Language: English

Sometimes, I have dark images in my mind.

And I had a real surprise when I met people with a positive mind, with no haunting memories, with an optimistic outlook, with no hard inner pains.

The boy meets the world.

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A lot of times in life you see the cool kids, the popular persons, the influential persons exerting power.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. (John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton)

How do some people exert power? By mocking others, by using sarcasm, by joking about others.

It’s almost never that the unsuccessful kid mocks the powerful master.

Thus, we associate power with sarcasm, and one tends to use sarcasm as a way of being powerful, himself.

Have you been mocked? You’ll tend to mock others.

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I recently listened to a podcast by Horia-Roman Patapievici who said that he used to spend his holidays in the countryside.

That person said something similar to: “as a child, I used to spend all of my vacations in the countryside”. (“la țară”, “țăran de vacanță”)

I used to do so myself – I’ve spent a lot of my vacations at my grandparents, and quite some time with things like gardens, animals, woods, things like that.

But from time to time I used to meet some people who spent their time in the countryside – there were deep differences between us.

While education and opportunities gave me some advantages in some fields, there were some others that I lacked – the ability to do the hard work, resilience, strength, agility.

The differences were on the personal level, also. I can’t quite put my finger on this, but people had a different way of looking at life, at integrating within the community, on choosing the right path, on living spirituality.

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“Write like you talk” (approximate quote by Seth Godin):

I write like I talk. And nobody I know gets talkers block. Nobody.
No one wakes up and goes… unable to speak.
So if you write like you talk, don’t worry. Because you haven’t run out of things to say yet, so you won’t run out of things to blog.

The thing is, when I talk, daily, I say silly things.

Sometimes, I get an idea I want to share with the world.

But, day-to-day, I say silly things which are not worth sharing.

“Today, I went for a walk, did some exercise, I’m eating healthy, the weather was rather poor, and I’m thinking of starting an online course”.

I could say a thing like this to a friend, but if I blog daily writing like this, this won’t be an idea.

I used to do reviews of pretty much every movie I saw. After a while, I decided it’s not so good, and now I focus on writing about things that really shine.

Sure, I watch some movies, read some books, etc., but if I write about everything most of the blog posts will be really lame.

Instead, I prefer to write a bit rarer, and only mention the very best movies and books.

Sure, if I write as I talk, I will never run out of ideas, and I’ll also practice more.

But, sometimes, it’s best to hold your thoughts for yourself, and only publish some top articles.

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“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” ― Sun Tzu

I meet with different people in day-to-day life. (Recently, mostly online, of course.)

What strikes me is the different way in which people use their given talents.

I know people with great intellectual abilities who produce little, and people who struggle to make a good judgment, who, somehow, manage to make good decisions and do well in life.

Some decisions are simple – eat well, do some physical activity, sleep well and all-in-all lead a healthy life.

Others are a bit more complicated – build a career.

Yet, I’m always surprised by human nature – why do people choose between party A vs. B, why do people think that solution X is good, why do people fail to follow their dreams.

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Sometimes, I have my anxieties – moments in which  I’m afraid, I worry, I put the negative things in front of me.

One solution is to learn to cope with these – try to find out what causes fear, and what alternative ways I have in handling a state.

But there’s also another one, which is generally poorly regarded – avoiding the stressful event.

About this second solution – if the reason for fearing the things is not motivated (let’s say I’m afraid of planes, dogs, public speaking), yes, it’s a good thing to face the fear. You shouldn’t be afraid of planes, dogs, or public speaking.

But if you fear things which should, really, be feared, in my opinion, it’s good to avoid those items. I’m not afraid of dogs, but I am afraid of stray dogs. I’m not afraid of public speaking, but I am afraid of a hostile crowd. I’m not afraid of communicating, but I’m afraid of having arguments online.

All of these are examples of motivated fears.

The solution? Stay away from stray dogs, hostile crowds, and arguing online, as much as possible. Not possible? Face the fear and learn how to cope with this, but this should be plan B, in my opinion.

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I watched some ads while living in the UK.

They were not pleasant to watch, but, still, they were rather nice.

I watch almost every year some ads from the Super Bowl.

I don’t like them too much, but, again, they’re not that bad, either.

And here comes the ads from the televisions in Romania.

There are some things on the TV which are worth watching – news, some TV shows.

But the ads that interrupt them make viewing almost impossible.

It’s hard for me to imagine how can I watch a movie on the TV.

The movie can be good, but watching the movie interrupted by ads makes it a poor experience.

And some ads are really aggressive and are around products that are sensitive.

This happens everywhere, but in Romania it’s a bit too much for my taste.

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