left from the winter.
The fruits were more like the beginning of the summer.
The sweet smell of linden flowers was the month of May.
The long walks in the warm sun, the feeling of being new altogether, like the entire nature.
The afternoons were not so happy, they reminded us of the winter, still a bit too close. In the house, the rooms were almost in the dark, yet it was light enough for eating... it was a bit cold too, compared with getting out in the sun during the day. the room had an echo.
The ladybugs and another red and black bugs invaded the paths in the park.
It was spring and no one was in a hurry - not even nature.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Work
Via the same site quoted in my last post : "hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do" (Oscar Wilde).
I would say these words are witty. I would also add that I used to know and still do know quite a few persons to whom these apply.
Moreover, I would extend this nugget of truth to a present truth: after decades of brainwashing people into the idea that work is a must, a natural requirement and a duty, even if it turns out not to be the right work for a person, not the activity sprung out of his or her talent, we now live in a society that for the masses is made by workaholics and creates workaholics.
Maybe the link is a simple psychological step: an empty life pushes a person towards an unhealthy addiction for work, after which, by a mean, robotic effect, the standards of time spent working are set by this type of persons, thus leading to empty lives for those who would not have had such alienations.
What do I mainly remember about my working parents? That usually they were... not there. Time went by, and they were working and working, until my feelings of something missing turned into indifference. And it was the same for many of my friends.
Why are some hating so much what makes people better? Spending time with one's family, getting bored sometimes, celebrating through the year, taking a walk in the park, slowing down the hectic crazy rhythms of today's life...
It is a huge lie that people should be extremely busy while working because there is no alternative. There are professions which require a presence per time duration, indeed. one cannot do his job and then go home because he fulfilled his duty for that day, even if he managed to be very skilled and did what one had to do quickly - in some jobs. In these positions the full days of work should be compensated by free days, by alternating with a job partner.
But most of the jobs, the huge mass of the less qualified jobs, presume tasks that can be completed quicker by certain individuals. An average worker would do the standard amount of work in X hours. but if one does it in X minus t, why not let him go home for the day, if the job is well done?
Because it would create a precedent in flexibility and freedom. I read somewhere that the Nordic countries are actually trying such different approaches to work. But such news are unpopular, they are barely seen in the spotlight, they might give ideas to the people so hardly forged by the evil twins: socialism and capitalism.
Better make fixed amount of work per fixed number of hours, and if someone is managing to get everything done quicker, keep him at work to get bored and to use his time in vain, or (the modern management idea) throw some more work at him, taking advantage of vague contract provisions and of the power position the employer is in in such "crisis" times...
Thus the personal life is turned into dust permanently, the classes are kept separated by falsely created privileges (the mere worker is glued to his post so many hours, while the manager is mobile, yet has to account - officially- for his whereabouts). The rich dad can, if he makes a mentality effort - spend more time with his kids, the poor dad barely has quality time to spend with them. The firm has to consume electricity and space to cover for all the exaggerated task-time work dynamics.
Some, giving more freedom to their employees, give them work to do wherever, if the activity permits: at home, in the park and so on. Not supplementary work, just work. As long as you deliver on time, you can choose where you function better. Reciprocal advantage. You use your home electricity to power the computer, but you can watch your kids playing in yard in the same time.
Caring for people and growing intelligent future generations apparently is labeled as a luxury. Not many states are bothering to try human approaches to work. Most just apply the street rules and push around some paperwork to pretend they are supporting the human rights. And the "human rights" package, actually mocked enough in the modern society aka counting in the bigger more developed states and being just a prop in the less powerful ones, should be a minimum, not something for granted, never to be surpassed...
Why bother to even talk about state policy - some think. A new decoy is trendy nowadays, the idea that the state is expected to do nothing because the citizens have taken it upon themselves to manage their problems, individually or in smaller communities. I would say it is a nice idea for a theory, yet a very transparent excuse for the faults of the state and those who are "milking" the state's budget remains... and the purpose is to make it seem like it is the wish of the people.
Who knows, soon the people will be convinced it is their idea, considering that this mantra of "managing ourselves" is repeated with the same dedication with which the socialist and corporatist ideas were repeated, straight into the minds of everyone.
Work should be healthy, in equilibrium with free time, and with family time. For family time is not quite free time, it is a separate type of work, forging the future through the new generations. And free time gives adults energy for both.
The best work scheme turns talent and skill into activity and rewards efficiency instead of punishing it, on all levels. An unskilled worker can come up with a new solution as much as a boss, each in his own way, and each good thing should be rewarded. And the option of taking free time should be right there, available as a reward.
Where do the ideas of "one is normal to hate his work" or "one has to suffer professionally if he if he has a family" come from? Why are they so viral? Why nowadays it is non important if someone is a drunk or an immoral person, but it is a problem if one has family obligations, in the sense that many jobs are fit with "socially free" persons rather than parents or grandparents?
Maybe the legal frame tells a different story, but when one feels ashamed to ask for some time off work because one's kids require it, while others are proud to take free time to go to the concerts or to go shopping or cure drunken headaches, the position of society over the private life via the work regime seems to tell in fact quite another thing, scripted by the people who really have nothing to do at home or in the middle of their families.
I would say these words are witty. I would also add that I used to know and still do know quite a few persons to whom these apply.
Moreover, I would extend this nugget of truth to a present truth: after decades of brainwashing people into the idea that work is a must, a natural requirement and a duty, even if it turns out not to be the right work for a person, not the activity sprung out of his or her talent, we now live in a society that for the masses is made by workaholics and creates workaholics.
Maybe the link is a simple psychological step: an empty life pushes a person towards an unhealthy addiction for work, after which, by a mean, robotic effect, the standards of time spent working are set by this type of persons, thus leading to empty lives for those who would not have had such alienations.
What do I mainly remember about my working parents? That usually they were... not there. Time went by, and they were working and working, until my feelings of something missing turned into indifference. And it was the same for many of my friends.
Why are some hating so much what makes people better? Spending time with one's family, getting bored sometimes, celebrating through the year, taking a walk in the park, slowing down the hectic crazy rhythms of today's life...
It is a huge lie that people should be extremely busy while working because there is no alternative. There are professions which require a presence per time duration, indeed. one cannot do his job and then go home because he fulfilled his duty for that day, even if he managed to be very skilled and did what one had to do quickly - in some jobs. In these positions the full days of work should be compensated by free days, by alternating with a job partner.
But most of the jobs, the huge mass of the less qualified jobs, presume tasks that can be completed quicker by certain individuals. An average worker would do the standard amount of work in X hours. but if one does it in X minus t, why not let him go home for the day, if the job is well done?
Because it would create a precedent in flexibility and freedom. I read somewhere that the Nordic countries are actually trying such different approaches to work. But such news are unpopular, they are barely seen in the spotlight, they might give ideas to the people so hardly forged by the evil twins: socialism and capitalism.
Better make fixed amount of work per fixed number of hours, and if someone is managing to get everything done quicker, keep him at work to get bored and to use his time in vain, or (the modern management idea) throw some more work at him, taking advantage of vague contract provisions and of the power position the employer is in in such "crisis" times...
Thus the personal life is turned into dust permanently, the classes are kept separated by falsely created privileges (the mere worker is glued to his post so many hours, while the manager is mobile, yet has to account - officially- for his whereabouts). The rich dad can, if he makes a mentality effort - spend more time with his kids, the poor dad barely has quality time to spend with them. The firm has to consume electricity and space to cover for all the exaggerated task-time work dynamics.
Some, giving more freedom to their employees, give them work to do wherever, if the activity permits: at home, in the park and so on. Not supplementary work, just work. As long as you deliver on time, you can choose where you function better. Reciprocal advantage. You use your home electricity to power the computer, but you can watch your kids playing in yard in the same time.
Caring for people and growing intelligent future generations apparently is labeled as a luxury. Not many states are bothering to try human approaches to work. Most just apply the street rules and push around some paperwork to pretend they are supporting the human rights. And the "human rights" package, actually mocked enough in the modern society aka counting in the bigger more developed states and being just a prop in the less powerful ones, should be a minimum, not something for granted, never to be surpassed...
Why bother to even talk about state policy - some think. A new decoy is trendy nowadays, the idea that the state is expected to do nothing because the citizens have taken it upon themselves to manage their problems, individually or in smaller communities. I would say it is a nice idea for a theory, yet a very transparent excuse for the faults of the state and those who are "milking" the state's budget remains... and the purpose is to make it seem like it is the wish of the people.
Who knows, soon the people will be convinced it is their idea, considering that this mantra of "managing ourselves" is repeated with the same dedication with which the socialist and corporatist ideas were repeated, straight into the minds of everyone.
Work should be healthy, in equilibrium with free time, and with family time. For family time is not quite free time, it is a separate type of work, forging the future through the new generations. And free time gives adults energy for both.
The best work scheme turns talent and skill into activity and rewards efficiency instead of punishing it, on all levels. An unskilled worker can come up with a new solution as much as a boss, each in his own way, and each good thing should be rewarded. And the option of taking free time should be right there, available as a reward.
Where do the ideas of "one is normal to hate his work" or "one has to suffer professionally if he if he has a family" come from? Why are they so viral? Why nowadays it is non important if someone is a drunk or an immoral person, but it is a problem if one has family obligations, in the sense that many jobs are fit with "socially free" persons rather than parents or grandparents?
Maybe the legal frame tells a different story, but when one feels ashamed to ask for some time off work because one's kids require it, while others are proud to take free time to go to the concerts or to go shopping or cure drunken headaches, the position of society over the private life via the work regime seems to tell in fact quite another thing, scripted by the people who really have nothing to do at home or in the middle of their families.
Monday, 4 March 2013
Could have...
http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/44516026387/i-could-have-done-something-with-my-time-today
This is not a positive site, starting with the title. There is a long line of advice stating that one must run away from negativity, renounce pessimist friends and toss the lost-in-translation-feeling-sites, movies or music. I partially agree with this.
But then, what if, when we return to reality, to the daily chores and urban or rural life around us, the feeling that strikes back is exactly the feeling of a site like this?
It is a vicious circle: go to reality to get a feeling that makes one turn to the virtual reality that after a while throws one back into reality looking for happiness and getting a feeling that...
Where in this circle of things have many of us lost the genuine sentiment that we are living a life, our life, as it was meant to be?
I think blaming the digital world is a fake blame, since many years I did not have a computer, and yet I used to feel year after year how people grow apart from each other ant the outdoors landscapes become uglier and more like an enemy of well being than a friend.
Of course, there are the other type of people, who do not actually care much for the outside: they base their perception on their inner world, be it for the good or the bad. They seem not to notice how the cities have grown and became uglier, how the people are more distant, how friendly plant species have retreated from the urban zone or even the rural spaces... they are mostly driven by what they think or what they are fooling themselves to think. And the most important means of protection for them is to stop whomever is stating the obvious, the nostalgic truth...
The freedom of expression is punished lately when it is a non-happy non-self help expression. Maybe it is not very obvious sometimes, maybe it is not a phenomenon spread all around. But if some feel like being happy is not a fake-able thing, that it must be genuine... that their current state is of nostalgia, of being lost in an unfriendly surrounding, must others ban them for such a feeling?
I wonder.
This is not a positive site, starting with the title. There is a long line of advice stating that one must run away from negativity, renounce pessimist friends and toss the lost-in-translation-feeling-sites, movies or music. I partially agree with this.
But then, what if, when we return to reality, to the daily chores and urban or rural life around us, the feeling that strikes back is exactly the feeling of a site like this?
It is a vicious circle: go to reality to get a feeling that makes one turn to the virtual reality that after a while throws one back into reality looking for happiness and getting a feeling that...
Where in this circle of things have many of us lost the genuine sentiment that we are living a life, our life, as it was meant to be?
I think blaming the digital world is a fake blame, since many years I did not have a computer, and yet I used to feel year after year how people grow apart from each other ant the outdoors landscapes become uglier and more like an enemy of well being than a friend.
Of course, there are the other type of people, who do not actually care much for the outside: they base their perception on their inner world, be it for the good or the bad. They seem not to notice how the cities have grown and became uglier, how the people are more distant, how friendly plant species have retreated from the urban zone or even the rural spaces... they are mostly driven by what they think or what they are fooling themselves to think. And the most important means of protection for them is to stop whomever is stating the obvious, the nostalgic truth...
The freedom of expression is punished lately when it is a non-happy non-self help expression. Maybe it is not very obvious sometimes, maybe it is not a phenomenon spread all around. But if some feel like being happy is not a fake-able thing, that it must be genuine... that their current state is of nostalgia, of being lost in an unfriendly surrounding, must others ban them for such a feeling?
I wonder.
Sunday, 17 February 2013
The parallel history
History is taught without being in accordance with the cultural and philosophical trends of the last century and more. If it weren't, then it would enclose the relativity dimension. Not all things seemingly universally agreed upon become true. The older events were recorded by the winners, not always (or never?) accurately. The newer events are not even clear they are completely accurately reported throughout the world from their moment of existence, and so on.
In an absurd attempt of connecting the dots (from the point of view of classic history), one could sum up the humanity's history in a few huge, power driven and weird lines. A long relay race has been ravaging the earth, having for participants the great conquerors, power-driven nations, very harsh, very masculine dwellers: Mesopotamia, then Egypt, the Greeks (or more like the conquering-of-the-world-obsessed Alexander the Great), the very creepy Romans, then the Asian, Arabic and Northern conquerors, the Empires to be who took over from the Ex-Roman Empire and its conquerors: Spanish, English, Russian... their new partners and descendants the Americans... whatever "great" power could the history teacher name, it shared a common point with a similar predecessor power or its philosophy, it claimed a continuance. All "civilization bringers", all gatherers of treasures, abstract treasures like jewels or gold (which cannot be eaten), all having slaves, all inventors of various abstract things, pushing forward the limits and the cruelties of the human race.
This long line can arouse all sorts of questions, thousands of "why?"-s and "what for?"-s. And we are not even beginning to follow the same old trend in the modern and contemporary history. Maybe the unified answer would be stupid or amazing. We would never know because the history was invented and is still being taught as a set of fixed facts, chosen to be presented in a certain way and repeated until they infuse the collective mind of the people as such. not really a matter of questioning and being curious. Although, in time, some different facts have pushed through the official set of historical landmarks. The truth has a certain way of being imperishable. It's just that the human life is short and a generation cannot wait forever to understand the real "why"-s and "what for"-s and "who"-s in its history...
The meaning is a bit more than the truth.It implies the ability of synthesizing the truth, once it is at one's disposal. The humans are driven towards the meaning. But without the important lines of the truth, it all gets lost into irrelevant directions and into a sea of not so meaningful facts. Of course, all is important in the life of this great organism called humanity. But not in its big picture. The repetitive pattern are a way of underlining some important parts. But it gives us no clue in the direction of good or bad. Is the obsession for symbols, or for gold good, truthful for the humans, or not? Are those artificial elements? Clearly we can't eat symbols or gold, they do not serve to the simple needs of the creatures we are. Is there a "but" here, or not?
In an absurd attempt of connecting the dots (from the point of view of classic history), one could sum up the humanity's history in a few huge, power driven and weird lines. A long relay race has been ravaging the earth, having for participants the great conquerors, power-driven nations, very harsh, very masculine dwellers: Mesopotamia, then Egypt, the Greeks (or more like the conquering-of-the-world-obsessed Alexander the Great), the very creepy Romans, then the Asian, Arabic and Northern conquerors, the Empires to be who took over from the Ex-Roman Empire and its conquerors: Spanish, English, Russian... their new partners and descendants the Americans... whatever "great" power could the history teacher name, it shared a common point with a similar predecessor power or its philosophy, it claimed a continuance. All "civilization bringers", all gatherers of treasures, abstract treasures like jewels or gold (which cannot be eaten), all having slaves, all inventors of various abstract things, pushing forward the limits and the cruelties of the human race.
This long line can arouse all sorts of questions, thousands of "why?"-s and "what for?"-s. And we are not even beginning to follow the same old trend in the modern and contemporary history. Maybe the unified answer would be stupid or amazing. We would never know because the history was invented and is still being taught as a set of fixed facts, chosen to be presented in a certain way and repeated until they infuse the collective mind of the people as such. not really a matter of questioning and being curious. Although, in time, some different facts have pushed through the official set of historical landmarks. The truth has a certain way of being imperishable. It's just that the human life is short and a generation cannot wait forever to understand the real "why"-s and "what for"-s and "who"-s in its history...
The meaning is a bit more than the truth.It implies the ability of synthesizing the truth, once it is at one's disposal. The humans are driven towards the meaning. But without the important lines of the truth, it all gets lost into irrelevant directions and into a sea of not so meaningful facts. Of course, all is important in the life of this great organism called humanity. But not in its big picture. The repetitive pattern are a way of underlining some important parts. But it gives us no clue in the direction of good or bad. Is the obsession for symbols, or for gold good, truthful for the humans, or not? Are those artificial elements? Clearly we can't eat symbols or gold, they do not serve to the simple needs of the creatures we are. Is there a "but" here, or not?
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Dick van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show and the modern sitcoms
Having watched at least partially some older sitcoms like the ones mentioned in the title, besides their old-fashioned charm, it seems obvious (to come back to an older theme, where I discussed the resemblance between older and modern actors) that the jokes and plots are often to be found in the newer sitcoms, like Seinfeld and Friends, aka newer and famous sitcoms.
I suppose it all comes from the old tradition of Borscht Belt entertainment, and that type of humor just gets updated with time. Or that it gets harder and harder to be original nowadays. The modern humor, nevertheless likable, is more a result of a mending process that of a creation process. It figures, since life gets somehow sadder and more monotonous by decade. With all the politically correctness obsession, the tolerance and the "being good and unoffensive" dogmas, the original humor has a hard life in our times...
Examples: the gag with one character having a bath and the others coming in on his relaxing moment and turning it into an embarrassing, funny one - in MTM season 7 and in Friends; the idea of a character who finally writes down his memoirs/ life and they actually become the sitcom we are watching - in DvD Show and in Seinfeld; the presence of a witty character which "zings" the other with his sharp and mean observations and who suffers when he must pause this habit - MTM Show (Murray and Ted) and Friends (Chandler and his New Year Resolution). The connections are frequent and punctual. Often one can exclaim: "just like in X or Y series!". They are hard to remember once a lot are gathered, that it why they pass into the "movie world subconscious".
This is a term I made up in order to denominate that area in our thoughts were all the movie experiences, all the empathic impressions we gather from the cinematographic experience, all the preconceptions related to some facial type or other resulting from a certain casting stereotype that we resent from seeing this or that movie gather and form a base we are hardly aware of, but which acts in the way that we suddenly feel attracted of repulsed by some places, ideas or people without having had any real previous experience on which those reactions would be based. We are in fact reacting to a false experience gathered from the cinematographic culture we have been exposed to.
I suppose it all comes from the old tradition of Borscht Belt entertainment, and that type of humor just gets updated with time. Or that it gets harder and harder to be original nowadays. The modern humor, nevertheless likable, is more a result of a mending process that of a creation process. It figures, since life gets somehow sadder and more monotonous by decade. With all the politically correctness obsession, the tolerance and the "being good and unoffensive" dogmas, the original humor has a hard life in our times...
Examples: the gag with one character having a bath and the others coming in on his relaxing moment and turning it into an embarrassing, funny one - in MTM season 7 and in Friends; the idea of a character who finally writes down his memoirs/ life and they actually become the sitcom we are watching - in DvD Show and in Seinfeld; the presence of a witty character which "zings" the other with his sharp and mean observations and who suffers when he must pause this habit - MTM Show (Murray and Ted) and Friends (Chandler and his New Year Resolution). The connections are frequent and punctual. Often one can exclaim: "just like in X or Y series!". They are hard to remember once a lot are gathered, that it why they pass into the "movie world subconscious".
This is a term I made up in order to denominate that area in our thoughts were all the movie experiences, all the empathic impressions we gather from the cinematographic experience, all the preconceptions related to some facial type or other resulting from a certain casting stereotype that we resent from seeing this or that movie gather and form a base we are hardly aware of, but which acts in the way that we suddenly feel attracted of repulsed by some places, ideas or people without having had any real previous experience on which those reactions would be based. We are in fact reacting to a false experience gathered from the cinematographic culture we have been exposed to.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Is silence stupid or golden?
This is a dilemma quickly dismissed by - to quote the previous post- our best toy from these days. Silence is horrible for the digital medium, no comments, no blogs, vlogs and other daily displays of show-off-ism, no posts, no feedback... the lack of passivity is a necessary act in the commercial go around of modern society. "Express yourself" is a slogan pushed to its limits, emptied of almost all its valuable content.
The silents therefore are maybe poor (aka have no access to the worldwide communication), maybe stupid (have nothing to say), maybe just feeling alien to this huge huge world full of people who are crowding the wires or the wireless in order to express themselves.
Looking for meaning in a culture which has broken this notion into pieces... tough. No one personality, no one talent, instead the power of the many "heterogeneous" voices. The meaning is pumped up, lobbied for, publicized, until we're not sure anymore if it means something important or not.Almost everything one may think of has been thought or done, previously or simultaneously, in another part of the world. Big sigh.
Yet this is parallel to life. In nature no flower is identical to another. A second can turn worlds around. The false meaningless, the false noise, the been there-done it all is just an illusion. I may chat with someone from the other side of the globe, yet I do not feel how he or she is, what life that person has, I cannot smell the air from out there... this would be the open paradox.
The sad and closed paradox is when, having a person face to face, you feel the need to close the chat window. When all you get are just clichés, phrases copied, false ideas, wishful thinking. When the air of the encounter wreaks of... digital.
Silence is sometimes needed to protect us from the truth that so many people are astray and will not even admit it. From hearing the same old stuff, from seeing the deceit as clear as an oil painting, standing on the wall between us.
Then we talk, just because it has been repeated to us that is is socially polite and normal and healthy to talk, chatter, gossip, fill the gap, blabber, express ourselves, create, debate, stand up for some idea, make others feel comfortable, seem adequate and intelligent...
The silents therefore are maybe poor (aka have no access to the worldwide communication), maybe stupid (have nothing to say), maybe just feeling alien to this huge huge world full of people who are crowding the wires or the wireless in order to express themselves.
Looking for meaning in a culture which has broken this notion into pieces... tough. No one personality, no one talent, instead the power of the many "heterogeneous" voices. The meaning is pumped up, lobbied for, publicized, until we're not sure anymore if it means something important or not.Almost everything one may think of has been thought or done, previously or simultaneously, in another part of the world. Big sigh.
Yet this is parallel to life. In nature no flower is identical to another. A second can turn worlds around. The false meaningless, the false noise, the been there-done it all is just an illusion. I may chat with someone from the other side of the globe, yet I do not feel how he or she is, what life that person has, I cannot smell the air from out there... this would be the open paradox.
The sad and closed paradox is when, having a person face to face, you feel the need to close the chat window. When all you get are just clichés, phrases copied, false ideas, wishful thinking. When the air of the encounter wreaks of... digital.
Silence is sometimes needed to protect us from the truth that so many people are astray and will not even admit it. From hearing the same old stuff, from seeing the deceit as clear as an oil painting, standing on the wall between us.
Then we talk, just because it has been repeated to us that is is socially polite and normal and healthy to talk, chatter, gossip, fill the gap, blabber, express ourselves, create, debate, stand up for some idea, make others feel comfortable, seem adequate and intelligent...
Monday, 31 December 2012
Greatest toy ever made
The slinky was invented by an engineer... all those those studies blooming into a toy!
The Internet is kind of the same, a serious thing turned into a toy by the millions of people that give it this purpose. it is the most versatile toy ever... its only flaw is that it cannot be felt, touched, it is mono dimensional.
Probably some serious adults are planning right now to confiscate it, one way or another...
Aren't toys always used as a means to condition the kids who became too independent?
Yet it will remain in our lives or in our memory as the greatest toy ever made... at least in the minds of those who were childish enough to take it as such, for laughs, pictures, games and stories.
It Chaucer was saying in Napoleon of Notting Hill that God may have created the world as a joke, yet the people transformed it by taking the joke seriously... then the Internet might have been created as a serious matter by some grumpy adults, yet it has been transformed by the childish of us into a toy...
Happy New Year 2013, lots of laughs and play nicely!
The Internet is kind of the same, a serious thing turned into a toy by the millions of people that give it this purpose. it is the most versatile toy ever... its only flaw is that it cannot be felt, touched, it is mono dimensional.
Probably some serious adults are planning right now to confiscate it, one way or another...
Aren't toys always used as a means to condition the kids who became too independent?
Yet it will remain in our lives or in our memory as the greatest toy ever made... at least in the minds of those who were childish enough to take it as such, for laughs, pictures, games and stories.
It Chaucer was saying in Napoleon of Notting Hill that God may have created the world as a joke, yet the people transformed it by taking the joke seriously... then the Internet might have been created as a serious matter by some grumpy adults, yet it has been transformed by the childish of us into a toy...
Happy New Year 2013, lots of laughs and play nicely!
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
What to do?
I just browsed an article about the horrendous state of the world and of the humanity. The solutions (proposed from the "higher floor"), were drastic and harsh, but given the ecological needs of the globe and the system that is about to collapse so on and so forth...
This does not sound like a honest, well intended solution plan, it just sounds as an excuse for drastic measures meant to cover the interest of a few to the detriment of many. Those many cannot be idealized either, they lack culture and are greedy and reduced maybe to the consumer state, as the plans of the last decades want them to be. But the few chosen ones are not the geniuses that need to be saved the first either. they are (or many of them are) just as greedy and materialistic as the mass of poor souls the humanity is pictured like. So this "we and the others" image does not seem at all true and in good faith.
Going back in time is not possible either, we cannot run away in the woods and start foraging and hunting. Unless a catastrophe chases people there, we must keep whatever we achieved good and go on from here on. Considering that the individual initiative either lacks, either is quickly hijacked and turned evil, yes, ladies and gentlemen, the solution must come from the alleged enemy. The big companies must be convinced to relinquish part of their control in order to heal the communities. A dead horse will not carry your weight, and a desperate penniless person will not buy and consume the goods that they sell. of course it will keep on doing that until he or she is completely penniless, but then - what?
The companies have the power, more that the states. Not showing it is just a protective measure for the already week psyche of the people, and a maneuver used in order to impose wicked stuff easier as "coming from the state". They must turn - yet the big question is how?
If a big entrepreneur really puts some effort into preserving the environment and does not cheat in this department, if they open up some schools and do not use them for brainwashing, but instead they welcome the good kind of teachers and help their work, if they eventually grow some satellite small business and allow regular people to be in charge of them, gradually the world might actually lift itself up.
Instead of going toward a weird "no leader" dictatorship of a global dimension, those who can (financially and power-wise) should pray or whatever to be able to feel what is right and what should be done, to shift towards a more human like thinking.
The snake in the tree is here the marketing and management department, the sociology and economy man-hating freaks who produce theories based on cutting the humanity more and more out of the global policies. They should be banned as they are, and someone should revolutionize this field.
The neo hippies eating roots are not the solution, they are just some dudes who simply surrender themselves based on some ideas who also come from the corporate side - the strategy department :) The over spending corporate drones are also not the solution,. they just deepen the gap between the suits and the masses...
And it is scary to think how many brainwashed people might be roaming out there deeply believing in what is not true, but has been taught to them. the religion is not the solution either, as it has been acting for too much time as a political branch, and not a good one, unfortunately.
Common sense is something that people lost on the way, maybe we should look for its real meaning and re-discover it. Why have 4 or 5 cars if you and your family can arrange to manage with just one, or maybe one and a hybrid? Why build huge houses in which lonely old bitter people end up living alone, making a hell out of each others lives? Why spent desperately in order to impress the in-laws, the friends, the people we merely know? It is not a philosophical or a religious thing to stop before it is too much, to put an outgoig gesture of helping someone else in the place of an accumulating gesture...
Even charity is mean these days, it is everywhere, yet when you need it it comes with lots of string attached, and when you want to give to it, it is also mysteriously vague and numerous times crooks have interposed in this field. Why not make it easier for those who give to be able to give or to reach those who need? It's a matter of common sense.
it is the same with people who have skills but do not use them , instead being almost poor, while those who would need their skills are forced to be content with crappy things or services.
The faults of the intermediary mediums are only serving those who try to hide their misplacement and their mediocrity. When one does something wrong, he can pass it for a good thing only via lack of comparison. The mean and mediocre are tolerated and this has proven a mistake. Not tolerating does not include violence, just a simple gesture of making things right. people should be able to do what they are best at, not wait in line because the place is taken by a fraud. The frauds should nicely be sent home to discover what they are really good at - a constructive thing.
Ooo, the theories are so slippery when it comes to humanity. And the history has proven that putting the theories into practice has over and over again lead to chaos and abnormalities. Maybe that is why no theory is really welcomed - just common sense technical solutions and the cooperation of those who really pull the strings. If they do not turn good, then it is useless, because they already have the power for which year after year they reached, grasped and grabbed. And their actions had the outcome that we see today - they should not blame it on the humanity; nobody is allowed to use its own wrongdoings as an excuse... and for other wrongdoings, also...
Note: by religion is not to be understood God, or divinity, or the universe... these are entirely something else.
Note 2: the post is too long, so I will not spell check it, hope it is pretty much lisible :)
This does not sound like a honest, well intended solution plan, it just sounds as an excuse for drastic measures meant to cover the interest of a few to the detriment of many. Those many cannot be idealized either, they lack culture and are greedy and reduced maybe to the consumer state, as the plans of the last decades want them to be. But the few chosen ones are not the geniuses that need to be saved the first either. they are (or many of them are) just as greedy and materialistic as the mass of poor souls the humanity is pictured like. So this "we and the others" image does not seem at all true and in good faith.
Going back in time is not possible either, we cannot run away in the woods and start foraging and hunting. Unless a catastrophe chases people there, we must keep whatever we achieved good and go on from here on. Considering that the individual initiative either lacks, either is quickly hijacked and turned evil, yes, ladies and gentlemen, the solution must come from the alleged enemy. The big companies must be convinced to relinquish part of their control in order to heal the communities. A dead horse will not carry your weight, and a desperate penniless person will not buy and consume the goods that they sell. of course it will keep on doing that until he or she is completely penniless, but then - what?
The companies have the power, more that the states. Not showing it is just a protective measure for the already week psyche of the people, and a maneuver used in order to impose wicked stuff easier as "coming from the state". They must turn - yet the big question is how?
If a big entrepreneur really puts some effort into preserving the environment and does not cheat in this department, if they open up some schools and do not use them for brainwashing, but instead they welcome the good kind of teachers and help their work, if they eventually grow some satellite small business and allow regular people to be in charge of them, gradually the world might actually lift itself up.
Instead of going toward a weird "no leader" dictatorship of a global dimension, those who can (financially and power-wise) should pray or whatever to be able to feel what is right and what should be done, to shift towards a more human like thinking.
The snake in the tree is here the marketing and management department, the sociology and economy man-hating freaks who produce theories based on cutting the humanity more and more out of the global policies. They should be banned as they are, and someone should revolutionize this field.
The neo hippies eating roots are not the solution, they are just some dudes who simply surrender themselves based on some ideas who also come from the corporate side - the strategy department :) The over spending corporate drones are also not the solution,. they just deepen the gap between the suits and the masses...
And it is scary to think how many brainwashed people might be roaming out there deeply believing in what is not true, but has been taught to them. the religion is not the solution either, as it has been acting for too much time as a political branch, and not a good one, unfortunately.
Common sense is something that people lost on the way, maybe we should look for its real meaning and re-discover it. Why have 4 or 5 cars if you and your family can arrange to manage with just one, or maybe one and a hybrid? Why build huge houses in which lonely old bitter people end up living alone, making a hell out of each others lives? Why spent desperately in order to impress the in-laws, the friends, the people we merely know? It is not a philosophical or a religious thing to stop before it is too much, to put an outgoig gesture of helping someone else in the place of an accumulating gesture...
Even charity is mean these days, it is everywhere, yet when you need it it comes with lots of string attached, and when you want to give to it, it is also mysteriously vague and numerous times crooks have interposed in this field. Why not make it easier for those who give to be able to give or to reach those who need? It's a matter of common sense.
it is the same with people who have skills but do not use them , instead being almost poor, while those who would need their skills are forced to be content with crappy things or services.
The faults of the intermediary mediums are only serving those who try to hide their misplacement and their mediocrity. When one does something wrong, he can pass it for a good thing only via lack of comparison. The mean and mediocre are tolerated and this has proven a mistake. Not tolerating does not include violence, just a simple gesture of making things right. people should be able to do what they are best at, not wait in line because the place is taken by a fraud. The frauds should nicely be sent home to discover what they are really good at - a constructive thing.
Ooo, the theories are so slippery when it comes to humanity. And the history has proven that putting the theories into practice has over and over again lead to chaos and abnormalities. Maybe that is why no theory is really welcomed - just common sense technical solutions and the cooperation of those who really pull the strings. If they do not turn good, then it is useless, because they already have the power for which year after year they reached, grasped and grabbed. And their actions had the outcome that we see today - they should not blame it on the humanity; nobody is allowed to use its own wrongdoings as an excuse... and for other wrongdoings, also...
Note: by religion is not to be understood God, or divinity, or the universe... these are entirely something else.
Note 2: the post is too long, so I will not spell check it, hope it is pretty much lisible :)
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
The eagerness to create
Someone once said (and it was a person who said this out of the bitterness of a life full of mistakes), that destiny is what one tries to avoid and still can't. This sprung to mind when I was eating some vegetables stew while imagining what the new press of our days should look like. In my mind I was already putting together a weekly publication and almost wrote an illustrious article... then I remembered. I remembered that I do not have the time, money or energy to waste my life with long dissertations. What if the press nowadays is big club of copy-paste with no personal contributions along the line? What if I have just read a robotic, meaningless article about a subject that could have aroused an interesting debate? The tendency is to go shorter and shorter and forget about explanations and arguments, to go to the core, to write just a few words and letters and impose one's opinion like this. So, the utopia revival of argumentation belongs exactly where I left it: in my mind, for a flash, for a few minutes... If it has some meaning in it, it will come back, to me or to some other member of humanity, more endowed to put it into practice.
From here to the title... well, there are sooo many creative debauches nowadays. That is because the once positive encouragement to enjoy our creative impulses has been turned into a way of life for soo many mediocre creators, who are more enjoying themselves than giving the opportunity to the others to bask in some art. Every little thing someone does, folding napkins, building stuff with matches, writing so and so poems now it can become art by the means of some "investment". Well, it is not. It is just a way to blur the lines between art and hobby and maybe even crap. Art is changing, but it is not going back or fragmenting itself. Craft is also a relative of art that is confronted with the same situation. There is a clear feeling that makes the difference between dilettantish and art or craft. And it is not in the eye of the viewer, it is or should be in the eye of the educated public opinion... well, as long as such a group still exists.
As for the one seeking to produce some authentic maybe-art, perhaps not being too eager to create could get one on the right path. Does the wish to create haunt you? Push it back, postpone it, refuse it. If is shows up again and again, then give it a try, it might be genuine, and not induced by a trend from a self-help book shelf, calculated to please one and and all and to score big sales.
And a few examples of misplaced creativity: http://craftastrophe.net/
Some of these slowly might become "cult" or "chic" or "fun" because of the unintended celebrity given to them not via creative intention, but via "it's so ugly that is becomes nice".
As for art, the many many critics have already stated that taste is a personal matter, and that it is not allowed to point the finger to bad art and call it so, for fear of being named obtuse or uneducated. I just might add that I would rather admire a piece of street art or some kinetic sculptures than the static contents of an art museum, but of course - beware the TASTE!
And I do not stand for any piece of art to torment the already gloomy human existence - art better make one feel good and sublim-ish during or at the end of an artistic experience... beware the soft-heartiness!
From here to the title... well, there are sooo many creative debauches nowadays. That is because the once positive encouragement to enjoy our creative impulses has been turned into a way of life for soo many mediocre creators, who are more enjoying themselves than giving the opportunity to the others to bask in some art. Every little thing someone does, folding napkins, building stuff with matches, writing so and so poems now it can become art by the means of some "investment". Well, it is not. It is just a way to blur the lines between art and hobby and maybe even crap. Art is changing, but it is not going back or fragmenting itself. Craft is also a relative of art that is confronted with the same situation. There is a clear feeling that makes the difference between dilettantish and art or craft. And it is not in the eye of the viewer, it is or should be in the eye of the educated public opinion... well, as long as such a group still exists.
As for the one seeking to produce some authentic maybe-art, perhaps not being too eager to create could get one on the right path. Does the wish to create haunt you? Push it back, postpone it, refuse it. If is shows up again and again, then give it a try, it might be genuine, and not induced by a trend from a self-help book shelf, calculated to please one and and all and to score big sales.
And a few examples of misplaced creativity: http://craftastrophe.net/
Some of these slowly might become "cult" or "chic" or "fun" because of the unintended celebrity given to them not via creative intention, but via "it's so ugly that is becomes nice".
As for art, the many many critics have already stated that taste is a personal matter, and that it is not allowed to point the finger to bad art and call it so, for fear of being named obtuse or uneducated. I just might add that I would rather admire a piece of street art or some kinetic sculptures than the static contents of an art museum, but of course - beware the TASTE!
And I do not stand for any piece of art to torment the already gloomy human existence - art better make one feel good and sublim-ish during or at the end of an artistic experience... beware the soft-heartiness!
Monday, 12 November 2012
Looking ahead from down the memory lane
Having visited the city I grew up in, it feels the only way I can say it would be "this is not the future we once dreamt of". In fact, I don't really know who could have dreamt of such a filthy, crowded and hideous cramming together of buildings and people. Only the enemies of those once living in the said city. It is not applicable only there, I know, other places have been also filled by business and dirt and by the invasion of an unhappy life, dragging the people from here to there to nowhere. But there I can place myself back n the time, looking upon the future.
Maybe the mistake with the world we live in was the lack of dreaming - 30 to 50 years ago the surroundings were taken for granted by most of the people. Why dream of a city so and so? It was already worse than before for the older ones, and the younger ones had a busy life... Maybe the young ones of today see nothing wrong with the ugly buildings and the filth, either. I wonder... People were busy dreaming of having food on the table the next day and to be getting by in a better way with their money, relatives, health, colleagues, love life and so on.
But somebody must have had the dream of the ugly city - filled this gap left by the lack of wonderful dreams with it - otherwise why this hideous urban future? Like a huge container, the city I once knew - and also started to see falling down - seems to be waiting for that unbearable point of breaking down into pieces.
Never had I imagined my house locked with not one, but three iron gates (probably now it is inhabited by three paranoid families), never have I imagined the sad sad death of old houses left to fall down in order to sell the land easily to some investor... the layer upon layer of unfamiliar things unpleasant to the eyes, that have enveloped almost every landscape I once knew. Like the familiar faces that have turned into sometimes unfamiliar, unexpected people, the city has changed in a way that pertains to no dream of it I have ever knew.
I suspected that what I knew is now locked not in a "where", but in a "when", but I should add that I feel not having left far enough from the "where", maybe not even soon enough. The road, maybe, was not supposed to be so short. The sadness of seeing how much and worse the change is asks for a bigger distance between where I used to know stuff and where I am now.
In a new city one is never quite sure of this evolution or involution - it is not within the newcomer's memory to perceive this shift.
But there are still known points where this shift comes like an unbearable conclusion. It brings out all the unfulfilled dreams also. And, weird enough, the smell of wanting to gallop further in order to forget, like a horse follows the smell of grass onto new horizons...
I suspected that what I knew is now locked not in a "where", but in a "when", but I should add that I feel not having left far enough from the "where", maybe not even soon enough. The road, maybe, was not supposed to be so short. The sadness of seeing how much and worse the change is asks for a bigger distance between where I used to know stuff and where I am now.
In a new city one is never quite sure of this evolution or involution - it is not within the newcomer's memory to perceive this shift.
But there are still known points where this shift comes like an unbearable conclusion. It brings out all the unfulfilled dreams also. And, weird enough, the smell of wanting to gallop further in order to forget, like a horse follows the smell of grass onto new horizons...
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