Cages

Thomas Hawk - Doctor Banksy

Bert: Let’s sit down. You know, begging your pardon, but the one my heart goes out to is your father. There he is, in that cold heartless bank day after day, hammed in by mounds of cold heartless money. I don’t like to see any living thing caged up.

Jane: Father in a cage?

Bert: They makes cages of all sizes and shapes, you know. Bank-shaped, some of them, carpets and all.”

Mary Poppins (1964)

There are different types of cages.

You can be a prisoner in a physical realm. But also inside you.

You can be surrounded by things and people and be in a cage. And you can be all alone in a small space and be free.

 

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Voting for others

If someone asks you to vote for a friend.

What should you do?

My first instinct – ignore it.

When they ask for a vote, the request is not “vote for the best, according to your opinion”, but “manipulate your vote”.

If I would vote based on my actual opinion, my friend would be upset.

The solution? Ignore the request.

Don’t tell them you won’t vote, but also don’t vote for anyone.

Voting for the best option would like them do them wrong.

I think this is the best option.

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Despre La moartea unui clovn – Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

George Lezenby - memories

În editorialul La moartea unui clovn, d-na Alina Mungiu-Pippidi scria despre lipsa unui succes major al d-lui George Pruteanu. Acesta din urmă ar fi preferat lucruri mai degrabă caraghioase, în fața unor lucruri mari.

Articolul m-a făcut să mă gândesc la:

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ― Mother Teresa

De asemenea, poate din lucrurile așa zis “mici” pe care le-a făcut d-l George Pruteanu nu sunt toate chiar “mici”.

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Amintire cu doamna învățător Ecaterina Salim

Ecaterina Salim

În primele patru clase (1989-1993), am fost învățat de doamna învățător Ecaterina Salim. În ianuarie 2023 avea să ne părăsească pentru totdeauna. Dumnezeu s-o odihnească!

Am o amintire din clasele primare: pentru fiecare elev din clasă (eram undeva pe la 30 în clasă), a luat niște etichete de nectar, le-a decupat individual, și a lipit pe fiecare caiet câte o piersică/caisă, ca să ne învețe să numărăm.

Nu mai știu exact detaliile, dar era un efort considerabil să iei etichetele, să le decupezi, să lipești pe fiecare caiet al fiecărui elev.

Dacă nu mă înșel, era vorba chiar de mai multe numere, nu doar unu, poate și doi, poate mai multe.

Ținea atât de mult ca fiecare din noi să aibă un mediu plăcut de învățare, încât a făcut acest efort pentru fiecare din noi.

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Follow-up to follow-up

I enjoyed listening to a podcast with Theodor Paleologu.

During the interview, Theodor Paleologu mentioned the difference between being a leader and a follower.

It made me think – all this time, I’ve been doing follow-ups, this means I’m a follower.

And I enjoy it very much and think it’s adding some value.

But the leadership is the event itself.

I’m doing a follow-up (an article with videos & photos) to a leader (an event in which ideas are presented).

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AI and Baron Munchausen

Leonorah Beverly - Discussion on the lake

Baron saves himself from being drowned in a swamp by pulling on his own hair.

Baron Munchausen – Wikipedia

There are limits to the human intelligence. We can only go so far.

Yet, people can create AI, a system that, in a few years, will likely be much smarter than even the smartest people who ever lived on Earth.

We are able to create something that is better than us.

Baron Munchausen was a fictional character with fictional deeds. Well, it seems humans have achieved fixing this.

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Variation

I recently read about this, I think, in a book – people overrate the happiness brought by variation.

You go to an event, they have a Swedish buffet (Smörgåsbord (Swedish: [ˈsmœ̂rɡɔsˌbuːɖ] ⓘ, lit. ’sandwich-table’) is a buffet-style meal of Swedish origin. It is served with various hot and mainly cold dishes.).

A natural tendency is to taste from a lot of different foods, as they are all available.

But, likely, you’ll enjoy a few of them, and dislike much many more.

If you have to choose 8 pizzas for a party, you might pick 8 different ones. How about picking 2 or 3, with lots of repetition?

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Absurd serendipity

Andrea Varga - Ice circles

Let’s say someone upsets you. Then, you, being upset, you treat someone harshly.

The logical conclusion? You did a bad act, as a reaction, follow-up, or consequence, of a bad act.

I think things are much more complicated than this. Yes, after losing something you likely feel bad, after you succeed in something, you feel good.

But ups & downs are much more complicated than this.

It’s an illusion – the idea that you can constantly feel good, only ups, only happiness, and when someone does you wrong, that person is automatically to blame.

Life is much more complex than this.

If you were to move to an isolated island, with a beach, plenty of food, and all the basic necessities, you might feel fine for a while, but after a while, the Paradise you’re in might make you feel sad.

With all the basic necessities covered, you’ll likely feel poorly on a beach.

I’m not saying you should be a masochist and try to bring pain and difficulties into your life.

But living from pleasure to pleasure will also not bring you happiness in the long run.

If you are behaving poorly, there might be many more reasons than someone doing something bad to you. It’s not that simple.

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Why I don’t write about bad books and movies

byronv2 - Book and Coffee

There are authors who write – “Hmm, I didn’t like this book/movie/TV Series. Still, I will comment on it, so that you could consider avoiding it”.

Currently, I’m not a big fan of the methdod.

I prefer to focus on gems.

The main reason? I don’t necessarily get vocabulary, a certain state, or some emotions from a book. I most often look to gain some good insight from a book, and this generally doesn’t require the book to be good.

Same thing for a movie.

Thus, some books I like and some movies I like are not necessarily the same as others.

It might be a good movie that I don’t like, or it might be a poorly written book that I love.

I apply the same logic to others – if I didn’t like a book/movie, I think there could still be plenty of people who might like it.

On the other hand, I don’t like all the movies I see/books I read, so it’s actually easier to focus only on the ones I enjoy.

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