“The world’s more interesting with you in it.”

Helen Haden - A touch of magic

There’s a problem:

Nicolae Steinhardt:

În camerele din închisori — pentru că acolo e violent amplificată, exacerbată — am înțeles cât de mizerabilă e situația noastră în lume: prin simpla noastră existență deranjăm pe alții.

N-avem încotro. Se cuvine să înțelegem că orice am face și oricât ne-am strădui, tot supărăm. Singura soluție e resemnarea. Ce putem face? Să tăcem, să tăcem. Să nu facem răul, și nici binele cu sila. Dar și trecând, tăcând, tot nemulțumim. Odată pentru totdeauna se cade să ne băgăm bine în minte: deranjăm doar pentru că suntem prezenți. Și să nu ne oprim aici: mai trebuie să recunoaștem că și ei ne deranjează pe noi! Gând înfiorător: Căci nu suntem mai buni ca ceilalți, tot în aceeași oală ne aflăm și fierbem înăbușit.

Absurdul e unul din parametrii condiției omenești.

Ieșim din obezi prin dragostea de Hristos, cale ocolită, dar sigură către iubirea de aproapele — și îndurarea prezenței lui.

And a solution:

In the (perfect) movie adaptation, Hannibal calls Clarice on the phone, and he says it just a little differently: “The world’s more interesting with you in it.”

I think about this line all the time in our contemporary era.

The world’s more interesting with you in it – Austin Kleon

Yes, you may annoy some people just by being on this Earth.

The solution? Think of it this way – the world can be more interesting due to this.

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Evaluating the competition

Jam Willem Doormembal - Two mandarines

It may look like the natural thing to do – in order to be creative, you should avoid seeing what others are doing.

If you really want to create something original, it may seem, you need to ignore the footsteps of your predecessors.

I’m 50-50 with this. I’m not sure of a 100% solution.

On one hand, it’s good to see what others have done before you, so you can improve on it, and not come up with a strange solution. If you don’t know what others have done prior to you, you risk doing a similar piece of work or coming up with something which feels out of place.

On another hand, if you want to be totally creative, it might help you not knowing what others have done. This solution is not applicable to agencies, where you need to know what others have created, so you don’t go into copying other people’s work.

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Boy meets world

Melusina Parkin - Worlds 3

There’s a time in someone’s life when the young person meets the world.

You get to understand better some things in your life.

So, while in early childhood you’re very happy, at some point you get to understand some things.

The age can vary dramatically, there are some children who are forced to work at a very young age.

The thing is, while this process is a necessary step to adapt to the realities of the world, I don’t view it as a pleasant one.

From my experience, it was actually very hard and harsh, and the thing is life after that moment wasn’t ever the same.

If I were to pick, I’d make this transition as further away as possible.

Later edit: On another hand, this helped me grow. It wasn’t pleasant, but I was able to better face the world at a later stage in my life.

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Why you shouldn’t worry, at all

Nick Kenrick - For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings

Why do people worry?

First of all, it’s easy. It seems like the natural thing to do. It’s within your reach.

Then, it’s a habit, you try not to, but you’re so used to it.

Does it have a good part?

Sure – it makes you prevent some possible failures.

How about the bad part?

It can give you anxiety, and a state of not feeling well.

What’s the solution?

Think of this chart, if you have no problems in your life, you shouldn’t worry. If you do have some problem, focus on solving it, and either you can solve it or not, you shouldn’t worry, cause just worrying won’t solve it.

Nice graph.

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Good student, bad student

byronv2 - Book and Coffee

I’ve met some really good students in my life. All – better than me.

What was a bit surprising is that most of these students were good at multiple things at once. Sure, they had some ups and downs, but, all-in-all, they were good overall.

My opinion on this is that knowledge compounds – if you learn well in the first grade, you’ll learn easier in the second grade and so on.

On another hand, if you don’t learn well for a while, it’s harder to catch up.

This made me think – can you regain the lost knowledge?

Think of people going to prison for a long while (for example, in communist time in Romania). Did they recover from the lost time in prison?

Two opposite views on this:

  • First, I wouldn’t say time in prison, or time spent for a while not learning well academically is lost time. Sure, it’s not pleasant to be in prison, and sure, if you don’t do your tasks for doing well in school, you can be left behind. But time spent in prison and the time spent doing other activities than learning for school can be a formation period (more on this »). You can learn by reading, but you can also learn by doing things, by watching things on TV, by talking to others, by helping, or by asking for help. Life is a continuous learning period. You can learn quite a lot by reading (books, mostly), but learning is not 100% connected to reading books.
  • On another hand, I’d say “No, you can’t recover the time lost on a 100% level”. If you don’t learn for years, it’s harder to catch up.

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Criticising the critics

Michael J. Moeller - ... to forever bind them.

Sometimes, I hear “critical thinking is so good”.

Yet, sometimes I meet people who cross their arms and are against pretty much everything.

I fail to see how critical thinking helps those people.

In some online communities, you tend to see lots of negativity, hatred even.

They say only ignorant people can be happy (“Happy people are not the smart people.”).

As far as I can tell, I think only smart people can be happy. I see a lot of angry, upset, negative not-so-smart people.

And I’ve met in my life some people who were both happy and very smart.

What’s the biggest problem I have with always-upset people? They tend to make poor decisions.

Vaccinations, friends, life, voting, choosing between A and B.

And, even more than this, they tend to be unhappy and grumpy.

Be happy, choose wisely, live longer – who wouldn’t want this?

The unhappy / less smart / critical people.

Is critical thinking bad? No. Is being critical all the time, always aggressive, always fighting, always wanting to win, badly? To me, yes.

I don’t have a problem with saying “No”, I have a problem with people always saying “No”.

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“What harm can come out of this?”

David Acevedo Godoy - Hasta la Cima

At some point, a candidate for the presidency in Romania (which I voted for), had a rather unusual gesture – accepting an invitation to appear on a rather popular TV show on a motorcycle.

 

“Monica Macovei, europarlamentar si candidat la prezidentialele din noiembrie, a intrat, joi, in platoul unei emisiuni TV calare pe o motocicleta, cu casca pe cap si un cartus de mitraliera in mana.”
Macovei explica de ce i-a dat un cartus lui Teo Trandafir (Video) »

 

“Macovei a spus ca Teo Trandafir a vazut pe internet un clip al sau pe motocicleta lui Sorin Avram, si in acel moment i-a propus sa vina astfel in platoul emisiunii sale de la Kanal D.”
VIDEO Monica Macovei despre episodul intrarii cu motocicleta in studioul TV: A fost un fel de santaj:) Teo Trandafir mi-a spus ca ori vin pe motoclicleta, ori ma pune sa calc – Politic – HotNews.ro »

There are two views, as far as I’m concerned, on this:

  • If the candidate thought this was harmless, and actually considered the gesture to be fine, then I have nothing to comment on. “If you think it’s OK, then it just becomes OK. Instantly.” and “All is fair in love and war”. All good.
  • If the candidate did consider this appearance a bit strange but thought something in the line of “What harm can come out of this?”, then I consider the gesture a mistake. Some people (see the quote below) tend to be influenced by various gestures. This is even more important in politics – you need to show you’re capable of managing your brand and seeing the implications of a specific gesture. If you’re a leader, your actions will shape society. On the specific situation we talk about, perhaps the candidate put the two things in balance – “I will gain visibility, in exchange for doing something atypical, and that’s a fair price to pay”. The thing is, others may view this with different eyes. And even if you do a lot of good things, some people will tend to focus on the one time you did something wrong.

(Andrei Pleşu, despre Monica Macovei) “Nu-mi place s-o văd intrînd cu motocicleta într-un studio de televiziune […]”

Andrei Pleşu: Argumentele pentru care îl votez pe Iohannis | adevarul.ro

I voted with Monica Macovei at those elections. I had no problem with her appearance. But seeing how others reacted to that gesture was disheartening, and it might have been a mistake. Some people are hard to please and they will look at a mistake with not-so-happy eyes.

A quote I like a lot:

“I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.” (Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, “Avengers: Endgame” – 2019)

More people should embrace this, at least so I think. :)

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