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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I previously wrote: A long time away saying of Bruno Medicina ».

EN: Mozart, Beethoven, all the great geniuses, broke the rules and won. We like them because they had results when they broke the rules.
Yet the top students today are forced, in the institutional education system, to obey the rules. They perform well in spite of the fact that they can’t/shouldn’t break the rules.

I was recently faced with another thought: what if there are two stages in a person’s life – a formation period, in which the student should memorize things and follow the rules, and another period, in which the person can use creativity.

My personal thought on this idea is that it does have some value, I think I see where it’s coming from, but I tend to disagree.

If you can’t create at all, if, for one reason or another, you don’t have the courage to let your emotions go, sure, memorize and repeat.

But if you wish to create, and you’re a young person (in body or spirit) and you want to start not with following the rules, but by playing your own tunes, why not?

I think it will help you more in your development if you create, you get feedback, and now when you will learn something, you’ll learn based on your feedback.

Sure, it might hurt to create in a world of copy-paste-ers, sure, you’ll get burned a lot of times for not doing something perfectly.

But I do consider that this feedback will help you grow more than just by repeating and mimicking others’ songs.

Try, do it wrong, get negative feedback, learn better this time, with all your ears open, try some more, be better – I think this is the way to grow, and not “learn for 10-20 years, than you can start creating your own songs”. I don’t consider a latter option is a real option, but a fake one.

If I were to choose between:

• Taking a course online in order to learn a skill;
• Taking a real-life project but safe-to-fail project, and learn as-I-go the skills needed;

, I think that the latter option is the better (the idea is not mine, but I don’t know, at this point, who to credit).

Start, try, create, compose, and fail. Fail big and fail often. Try not to harm others when failing. But use the feed-back to be better, to learn easier, to become a better you – in my opinion, that’s the way to go, and not “try to memorize what others have done before you, and at some point, maybe, perhaps, you will be allowed to create”.

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I noticed something about myself – after a certain hour, I’m much less productive.

In the first hours of the day (it generally begins at around 8:30 AM – 9 AM) and until around 4 PM, I’m productive. After 4 PM, I tend to be less so.

After 6 PM even less productive.

This doesn’t mean I can’t do anything after 6 PM, it’s just that tasks tend to take longer, and sometimes it’s harder for me to make connections between ideas.

What this does mean is that I like to put things which are less productive in the evening – talks, reading news, reading books, watching movies.

I do take some breaks during the day, while at home, like a small walk in the afternoon, or some physical exercises.

Some people take naps in the afternoon to allow their minds to get refreshed. I think it might be a very good idea, but for me, when I’ve tried this, I found it was difficult to force myself to wake up after around 20 minutes (you shouldn’t nap very much longer than this, otherwise you will not feel good).

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