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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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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I liked an idea I got from a recent conference I attended (“VIN la Mare” : Evenimentul Specialistilor din HORECA):

Thomas Bangert – Ruuts.travel & iWander:
The difference between Visitors and Travelers:
• Visitors tend to be the tip of the iceberg;
• Travelers show what’s beneath.

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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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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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