How it was at The Phantom of the Opera (Romexpo, 2025.06.13)

The Phantom of The Opera

I’ve seen The Phantom of the Opera (Romexpo, 13th of June, 2025). For the context, I consider this musical as the best play I’ve seen (I saw it last summer, in the UK).

Thoughts about the show in Bucharest?

  • I enjoyed the music & interpretation, thought it was good. Not dreamy-perfect, though.
  • I didn’t think the costumes/elements on the stage were as good as those in London 2024.
  • I got tickets for the cheapest seats. The thing is, the chairs were made of plastic, and they were not that comfortable.
  • I consider the location was wayyyy too large for the play. It was just too big, I couldn’t see properly. I couldn’t properly see the actors from the back of the building. It was something like a TV – but I paid to see a movie at the movie theater. I got a TV experience, paying for a cinema.
  • Do I recommend the show? Yes, but it’s not the best show I’ve seen (like the one in London).

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Jungian archetypes and ChatGPT

Carl Harper - Book and Glasses

Jungian archetypes – Wikipedia:

Jungian archetypes are a concept from psychology that refers to a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings. As the psychic counterpart of instinct (i.e., archetypes are innate, symbolic, psychological expressions that manifest in response to patterned biological instincts[1]), archetypes are thought to be the basis of many of the common themes and symbols that appear in stories, myths, and dreams across different cultures and societies.

Some examples of archetypes include those of the mother, the child, the trickster, and the flood, among others. The concept of the collective unconscious was first proposed by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and analytical psychologist.

According to Jung, archetypes are innate patterns of thought and behavior that strive for realization within an individual’s environment. This process of actualization influences the degree of individuation, or the development of the individual’s unique identity. For instance, the presence of a maternal figure who closely matches the child’s idealized concept of a mother can evoke innate expectations and activate the mother archetype in the child’s mind. This archetype is incorporated into the child’s personal unconscious as a „mother complex”, which is a functional unit of the personal unconscious that is analogous to an archetype in the collective unconscious.

So, in a small phrase, Jungian archetypes are ideas that everyone has; they are a synthesis of everyone’s minds.

Who does this right now? ChatGPT. With ChatGPT, when you ask a question, you generally receive a simplified version of the general norm on the topic. It’s unlikely to get an extreme answer and is more likely to receive what is called „common knowledge.”

Thus, ChatGPT is a form of a Jungian archetype.

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Humor

Elias Rovielo - The Tebinquiche Lagoon (Laguna Tebinquiche) at 2,400 meters (8,000 ft) above sea level, the Salar de Atacama, the Atacama Desert, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

I heard this thing a lot:

„If you’ll go to country X and try to tell jokes, people will not laugh at your jokes.”.

As far as I travelled, I found that, while it’s true to some degree that people in some countries (or, perhaps, people speaking certain languages) have different humor levels, I think that you can find individuals that laugh a lot and individuals that don’t tell a lot of jokes wherever you could go.

I think what’s specific to humor in Romania is, at some point, the humor called „caterincă”. This implies, as I see it, making things so funny that you laugh about everything, nothing is off-limits.

All-in-all, I think you can find people with whom to have fun everywhere you would go. Also, you can find people who look at life in a much more serious way. (that is, if you consider humor as not being serious)

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Favorite cartoons

On "Soul" (2020)

From the full list of the movies I like, below are some cartoons I enjoy more than others.

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A good man

Adam Y Zhang - Good Kisser

One of Jim Bagnola‘s favorite sentences: „He’s a good man!” (for example, referring to Barack Obama).

What’s a good person, in my opinion? Someone who tries to do good. I think that a good intention with failure is more valuable than a good deed with a negative intention.

Of course, the ideal is to wish good and do good. But, as a minimum, try to do good.

Not a big fan of „The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

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Why don’t I like malls

Online shopping

I don’t like the way the automated staircases in malls make me think about personal safety.

But I also don’t like the habit of putting „non-drinkable water” at toilets.

In Romania, you generally need to do a bit of an effort to have non-drinkable water from the public system. If I build a house in a town/city, and I need water, I can’t get non-drinkable water from the municipality; all water is drinkable, by design.

It seems, therefore, that malls do an intentional gesture of „let’s have non-drinkable waters”.

They are not the only ones who do this. Airports do this, generally.

Compare the situation with the fact that restaurants are forced by law to provide drinkable water. But asking for tap water (free) at a restaurant is not the general practice.

I don’t like this practice.

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Power and courage

Joaquín R. - speaking of now

I keep asking myself – where does power end and where courage starts?

For example, if I adhere to my own set of rules and virtues, I have power.

But if I bend the rules and try to exit my own carcass, I have courage.

If I am polite, and I value politeness, I have power.

But if I stand up, fight for others’ (and mine) rights, initiate things, I have courage.

Sometimes, by having courage, you break some rules.

To me, it’s not that simple to say – this is power (doing the right thing) vs. this is courage (doing the thing that is hard to do).

Sometimes, the courage is to shut up. At times, the courage is in speaking.

Sometimes, you have power by speaking. At times, you have power by keeping quiet.

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