Category: education

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Life’s Quintessentials…

I see and read and observe a lot and I heard about such people a long time ago: The bored, disoriented or even stricken with a heavy midlife crisis… Baz Lurhmann is not only an award-winning director of striking and unusual movies. He also at some point made this speech into a ‘sprechgesang’ (recitative), summarizing a lifetime’s experience regarding the really important things in life – for a young audience; which explains the point of view. And he’s got some points here….

I see people looking around for some kind of happiness, wondering if they missed out on something while pursuing a career; in the meantime perhaps looking for passion that is supposed to fulfill that void… or falling in love all the time because that seems to promise a sort of relieve from frustration or just plain boredom…

I am lucky in many respects: I was raised to the idea that there are morals and ethics and rules in the shape of laws we need for a large(r) community to work. But that regarding my own life it’s about taking responsibility – and know yourself and true needs better day by day. One adage being: “If you are bored it’s your own fault.”

Feeling fulfilled and happy is not a constant state of mind – or a life. But being content is.

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Power – ‘Where From’ and Why? – Ways Out of the Vicious Cycle

beautiful-still-life-with-water

Politics make me extremely mad sometimes, and this is my way to express my thoughts:
Men are at the bottom of power being considered a desirable asset, so it seems, more precisely: Patriarchy is. The idea of man being the “crown of creation”, the reigning principle, as it were.

It’s rather painfully obvious that in turn at the bottom of that is the emotion of empowerment, which in turn can be set in relation to sexual experience directly, alas. People sometimes even admit to that in front of cameras: below you find a particularly unusual statement to that effect, ©rbb and arte.tv.

Why? Why would it be a bad thing – feeling powerful?

Because people confuse it with self-confidence!
Self-confidence in turn can have a number of reasons, shortly summarized: it comes from being confident that we exist and behave according to the standards we were taught as children and adolescents.
That’s why people in such societies feel self-confident, when they are powerful (men) or beautiful (women).
But it’s neither power nor beauty that makes us attractive and desirable – it’s self-confidence. First and last.

If we base our self-confidence on new and more stable values than power or beauty we may find this earth turning into a finer place – every day.

Because too many people, and the majority of them men, are led to believe that being ‘successful’ makes you attractive – and being attractive leads (at least in most male fantasies) to more sexual encounters with willing women.
At the bottom the idea of simpletons that a ‘real man’ is defined by his ability to entice women.

There are rather disgusting examples, which I wouldn’t want to mention if I hadn’t to to be quite clear, such as the late Italian politician Berlusconi, the hopefully soon to be sentenced Trump in the US or the dictator of Russia, Putin.

Even the Russian politician Alexei Navalny – may he rest in peace  and his possible if not for-sure murderers be brought to justice – or the Ukrainian president Zelenskyy are no exception alas, apparently if not obviously driven by their adoration for their wives, who both are counted by modern standards among the ‘attractive desirable ones’…

I beg the pardon of all who know them better than I could using official reliable sources, should this appear blunt and unkind, in view of their achievements, too… But I also think that their connections and some actions due to their drive for political success at least deserve looking into.

On the side: No, of course, not every man on this earth is like that, thank heaven – and their smart parents. But too many of those that are in power – or want it badly – are like that, more or less.

All this seems perhaps blunt, but to me it’s to the point at issue, namely war and destruction and suffering and hunger created too often for no real reason – and there’s a lot of evidence in the documentations, reliable newspapers and scientific research in anthropology as well as history and social sciences to make this a very likely point of view.

(The video-clip is a very short extract. Please be aware that I chose it carefully for the abovementioned statement that is contained here. Otherwise you would want to watch the full documentary here.)

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After a Pandemic a Plague? US-American Republicans and Their Embarrassing Leadership

Image of chess game with board and black and white pieces
Image courtesy pixabay.com – free license

To think that after all that has happened the US-American Republicans seriously consider nominating a person like the one before the current president of that country is practically embarrassing! One would laugh with wholehearted mirth if it wasn’t too serious. I am trying hard to avoid naming its name. Yes, “its”: This is a sorry excuse for a man. To make him the president the second time is like advocating Adolf Hitler as head of state. Period.

But the party and its leaders seem not to think so themselves: A person who lacks any kind of scruples, is devoid of feeling any responsibility except towards the ‘Golden Calf’ of the bible, namely worshipping money – who is responsible during his term of government for cancelling the contracts for disarmament with Russia – and that way may be indirectly responsible for the current situation in Ukraine, a person who threatened North Korea into near war, until it became clear that money rather would do the trick with a nation that already has ‘the bomb’.
A person, particularly, who actually threatens the democracy of that nation itself they are so proud of stating to be the first real one…??!!! He was close and will get closer to instate another dictatorship in the US – and he will closely collaborate with Putin in Russia – they are the best of friends as anybody knows who follows the news.

And the news are only publicly acknowledged information, there is probably more, if we look into similar situations in history.

It’s a pity to think what the Republicans in America actually stand for: But the constitution or its principles are certainly not part of it, when all is said and done. Whatever they will tell you during election campaign(s).

Let’s hope that Italy’s sad example is not one they will follow.
…But then: Such leaders are really only about being ‘the man’, right? Silly women all around, as long as they are nice to look at, lots of booze and a large enough stretch limousine ready to take those said silly ‘chicks’ in – and with… and that in front of cameras too, is really all they care about.

And such people ‘we’ should vote for? Seriously?

I hope and actually pray that murder, money and power is not the only thing Republicans go for over there. Although: Looking at history that too may be too much to hope. Because: Murdering others in the name of the power and so-called US-American overseas ‘interests’ usually doesn’t make them turn a hair.
Or will it this time?

I can only hope that some kind of reason and responsibility will prevail over there and a Democrat such as Joe Biden be president – a second running in this case.

Whatever else happens: I will ‘bother’ all of those that are in power – and in stretch limousines – using my kind of weapon: the writing quill!

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Secret(s) of Love and Affection and Passion

Image of a blooming water lily on dark coloured leaves
Image courtesy pixabay.com – free license

Can I say anything definitive about it – when so many others seem to have failed? There’s romance to be considered – and jealousy, there’s loneliness that sometimes makes people rush into things; there’s fear of rejection, and heartbreak. The stories and plays, poems and songs that have been made are legion; I wonder if not the whole of mankind is seeped through and through with the eternal quest for love and passion and safety – and often in vain.

I always wondered why people are and behave the way they do. Why? Pain, especially. Why would people cause others pain on purpose? Revenge is also a subject in that sphere…when emotions or just pride are hurt and people start out on a hunt, as it were, to avenge themselves.

There are the archetypes that C.G. Jung, a successor of Sigmund Freud, defined: Symbols as figures, ideas of human types of behaviour, such as the bridesmaid, the bride, the damsel in distress and so on.

Many ideas we come in contact with are involved with the idea of love. The very basic longing for harmony and closeness with another human being that Erich Fromm called the need for overcoming the feeling of separateness (quoted from memory).

As most of us I have gone through some pain in that respect myself – as well as some joy.

There are patterns of human behaviour, male and female that you often find mirrored in (usually) cheap movies and stories: They ‘feed’ on those stereotypes and can be rather distracting, if you do not look beyond the images. For your own truth as well as of that of the other person.

Patterns of  power relationships are involved, deeply sometimes and most of it not consciously: In patriarchy the man is to be supposed to be always cool, calm, collected and ‘on top’ of the situation. That means that he may tend to look for a life partner slightly his inferior in education, upbringing, or income, in order to feel like a ‘real’ man.
Women in turn may easily tend to look for a ‘strong, superior’ man in order to fulfill those roles.
Sometimes these roles are a safe bet.

Sometimes they are not.

The basics I learned to be true too, by reading, observation and my own experience are these:

    • We tend to look for a partner who understands – us.
    • Passion may perhaps be easy to come by – if you are not too particular; some apparently get ‘sozzled’ with intake of substances to make that part easy. Some buy it.
    • Some wait for a long time to combine the ‘nature and nurture’, the experience and personal liking with a ‘soulmate’, in love and passion. My special regards to all of you people of like minds!

Whatever you do, remember these two ideas, to me they make the most sense of all:

In passion: All is fair as long as it is not done with children – and not by force. Consenting adults.

In love: “Whatever works.”

References:
Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving (Die Kunst des Liebens, German)
Alexander Lowen: Love, Sex and Your Heart (Liebe, Sex und Dein Herz, German)
Steve Biddulph: The Making of Love (Wie die Liebe bleibt, German)
Paul Watzlawick: The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness (Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein, German)
Gerti Senger: Alles Liebe (German)

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Phone, no Phone – ‘I Phone’?

image of two women at cafe table drinking coffee smiling
Image licensed freepik.com

I love phones – now and again – in moderation…

Phones from the beginning were a status symbol – like cars – or a big house; because the first models of a new technology always are expensive.

People use smartphones these days for all kinds of things – even for phoning someone…

But there’s a few of us I believe, who do not use phones often – or carelessly.

With 22 job references and certificates and letters of recommendation to my name one thing is certain: I have ample experience. Due to my studies that I had to pay for mainly by myself for a long time while raising my son – and thus earning a living at many different places of work – I have met all kinds of types of people – in regard to phones:

    • Those who do not like to use phones at all. At any time.
    • Those who love them and are on the phone – all the time.
    • Those who use phones only at certain times during their day, plan even for time slots to do their phone calls in.
    • Those who feel that too much words are wasted anyway – and do not either answer or use the phone.
    • People who use the phone only when scheduled calls come in.

You may know a few others, but those are the basic use cases I have encountered.

I often feel phone calls to be a sort of time wasted: So often in business it’s crucial to later have notes of what was said.

You have to write notes and write emails in addition to phone calls to remind everyone of what went on. So apart from phoning people you also write. Additionally.

If I like the other person, I may enjoy talking to them; but to me that’s a sort of ‘danger’ – I am talkative by nature – and before I know it I settle down to talk for a while.

There are times when you like the other person but you know there’s so much to do; you are not sure what they want; you cannot see them and look them into the eye. Smile a little to ease things along.

I love talking to people in person – at leisure – and with all the time of the world – and a cup of coffee in front of us, perhaps.

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Pushed to Extremes – What’s Life All About?

image of a far-away tower against a blue sky and a tiny human figure at the end of a rope
Image courtesy pixabay.com – free license

Bungee jumping: Jump down extreme heights and be just kept back by an elastic, suspended in mid-air: Most people just do it to feel they are capable of going through extremes.

Perhaps the ‘going through hardship’ is at the ‘end of such a line’: Prove to yourself, especially, that you are capable of doing it – and perhaps find out about life…?

Growing up in protected surroundings can make you feel restless – at some point – to some it can happen sooner, to some, later in life:

What is life really all about? Why and how to live? Even with a lot of rules to your education, especially when imposed more or less authoritatively by parents and family – it’s like:
Grow up – and start breaking the rules in order to have fun…? Because grown-ups have fun they deny their kids…?
And still later, it turns out that you perhaps acquired wealth and fame and broke quite a number of rules – but sublime happiness is still denied you?

For all the promises and stories and rumours about the most exciting things you can do – and that could be all manner of things – what in some contexts is called ‘naughty’ – still something is missing?

How do I know?
Well, I know about these things partly from experience, but even more so from observation, talks and probably ten thousands of stories I read and watched.
But also from reading other kinds of literature, books, history too, but also psychology, philosophy and politics. Sociology. I also know because my parents weren’t of the authoritative kind: They reflected on rules, traditions, behaviour and language – and they explained why we would follow rules – or not.
They made us aware of what is at the bottom of human existence.

The classical free thinking: Know about ethics and why they are there and decide when you are of age, at the latest – responsibly. Responsible for mind and body – and the community, ‘neighbourly love’ -> ‘love your neighbour as you love thyself’. Sounds easy, but isn’t really, when you think about it.

Since then I did all those things, think of the consequences before I act…and decide, responsibly:
Although, I didn’t break rules just for the sake of it. Does not mean I did not make mistakes, or never hurt a soul.

But the questions of – ‘what is a human being, why is human existence what it is and what can we do to make it bearable?’
I can answer.

The main thing to me is that many people who have gone through hard times know too, what it is that keeps you going, when all is said and done:

It’s human kindness, understanding, love in all it’s manifestations, such as friendship.
To know that there are a few people who care makes all the difference.

I think, in some ways I am lucky that I’ve seen hard times, because I know for myself, for sure.

The basics in life that make us feel fulfilled and happy are also those that come with self-esteem and neighbourly love. Maslow’s pyramid of needs after that.

And the eternal Buddhist concept: Avoid pain.

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Dreams and Pictures that Move – Moving Pictures

image of movie theatre and lights on its dark screen
The prince and princess, the lovers, the heroes, the white stallion, the knight and the lady in distress, they are images, similar in many countries’ folk stories and fairy tales.

“Moving” – it’s a word that in the English language has several rather distinct meanings. One of them is about emotion, basic human feelings. They move us. Deeply, in some cases. Sometimes it’s words, connected to ideas.

Or the simple or more complex images that recall a happy moment, peaceful nights full of light – or sad moments.

Movies, the moving images originally, have become a forceful way of telling stories, just as plays, their ‘predecessors’. To tell stories is a pastime that is as old as mankind itself. Among the most famous artists always were storytellers, the craftsmen and craftswomen of words, phrases and sentences invoking images in the mind of the audience – and thus emotions.

And just as fairy tales they sometimes barely represent the real world, the truth. Instead, they tell us about the wonderful combinations of dreams and wishes people have – and create new stories from to entertain – and for a few hours take us to fairyland.

It is a fine way to spend the time, at times. This world some people force us to see can be cruel and dangerous. I consider  myself lucky in spite of quite some hardships I’ve seen and experienced in the course of my life.

I have read through towers of books, a mid-sized library at least. Countless movies and TV-serials that did help me laugh at the world and the hardships, sometimes. And that also managed to be a sort of friend, patient, non-judicial in some cases, boosting self-confidence and understand about hardship in other parts of the world.

Indeed, documentaries, too, these days have reached a high level of expertise, combining entertainment with facts.

I closely studied the literature and culture of three distinct countries covering a time span of two thousand years. I’ve read about many more. And heard about still more.

I can safely say that I know a thing or two about history and mankind.

I want to encourage all who read this: If you haven’t already, check your values – and then read books, or articles, or posts, or – watch movies, but always remember: To confuse writing or other pictorial arts with reality can be a problem, at least.

There is a person or persons behind it – and sometimes it’s only a thin veil between yourself and reality, yet – not reality itself.

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Work, Life and Chance – Backgammon: The Game of Princes

Iran, Esfahan (Isfahan) – Ali Qapu Palace

“Your life’s whatever you make of it.” That’s a popular phrase meant to bolster confidence – or even motivate employees… Well, there’s more to life than meets the eye at a glance. Anyone who’s gone through life longer than just a couple of decades has come to realize what Baz Luhrman so aptly said:
“Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.”

Many smart comedians, philosophers and coaches will tell you that. It is actually a wise person who realizes it – it has been known for centuries if not thousands of years among people, mankind even.

There was a ‘modern’ urge when the civil society began to form that found one outlet in the possibility to emigrate to the USA, then dominions still. With a huge country apparently all there just to find your luck without any shackles or strings attached, the credo was: “Your life’s whatever you make of it.”

Was it, really?

Even the first settlers faced grave challenges, partly from indigenous peoples who wouldn’t all easily accept that land-taking by strangers. Bluntly put.

Additionally, so few conditions known, many pioneers just died from starvation due to completely different climate and soil conditions.

Yet, marketing and people who wanted to sell this idea and self-promoting methods as new ways to happiness and self-made wealth just persisted publishing self-help guides.

The idea of course is appealing. But in the long run it will lead to anger and frustration, because it leaves out all those chances life presents us all with: Recently we were all witnesses to it again on a huge scale, a pandemic, with millions of deaths.

We were lucky too, in many ways, in many parts of the world. But the long and the short of it is this:

Life is full of chances and conditions and surroundings that will make it easy or difficult to reach goals you wished to attain.

Sometimes, just knowing there is a philosophy behind it, summarized like this, can help:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”

Here is a fine short documentary on the game of Backgammon and its vital difference to chess: Chess is like war. But Backgammon is like life: And it is thousands of years old. It was even used to teach princes at the ancient courts of Persian kings to be sophisticated and wise leaders of their governments.

We cannot control everything in life. A lot depends on luck and surroundings. But we can always try to do our best in any given situation.

It’s a German language version with English subtitles:

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Fashion or Favourite – The Blindness of Prejudice

image of workers in a foundry at the melting furnace
Courtesy freepik.com – Licensed image

Fashion can be truly deadly in a sense: When it becomes a cast, an iron mold to surround us like a cage. It can enclose the mind. It can enclose the body, because certain expectations as regards clothing, movements and even personal behaviour lead us to shun personal character. Like a cage – making all the same…

I’ve posted similarly before. The subject presents itself over and over again. These days it seems to be even more pronounced when the life of such a formidable figure as the late Queen Elizabeth II of England is being reviewed.

She was a queen of the first water: Although not originally ‘born to be queen’, since the abdication of her uncle only made her own father king in the 1930s when she was eleven, she was raised to a high sense of duty and faithfulness to her country and the idea of monarchy as such. From my point of view I would call it the sense of providing guidance and present an example.

Being an example and that in the eyes of the public to boot, is awe-inspiring, at least. It can also be challenging or even prove frightful. To be watched all your life by often rather critical, not to say strict eyes, is no child’s play.

Yes, she is among the richest people in the world and the richest in England, if I remember correctly. But try imagining to be under ‘observation’ morning, noon and night, every day of your life – and have any false step commented on or even ridiculed: Many have been known to flee from that kind of duty, before. She delivered it with amazing self-control and apparent ease all her long life.

Yet, it seems to me that fashion these days works very similarly in everybody’s life, in these ‘modern’ digital times: More than in previous decades?

The fashion that women and men should behave just as so many actors in modern TV-series: be clothed that way, behave that way, cool, calm and always ‘true to form’: To me that is a pity; anyone who deviates from that ‘form’, that ‘mold’, the iron cast of fashion, will be subject to numerous misconstructions and misrepresentations – just because ‘fashion’ demands otherwise.

I plea the cause of diversity in every sense: Let’s not judge prematurely just because now and again people do actually not fit – and are different – or just show personal character.

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Cruel Attack on Salman Rushdie – Award-winning Writer

Image showing Salman Rushdie discussing with mic in hand
Image courtesy Ecosia Search Engine – Free license

After all this time someone managed to hit, cruelly: Salman Rushdie, wonderful poet and writer of award-winning books was attacked on Friday with a knife and hit 10 times. At the moment of this writing he seems to  be out of danger. I hope he will recover and heal mind and body to come out even stronger than before.

The darker side of any religion sometimes is revealed in such acts: Manipulated simple-minded people who actually believe that freedom of press, opinion and religious following could be considered a sin, exist. They existed in ancient history when Muslims and Christians killed each other in the ‘Holy Land’ apparently over who would own it.
When it really was about power in that region and trade ways as well as roads.

In ancient times and these days: Any religion can be abused to manipulate people into cruel deeds, into following someone for the sake of simple solutions in words, in order to feel special, in a dangerous, deceptive safety of woolly-headed idolatry.

The only way out of what Plato described in the cave allegory: People sitting in a cave, with the entrance behind them, a slight elevation and a light on it between, watching the cave walls. Life and its figures passing by the entrance outside, to such humans appear like flickering shadows on that back wall.

To leave that cave of misinterpretation and age-old manipulation means: Train your mind.

Learn about thoughts and ideas. Understand that humans need to respect each other in order to be able to live in a world of peace and joy. To be able to even let their dreams come true which might be just – to live and let live in peace of mind.

To watch over human rights as declared in the Human Rights Declaration of the United Nations – is without alternative!

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