Category: culture

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“Curiosity Killed the Cat” – or: The Human Brain – or: “Newsworthy”…?

Drawing of a smiling brain figure, like a smiley in brain shape, on feet, with a face, lifting heavy weights.
Image by Riad Tchakou from Pixabay

“Use it or lose it.” That’s one way it is being put – about our muscles – and especially about our brain. When we do not have things to busy it with it will ‘dry up’ after a certain time. One reason why apparently in extreme situations such as being shipwrecked in lonely spots, people started to busy themselves with simple riddles and small games done with chalk or flint stones and twigs.

A very fine account you will find in the book by Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Christo”: Rarely was the dreadful daily routine of prisoners in solitary confinement captured with more details and vivid imagery.

The curiosity of human beings is an aspect of that drive: To constantly busy our brains with something so they won’t ‘run to seed’.

When you are raised to the idea though that nosiness is impolite and even disrespectful, you also learn how to busy yourself.
Even more: The Humanistic ideal based in turn on the bible’s adage to multiply your ‘talents’, makes it a matter of course as a grown, accountable person to take care of your faculties and skills and develop them.
(The bible’s meaning differs slightly, yet the underlying principle applies.)

So, in that respect with even a sizable amount of reading, experience and observation to my name I may appear to some to be a particularly ‘un-nosy’ person: I know such a lot about people and life, in several cultures even; have read since childhood books in the amount of a mid-sized library; I often know what is going on without anyone telling me.

Doesn’t mean to me that I would call myself perfect – far from it. As the German saying goes, ‘I cook with water, only, too’, just as anyone else.

But my brain does not need ‘input’ from daily encounters or the general, common human activities around me. I love family and friends telling me about what moves them or happened to them. If they like. I just don’t depend on it.

I love to respect people who feel differently; just as I love to be respected the same way. As in:
Peaceful coexistence.

A peaceful day to all who might be reading this!

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PISA, Cuisine and the Taste of Culture

Photograph of the leaning tower of Pisa, city in Italy.
Leaning tower of Pisa, Italy – Photo by Neil Howard on flickr, free to share and use

Here they are again: Ohh, so dreadful. Bad results in PISA tests. So? Let’s remember a couple of things first:

    • PISA was first created over 30 years ago in the US. I learned even at the time that it had been ‘tailored’ to meet the US-American system of teaching – and learning.
    • Also, the humanities and social sciences have proven by this time that learning and understanding is based on the culture you grow up in.
      That is a crucial difference!
    • The customs that exist in a culture in regard to learning and teaching make understanding even more different:
      • It has been shown that in India for example, same as in Iran, most probably among others, mathematics are taught quite differently from other nations and cultures:
        • Understanding mathematics and its ideas as well as the approach to solving its equations or downright unsolved riddles are focused on a solution with the right result.
        • In other parts of the world the focus is on the ‘right’ way of reaching the result, such as patterns of problem solving.
    • Remember how differently people greet each other?
    • How people treat children or seniors differently?
    • Ever tried their cuisine?

If you think of all these aspects you cannot possibly believe that the PISA studies are in any way applicable or apt to really realistically compare and evaluate.
Just as ‘off limits’ as the famous leaning tower of that Italian city, called Pisa…

Additionally, we just have put a pandemic behind us, with severe restrictions to personal and public life, over years. How can that not show its effects, especially with children who were/are still developing and growing?

And, most important of all:

Why would we want to?
Make all the same?
Is that at all possible…?

I for one am happy about all the rich differences of cultures around the world. If you love to travel, that’s probably why…

We are not all the same and that is great.

Forget about PISA.

Globe on a table set among spices and food with multiple colours and tastes
Image free license courtesy freepik.com
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EU, Migration, Power and the Extreme Right: The Patterns Repeat

Image of the holy family in a small building, before a mountain in the background showing a city and its buildings.
Image licensed via Adobe CC

They are there, for all to see: People, who are desparate and flee their countries, a couple of thousands, who are not allowed to stay; and yet are not being ‘pushed back’… They shall stay in countries outside the EU, get support with papers and languages and be kept there?

And that is supposed to do what, exactly?

Since the pandemic we are looking at severe issues in regard to economies. Drought and heat supposed to be part of the climate change have this summer resulted in losses of crop.

And again, the governments of Germany, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Greece are this moment negotiating with countries in Africa. To create ‘return hubs’ for people who tried to come here.

In former centuries Africa was used for resources and – trade: Slavery.
Many of its problems were created by the ruthless ways ‘European’ nations ruled and exploited the land. History has the facts. We still can access them.

Now it is used again.

This is cowardice and greed and craving for power at play: Find scapegoats you can hunt and push off.
That will apparently get people to vote for you.

Shame on this modern part of Europe, including actually Hungary, who are also, as some others, among the black sheep baying, baying and baying: Ohhh, how difficult…
Really?

With 450.3 million inhabitants in 2025 in the whole of the EU. With prospected 434.3 million in 2060; with millions of immigrants being brought here during the 1950s and 1960s who to this day take care, in health care, in business and production, in founding businesses themselves and bringing their children and education with them so that economies could flourish…

What’s so difficult?

But then, if you put them in ‘return hubs’, you’ve got them ready at hand… for future use…

I still wonder why they want to come here at all…

The ‘Holy Family’ is an expression well-known to all Christians. The son of God born in a stable…because they had to flee their country – and no one gave them shelter.

Well?

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The Human Element in Europe – Numbers! – Statistics… and the Clear View of Facts

The ‘human element’ can be said to mean several things: It means all those things that are human in a highly technical world. That can introduce mistakes, errors of judgement or downright catastrophes, even. But fear and greed can be among them and these two are not to be trifled with.

How’s that, you may want to ask?

Because, when war raged in Europe during WW II, millions of people were on flight. They were desperate, hungry and often in clear and actual danger of their lives: dictatorships in Spain, Russia and Germany in place – and values and measures at their lowest points.

Overcoming fear, which means courage – can work wonders: We will not only learn more, experience different, sometimes tasty things; we also will keep innovation and science at high levels!

It’s been proven in scientific research (anthropology, archaeology, and similar) that cultures who close themselves off are doomed.

Additionally, all around Europe, the death rates are up, birth rates are down, a little simply but correctly put.

The above EU-statistics show too, though, that migration is a mere drop in the sea: 450 million people living in the EU, around 2 million having been added by migration…

Someone recently said it out loud and that’s a truth: When we start to become afraid, the oldest  areas of our brain become activated: the brain stem which is just able to eat, drink, sleep, or multiply.
Yet, the later parts are what makes us human, called neocortex or cerebrum:
We are able to think complex thoughts, develop new ideas and – empathise, because of those newer parts of our brains.

Fear is part of our older brain. It can make us blind to many of the fine things in life: empathy, clear thoughts and calm and clear judgement.

There have been people for ages, who use our fear to manipulate us. Who use a few exceptions to the rule to make us afraid. Images drawn in dark colours to make us believe that we are in danger from ‘strangers’.

We are what we are in this wonderful region of the world because of diversity. Of many different colours, ideas, thoughts – and emotions.

Let not have a few greedy and power-craving rascals and bullies make us believe otherwise:

We are strong and our values and ideas are rooted firmly in ancient ideas and are modern for civil societies at the same time.

 

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Circadian Rhythms – “Daylight Saving Time” or: “My Way”

A music sheet with notes, and the shadow of a hand in front, holding a rose.
Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

“My Way” is a song first rendered in French, actually: Comme d’habitude. The English version has the same melody but different text, saying that a full life can mean to do it ‘your way’. To me there’s of course community. Or the necessities of earning a living. But preferably with things I love to do. In my case that’s texts and technology, being a technical writer.

Yet, in my free time I like to listen to my inner rhythms. The ‘clock’. The necessities arising from an eventful professional life and other considerations, making it a challenge at times.

I’ve learned doing Yoga routines. I know about Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine.  Enough to know that being at one with yourself can mean:
“Less is more.”

Circadian rhythm refers to the fact that the sunlight and darkness means something to our everyday life. There’s a lot of scientific research around by now and they confirm the age-old systems I just mentioned.

It may also depend on the phase in life we go through which can mean that adventure or eventful days are aimed at.

But “the times they are a’changin’.” In other words, to be able to live calmly and quietly, doing the mundane things, really, such as writing here; exchanging ideas. Or have a fine, late breakfast on a holiday, with friends even, can be the ‘order of the day’.
Blissful living in the true sense of the word.

Rhythms.

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Popping Up All the Time – AI, Its ‘Agents’ and My Equilibrium…

A human hand tapping an AI icon in space or a transparent wall, to the left the shadowy figure of a person with trench coat, Fedora hat and the face itself completely in shadow.
Images licensed via Adobe CC, my arrangement

“Agentic AI” – short for AI workflows you save or set up to reuse and even combine. A little like those macros in MS Office at the time they were popular, before their potential to introduce malware became known.

Well, it reminds me of those thrillers a little: In general, AI can be a help and a fine tool, no doubt about it.
But it also is comparable to knives. In the wrong hands it can do a lot of damage.

How Do I Know?

I am a technical writer by profession and documented AI successfully, with the support of a mathematician and other SMEs. That documentation in 2019 even was mentioned specially by the US-agency Gartner in their Magic Quadrant on Metadata Management Applications.

What I find extremely irritating is the fact that – agents or no agents 😉 – it’s constantly being pushed on me: Not just those pop-ups, but actual AI chat boxes instead of searches. Big, first time logging in, as if nothing else existed.

Paid services or not: I hate being forced to use a technology whose results are doubtful at times and have to be checked and checked backwards again.

I know that selling these days can be hard. Kudos to all sales and marketing people who try it anyway. These days especially where only wars seem to be able to let markets ‘look up’…

Still, forcing it on me is like trying to sell a cookie by forcing me to eat it… Imagine someone being allergic to nuts and having to eat a ‘nutty’ cookie…
Can drive you ‘nuts’… ┐( ͡◉ ͜ʖ ͡◉)┌

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Nowruz 2026 – Persian New Year’s Celebrations

UTC (+1) Friday, March 20, 2026, 15:45:59 PM (Berlin, Vienna)

animated gif showing norooz congratulations in Persian

Nowruz is one of the oldest festivals that exist: Its origins seem to be in debate, but it seems to have been part of Zoroastrianism. It was first recorded in ancient Pahlavi texts, over 2000 years ago.

It’s a spring festival that celebrates the coming of the new year after winter.
It is celebrated inside and outside of Persia with ancient rites, joyful and full of hope.

Imagine a combination of Christmas and Easter: Houses will be cleaned from top to bottom and decorated with eggs, flowers and twigs indicating the coming of spring and hopes for plentiful harvests.

The so-called ‘sofre-e haft sin‘, a fine cloth decorated in a central place of a house or home, showing more decoration and seven (‘haft‘) special things symbolising wishes for a good year ahead, whose names each start with the letter ‘sin’ of the Persian alphabet.

People buy new clothes and little gifts.
The festival starts actually two days before the turning of the new year, the day called “chaharshanb-e suri”:
The last Wednesday before the new year, when people gather in the streets, light small bonfires and jump over them, saying proverbs: This custom meant to leave sorrow and unhappiness to the fire and let it transfer new energy to the jumping person.

After the turning of the new year for two weeks people visit each other, wearing their new clothes and bearing gifts, the rounds starting with the young visiting the older family members first. Sweets, fruit, and tea are common as repasts – and dancing is a matter of course.

Enjoy!

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Always Cool, Calm and Collected? – or: When Sensitivity Meets ‘Iron Man’

Two images showing a man running from water, biking and doing a run on the street, in a triathlon and a large canvas in oil, with a male hand holding a brush to it as if painting.
Images licensed via Adobe CC, my arrangement

‘Iron Man’ is the name for a triathlon considered to be the hardest to stay the course or win, of all, annually taking place on Hawaii. Thus the name. Yet, as so often is the case, there is more to it than meets the eye: To be an ‘iron man’, a hard, muscular ‘hero-type’ of man seems still to be an ideal especially for men to attain.

What can easily be forgotten is the other side to human existence: The finer senses. The fact that human beings do not just consist of a number of muscles to be trained and displayed and used in a competition.

Humans have brains and hearts. The heart showing by beating faster, breath going stronger, what we feel and what often if not always starts in the brain: Emotions, passion, fear, joy, or excitement.

Those who say they are never afraid, are either dumb – or they lie. (NB)

Fear is one of those emotions that is never to be expected of the ‘iron man’, the hero, the ‘guy’. Always be cool and calm and collected, that’s the way to go – in patriarchy.

A comedian some years ago put it like this, too:
“Anything men ever did in the course of human history was done to attract females.”
I believe he may be right…

That mistaken idea even some women still retain today – heroism showing itself like this: that men never should be sensitive, afraid, or vulnerable, is a great pity and a loss to our world.

Because many a hero was born for fear of being considered ‘too weak’. And the mistaken run for that ultimate goal, the ultimate ‘iron man’-medal can result in figures such as Trump or Putin: More power, more ‘say-so’, even inducing more fear in others.
To ‘cut a figure’, as the old phrase so nicely puts it.

I think that two things deserve our attention much more:

    • The men that actually take it on themselves to have a family and care for them. Teach their children that a man is more than just a ‘six pack’…
    • In general, face our prejudices and presumptions with some courage – and start to realize that neither men nor women ‘need’ to match all those  criteria so often part of the cheaper type of movie or advertisement:

Always ‘cool, calm and collected’, always ‘happy, healthy and wealthy’… is just too much to expect.

Let’s start to be more human again. Although these thoughts and ideas have been raised before, being different, being an ‘artistic type’, or just being sensitive, still too often is considered unusual.
And still to this day the ‘hounds’ are called and let loose on those who represent in effect about one quarter of any human community: People very aware of the finer senses.

In other words as well: Let’s teach tolerance* to our children and grandchildren, respect for all those trying to make the world more colourful, interesting or just a little more joyful.

 

* “tolerance noun (ACCEPTANCE)

willingness to accept behaviour and beliefs that are different from your own, although you might not agree with or approve of them”
(Cambridge Dictionary, Online version)

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“Smile and the World Will Smile With You” – or: The Smile of Asia

Four pictures of smiling people
Image by Sasin Tipchai, Yogendra Singh, Hữu Thanh Cái and Tri Le from Pixabay, my arrangement

The smile of Asia as a phrase has been used in advertising – too. But the actual fact is also that in many countries around the world, especially in the Near or Far East, as they are called, smiling at others you never even met before is a custom.

People from other parts of the world often feel charmed and after a while even puzzled by these smiles. Aren’t we friends, when we smile? Or at least close?

There’s another fine line that Rudyard Kipling, English ‘poet laureate’ and award-winning writer, used in his book “Kim”:

“The indifference of native crowds he was used to.
But this strong loneliness among white men preyed on him.”

If you have once encountered and actually felt that atmosphere and met people from those parts, you will come to realize that he was right. It feels exactly that way. That sense of community and friendliness, acceptance of others as human beings can be heart-warming.

I am not originally from anywhere close to those parts. But I have lived with and learned from the Persian culture for the better part of my comparatively long live.

I have come to appreciate that feeling. It is based on the idea, that we of course would need to really meet, get to know the other person in order to be friends. But that as human beings we can be close, because we are similar in our needs and wishes and sorrows and joys; we need each other, in troubled times as well as in joyful times.

According to that nice saying too:
“Sorrow shared is sorrow halfed. Joy shared is doubled joy.”

It can help also to (again) understand that in spite of the advantages the individualism in Western countries has brought, it can make people lonely. The pandemic has increased and sharpened that.

Perhaps the ideas we see daily actually ‘thrown’ at us all around the clock (if we don’t filter them), online that is, about being ever more optimized, the ‘perfect person’, make it more difficult.

The daily live in Asia has developed over thousands of years, climate and living conditions as well as ancient philosophy and customs are part of it. We can learn that:

Smile – and the world will smile with you.

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Warmongering – Benefits and Losses… or: Means to an End – or: *War* is Avoidable!

Two images side by side, one still from the movie one girl in front of a sunset watching doves fly.
Images from the movie’s webpage and licensed via Adobe CC, my graphics – Documentary by John Houston, award-winning director, “Le There Be Light“, 1946

When you look into news and messages you will find that around war there still is a sort of halo or glow being created: As if it actually was about heroes, about being brave and strong and resilient in the face of adversity.

It’s not. It’s a means to an end. Sometimes more than one end.

Oil. Power. Money. … You name it.

Especially in these days, where more than half the world is online and rather better educated than ever before. Patterns of human behaviour are age-old and they repeat. But war is young in history, compared. And that’s a fact, stated by scientists and archaeologists of long standing.

Think of the hundreds of thousands of years that humans have been part of this planet.

Around ten thousand years are a pea on a hot plate in that respect.

There are a few very easy to follow arguments that support this view:

People who come back from war, alive, are scarred in their feelings and emotions, their souls, for the rest of their lives. One proof of that fact is shown with widely recognized precision and compassion in the documentary from 1946, created by John Houston about WW II soldiers, coming back.

But also in former times soldiers who came back would behave differently. Would be uneasy in everyday life and often become furious at any little thing. Turn to be alcoholics. The reports are legend. In literature and in chronicles.

In other words: If war was so natural, would people mind?

Again:

Conflicts are natural. Wars are not!

We can resolve conflicts, if we really want to, because there’s always another road.

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