From time to time, I get an invite to “Like (as in approve) X page on Facebook, as you were invited by Y friend, who manages X page”.

And, in almost all contexts, I ignore the invite.

The thing is, Facebook has this way of making it personal. If I don’t click the “Like” button of a page, do I mean I dislike it?

What am I supposed to do, go like-ing everything I really like in real life? It’s absurd, and Facebook pretty much abuses the word “Like”. If I don’t click “Like” on a friend’s page, does this mean I don’t agree with their idea?

Also, on a practical level, just liking a page is not enough.

I’m invited by friends who just joined politics to like their involvement in running for a small town somewhere in Romania. But if I click “like” and then unfollow the page, I think it will do my friends more harm than good. If you have 10,000 people who said they like your page, but you don’t get their engagement (likes, shares, comments), it can do more harm than good.

In a lot of cases, though, it’s also a case of a poor choice of inviting who to like your page. Yes, I like a lot people as friends, I support their actions, but what would my role be in helping them succeed in running for mayor in a small town where most likely I never been or never will be, or supporting a business I have no relation with, and so on? People just randomly invite friends from their list to increase their numbers.

I don’t mind it all that much, it’s just that I don’t see the purpose of this.

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This year, by the end of the year, most likely (due to Coronavirus), we will have some elections.

Generally, I like to know what will happen next in sports, or in other aspects of life.

But, this year, I can barely wait to see who will get better results after the elections.

My hopes are with USR PLUS.

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There are some moves in chess that seem atypical – one player decides to go for an all-out attack using atypical moves. Obviously, there is a downside – you risk not handling the attack very well, and the opponent has good answers to your moves, and you end up losing.

But, from time to time, I’m so surprised by those atypical moves, that my mind gets overwhelmed, and I make silly mistakes.

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There’s a paradox in movies – for a few special effects, from time to time, the overall volume in a movie varies strangely. The special effects have a loud sound, while you can barely hear the actors speaking. When I’m at home, I like to listen to the sounds in the movies using speakers, not headphones, and there are only two good solutions – either the special effects are too loud, and you disturb the neighbors, or you can’t hear the actors’ voices properly. I go with the second option, but dislike the solution.

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I look at some events in my past and there’s something striking: sometimes I win and it means a lot to me, sometimes I lose and this means pretty much nothing. Why the two?

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Some people have diaries. They’re personal, of course, even if they only write in it the calories consumed at lunch or the money they’ve spent in a day. Even a map with a jogging course can be personal.

I like to write personal thoughts on my blogs (1, 2).

At times, some people told me:

1. I write too personal, too deep, too intimate.
2. I have a way of looking at my life which seems external. Even if I write about personal dilemmas, it may look like I’m writing about somebody else.

The thing is, I do have this emotional issue – I don’t get too attached to people, of myself, of pretty much anything. I wrote about this on my blog.

So, I can write about myself from an external point of view.

The tricky part is when I write about close-to-me personal, about very personal experiences. To most people, this would be a definite no-no.

For me, it’s like this – I understand the need for privacy, and I generally don’t write about that. But still, it’s somehow external to me.

Until now, I didn’t write about pretty much anyone, but, in my mind, I wrote a lot of times. And it’s a bit scary, this freedom, although not expressed. I know that it’s about things which are supposed to be private, but, somehow, they’re not.

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