Non-practice

Mistrusting love

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Find someone who looks at you meme - AhSeeit

As I see it, there are two types of romantic love:

  1. One in which you admire the other person, you put it on a high place and look up at it; in here, you offer everything but require nothing back;
  2. One in which you’re equal but require trust and equal rights for equal pay.

I’m not much of an expert in this, but I do think 1. is preferable.

There are some memes on the Internet with „Find someone to love as much as person/entity X loves/looks at Y.” And they show a photo of someone/some animal looking at something with a lot of interest.

The issue with this unconditional, not require anything back, type of love is that it might be a symptom of something deep – not being loved, not knowing what being loved is, not understanding love.

Some say that you need to feel loved in order to be able to love others.

While this certainly sounds nice, I don’t view this as a requirement. Good to have? Sure. Mandatory? No.

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Desperados / Desperate housewives / Desperate times call for desperate measures

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Wojtek Gurak - Education Department

Sometimes, I go on buses in Romania. And it strikes me to see how desperate people can be:

  • Bus drivers to start going, waiting for just a little for people to get back to the bus, sometimes being in a hurry to close the doors, at times not checking things.
  • People who want to get down from the bus to be on time.
  • People who want to get onto the bus do not leave enough room for people to get down or immediately start to go into the bus without waiting first for people to get down.

If you get down and leave some space between the person in front of you and yourself, people who want to get up into the bus want to occupy that space.

„Empty spaces, what are we living for?” (Queen – The Show Must Go On – YouTube)

Also, once I wanted to get down from a bus, but I had quite some luggage and there was a big dog without a leash in front of me. People started entering the bus without allowing me to get down. The bus started, and I specifically yelled at the bus to stop at the first crossroad so that I could get down.

I’m not sure where this desperation comes from.

They say Romania has issues with infrastructure and corruption. I want to add an element that’s even harder to overcome – education. As a population, we’re rather uneducated.

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Answering questions

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Ikhlasul Amal - Questionnaire

If you take a question in a written form, you can look at it, analyze it, and debate it.

Verbally, as far as I notice, people answer a bit strange – if the question is detailed, people tend to answer to just a part of it.

If I have a question, and the answer is complex, a lot of time, in a verbal manner, people reply to just a part of it.

The solution, as far as I see it, is to try and give a complete answer, even if the communication is oral.

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Annoying prayers

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Adam Y Zhang - Good Kisser

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, … (Matthew 5:44, New International Version)

If someone annoys you (I won’t use the word „hate”, I think it’s too much, in my opinion, most people are annoyed by others, they don’t hate them deeply), you can try and make good gestures for them. Show a sign of good fate and behave nicely.

But such occasions tend to be rare – to do a small sacrifice, to do good, to actually act on your intent.

Yet, there’s a simpler way to love those who annoy you – pray for them.

It’s a placebo effect – if you wish the good of the other, you will get past their annoying behavior much more easily.

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Crosswalks

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Adam Y Zhang - Attention

Crosswalks are only from place to place. On a road, there are portions just for cars (typical roads), and special places (the crossroads) where pedestrians and cars meet.

Assigning special places for crosswalks makes it easier for drivers to focus a lot when seeing a crosswalk and focus much less on other portions of the roads.

It’s the same with social media – you should generally try and block social media from your life and avoid being connected all the time. Then, from time to time, access it and get immersed into it. Separate the attention by grouping „lots of focus attention” and „no focused attention.”

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PSD, azi

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Original Doge meme - Doge (meme) - Wikipedia

După Revoluție, Horia-Roman Patapievici a fost stupefiat de faptul că românii, după Ceaușescu, la primele (1990) și ulterioarele (1992) alegeri au votat PSD (pe vremea aceea FSN) și Ion Iliescu. A scris niște texte foarte emoționale, adunate în Politice, care, paradoxal, au făcut rău ulterior carierei autorului, în loc să arate un simptom audienței și să fie un început de vindecare pentru problemele semnalate.

În vremea respectivă, anii 1990, aveam vreo 8 ani, și Ion Iliescu părea foarte carismatic. Nu înțelegeam la vremea aceea în ce ar consta măreția lui Ion Rațiu și Radu Câmpeanu. (detalii »)

Pe mine nu m-a stupefiat deloc alegerea lui Ion Iliescu în anii 1990/1992. Retrospectiv, pentru mine, alegerea respectivă e eronată, dar cu mintea din anii 1990 părea ceva logic.

Ce e însă stupefiantă e decizia de vot în anii curenți, la mai mult de 30 de ani de la Revoluție.

Am citit odată ceva text al lui Andrei Pleșu (dacă nu mă înșală memoria), care zicea ceva în linia (nu e citat) – „e uimitor că oamenii pot lua decizii greșite, că, luați separat, oamenii greșesc, dar societatea în ansamblu crește”. Adică piesele de puzzle pare că au erori, dar puzzle-ul arată, totuși, bine.

Sper în binele României, văd că oamenii votează PSD, și sper totuși ca puzzle-ul general să fie mai bun decât piesele individuale.

Cum cânta Ada Milea despre Ceaușescu: „e în mine / e în tine / e în blocuri și uzine / azi îl poartă fiecare / Ceaușescu-n veci nu moare”.

PSD-ul e și partidul PSD, e însă prezent și în alte partide, în opinia mea. Și spiritul PSD e nu doar în membrii de partid, ci și în membrii societății, în ansamblu.

Ca idee, e posibil ca statul să închidă ochii la unele mici infracțiuni, ca societatea să tolereze mai ușor marile infracțiuni ale conducătorilor.

Sunt perfect de acord că în PSD sunt și oameni care vor și fac binele, sunt ferm convins că PSD face și bine, dar bucata de puzzle pe care scrie „PSD” e asociată, în imaginea mea, cu declinul, nu cu creșterea.

Și, totuși, românii aleg PSD, atât ca partid, cât și ca alte fețe ale aceluiași partid, cât și ca principii de partid aplicate în zona civilă.

Și sper ca puzzle-ul general al României să fie în sens bun, chiar dacă PSD, și alte partide, în același spirit cu PSD, compun o mare parte a lui.

Mi-am exprimat decizia de vot aici: De ce votez cu Alianța USR PLUS? – Blog de Olivian Breda.

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Stressed humor

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Basia Fikszyn - fun fun fun

There are some comedy movies in which the characters are quite stressed – The Office TV series, for example.

There are others which are more casual – Friends.

I think that a show should take you through a carousel of emotions and keep changing them.

The emotions should also be intense or have smart jokes.

At the end of the day, I tend to prefer casual humor more than a stressed one.

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Each person is right in their own terms

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Un grup despre suflet pe Facebook, foarte simpatic - Înapoi la simplitate

Two neighbors were fighting over a financial dispute. They couldn’t reach an agreement, so they took their case to the local rabbi. The rabbi heard the first litigant’s case, nodded his head and said, “You’re right.”

The second litigant then stated his case. The rabbi heard him out, nodded again and said, “You’re also right.”

The rabbi’s attendant, who had been standing by this whole time, was justifiably confused. “But, rebbe,” he asked, “how can they both be right?”

The rav thought about this for a moment before responding, “You’re right, too!”

(via »)

I think the joke is quite true, a lot of people can be right when looking at their situation and taking into account their specific context.

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