Beauty

Somehow deep down our hearts we feel the beauty of those around us. And I must say we unconsciously like certain people or certain things. It's actually surprising that we don't show that in a way that you can explain it. I have tried to put it somehow in words and the problem remains that we don't really know what to choose from our feelings. We try to find reasons where argument is more of a sentimental order. 
In all my education I have learned that there are three stages of a work of art analysis: the first one is the superficial recognition, the second one is based on the personal interpretation and the third one refers to the connection between our knowledge and the meaning it catches. Maybe we function the same way when recognising beauty around us. We try at first to establish the subject, then we recognise the specific group and then on the third level we contextualise  it based on our experience: beautiful of not. 
Beauty is somehow closer to our heart, so it needs to be similar to previous choices. And beauty is still too deep to be mentioned, noticed and expressed. 
May we find as much to judge so we feel beautiful and surrounded by beauty every day!

Every Day I Joggle… Like the Man Next to Me…

I was educated that I need to joggle on daily basis with all sorts of tasks. And it always seemed fun to do this. I noticed since very early age this constant pendulation of mom from bathroom to kitchen, from clothes to the playful cooking machine, from one room to the other and always with the thought for the others. I wanted to become this busy bee as she used to be because she seemed to be my hero. 

On the opposite side, starting with dad, the man next to me has always been quite cerebral and has tried to take things one at a time. He always proved to me that he could make things better this way. It became sort of frustrating. But mom would take me by her side and told me that us, women, are always amazing exactly because we joggle with all these tasks and that we can do what "they" do even better. 

Unfortunately things didn’t remain as mom would present them. Unfortunately capitalism brought each employee o challenge that our body is not yet fully prepared for. Tasks continue rising. Panic is bigger. 

In the new context, as a woman, I try to joggle with all the tasks at once like in a loom. While he knows how to take each project at a time and not become stressed… Until the corporation hits him too. But still he knows how to fight for his life beyond work. I stress, I panic. He has sorted everything out and he carries with dignity a cross he knows how to even hide behind a smile and a detachment. 

Work lays ever more pressure on “the ant’s shoulders", and they, men, start to joggle just like us with multiple tasks. Maybe they weren’t taught to do this, but they manage to handle it. And I watch simply amazed and fascinated by the calm and the adapting capacity. 

I become histerical and try to eliminate the stress and frustration I feel towards the "unjustice-hero" and his companions, but he remains always calm and knows how to treat things with diplomacy. 

He learns to sustain his point of view with arguments, and I raise the histeria. 

Everyday, personally, I wish to be more the man next to me. 

At the end of the day I wish to become the lady in distress… To find him, the man next to me, who can save me… Who can explain to me once again that things must be taken one at a time so you don’t mess them around… And that’s how I fall asleep calm with the solution my dad always had for the trouble me or mom made… take each task at a time…. The thought, that the man next to me is still different than me, gives me hope… 

Time for my own SELF

I discovered or better said rediscovered recently that burden which I have seen on the shoulders of my parents in the context of communist observation. What I mean by my observation I mean in a tender way the extremely undemocratic gesture which assumes invasion of the private space. 
And no wonder that we live under the impression that democracy means also invading of private space and that somehow we become VIPs if we are constantly under surveillance. I went once in a house where everything was closely supervised. And I was amused that each look I threw in the corners of the house, in the fake ceiling, in the mirrors on the corridors. I was amused that I knew I am nobody and yet those people were wasting their time watching a nobody. And I felt a little bit safe with so many people "watching" my back. I had a driver and a mistress who took care of all we wished for. And I had the seaside at a glance away and the beach and the waves. And I didn't feel threatened, but it had been my decision to go there and I wanted to experiment that feeling. My freedom to choose to throw myself in this experience. And then everything was justified by a will to overcome the limits, to see what such a house is like, an unjustified curiosity to test the evil before he became part of my universe. 
The time I want to spend with myself and my faces is a private time which nobody has the right to watch. This is part of my being which I decide to express in an intimate way, private and away from foreign eyes. Same thing happens with the phone. It's a mean of communication, not a tool to draw a psychological profile. If we are all followed, it means they are leaving from the premises that we are all felons.
I believe even more that my privacy is invaded if I am not warned by this. 

Safety has some limitations. The limits we must establish and we are mature enough to consider which is that private space which should be deprived of the foreign eyes and ears. 
Freedom means you can unravel without leaving traces, without having an impact on somebody's work, without being judged for your deeds. 

Freedom doesn't mean constraints and worries which we fell when the Big Brother watches over us. 

Big Brother doesn't make you a star but it invades in a brutal way and very aggressively the private life!

The Aspiring Innocence

The impact of aspirational was never trully evaluated or identified as a potential risk over the development of our society. 

We've always walked ahead in search of beauty, in association of new with a prosperous life. But a brief look back will make us understand and love more the power of traditional and old as heritage. If we realise that old can still have life, we will manage to still transmit the sustainability and perpetuation as two important life attributes. So we shouldn't wonder at the ephemerality and momentarity of each gesture. The "fast generation", as we should call those coming after us, will always be superficial and will rapidly forget of the impact of each event. 

But transmitting some attributes, distribution of a responsibility will manage to bring most back to "slow" the human kind.

And the moment in which the aspirational becomes adorable is a recent discovery in the lost look of a man in the traffic of a Bucharest mall. A man with poor clothes at the KFC order desk asks the cashier if they have something to drink. The cashier, a little bit surprised, told him they have Cola, Fanta, Sprite. The man verbally chose a Fanta and also excited took out his brand new credit card from his wallet to pay. He was so happy for the 5,9 lei spent via pos to the american giant that you could swear he had won the elections if you looked into his eyes. And the man was happy he could drink a Fanta in an aspirational environment paying with this new tool everybody uses. Most probably that smile and enthusiasm will stay for a long time in my memory. The lesson of life was a scary one: the exploitation of innocence to the aspirational shows us we fall often in that trap if we are already card users, delighted by the new "tool".

We are sure victims in front of advertising we embrace as a standard of life. 

For all the rest it sure is MasterCard.

The Nationalism With a Human Face

In the '90s we were crazy about the Coca-Cola bottle, who's drink we would taste only on special occasions, we had moderate access to McDonald’s, it was a holiday when we went to Pizza Hut and we hated the trip to the market every Saturday among market stalls, despite the crowd of people, despite getting all the germs. Now, it looks like everything we touch is beautiful and we need something real in order to survive. 

So I'm beginning to like the crowdedness at the market, I started buying from stalls, to manage the germs we meet at every corner and I believe the Coca-Cola bottles are no longer such a big attraction. We are trying to live healthier and somehow the return to nationalism makes us believe that the problems we know will disappear in the shadow of some long forgotten times. These problems did not exist when the communism existed and the fruits from the country side were the good ones. Although Soya would be found before ’89, we considered it bad quality and harmful, though now we embrace it as healthy food. 

Then and now, occident and nationalism. 

And I wonder if it isn’t this tendency we feel even in the branding of the products that exploits our emotional nostalgy we feel in the context of some problems we didn’t know in the past ages. 

Everyday I Become More the Man Next to Me

The society we are living in has taught us that women need to take care of themselves. But ironically enough, we weren’t raised to take care of ourselves. My mom and my grannies have always taught me that girls should wear skirts, dresses, and constantly be preocupied by making things more beautiful and taking care of the household. Yet all these teachings got lost somewhere along the way. 

From the recent years’ experience, from a close observation of the opposite sex, it always seemed like HE provokes me to be in a constant competition with him. But judging things even deeper, I believe that the competition with the opposite sex has started from early school days. They could be relaxed and comfortable with themselves, and we had to be posh, wake up earlier, stay stiff in our perfect outfits. And why? 

So one day I decided I had to succeed in being just as cool and nice as them. And I believe it was also a man who told me a secret in the unsatisfied 16th year of my life. He told me that it doesn’t actually matter how you look, but how the others perceive you. And if you are the ugliest person, but to your audience, you are very sure of yourself, you will be percieved as beautiful. I looked at him and I suddenly saw all his flaws beyond his self-confidence. And then I understood the secret of the opposite sex is exactly this self contentment. They had their own uncertainties at that age, but they somehow knew how to behave "like men". And since then I learned attitude is the one I have to race with. 

Now if I think deeper into it, I realise that my love for trainers, basketball trainers and other sport shoes is coming also from the admiration toward them, the ones who manage always to impress through self confidence, through trust and powerful gestures. And I decided that in a man’s world it’s not necessarly good to wear high heels, to be helpless and to be a constant cry for help. It’s not in their genes to take care. At least not in those I see around me. Yes, my father used to help mom walk on the street, he knew how to hold mom by the hand, to offer her his strong arm and to make her feel good for being helpless. But there aren’t such men in a world in which us, women, constantly fight for equal rights. They don’t fight to show us they can take care of kids and they can clean up the house. For all these they have Master Card. In cooking they are for sure much better than us. 

And I believe the competition has continued when it came to the technical revolution. I noticed how my best friend had a safe place among guys because she mastered this new field called technology. So, I had to know something about that. It’s not ladylike, but it’s nice and pleasant to be there in the middle of discussions. And their discussions would always be relaxed, without passion or egos. They are always at the same level. There’s no rooster in the conversation. 

And there are a few more things that we stress about too much. Men have a style, that no matter where they go, who they meet, what they talk about, they don’t mind laughing. Us, women, we try always to be aware of how we laugh, why, about who, if the subject is according to our mood and so on. 

And the mood for us is a very severe thing. We are actually constantly unhappy, discontent, willing for more. And I wonder why can’t we just be happy with what we have? I mean what can be so bad that we cannot be thankful for what we have? The cave will become empty? There will be no more provisions?

Hey, but we could go hunting! If they can do it, why couldn’t we?

Every day, with every new challenge, I am becoming more the man next to me. And it seems sometimes that my shadow becomes manly. And that doesn’t seem like a good challenge. I like the man next to me to be in flash and bones, to have a firm voice who knows to impose some limits to my oscilant behaviour, to know me when I am mad and to know his part is more important than my competitive play. But I believe it’s very hard to admit we are vulnerable and we need a little guidance in life even at this age. We are proud, while they know that if today was not a good day for hunt, tomorrow the sun will shine again. To us the sunset seems the end of a cycle, and the empty glass is getting dry at the end of a cycle, otherwise you waste a good wine. 

This constant move is becoming tiring! Let’s admit it, we are trying, but it’s not always perfect and it’s useless. They will always be next to us. Closer or further their part is essential. I would take off my hat, but I would be just like them, so I will take a bow and hold my hand up for a gentle kiss and I will close by hoping those who will read these lines will understand the essence of the destructive fight of our society. 

The Opposite Attracts

Personally, I like the perfect shapes, I like everything to shine, I like the colour explosion. And yet, on a trip to the Garbage Dump next to Bucharest, I took much more photos than if I would have had I stopped in the "Museum of perfect shapes". That is because the perfection I admire, I try to build, while the rest remains full of a poetry I notice only when I see. 

It looks like the apparent accessibility of new, associated with the image of perfection, makes us bored with beauty. So we started searching for beauty in the abnormal, in all that is deviated and in everything that doesn’t fit  our rules. It’s fascinating to us this aesthetic of ugliness. And that extends to everything that surrounds us. If so far we’ve been appreciating the  perfection of the shirt of the man we were listening to, today it seems to become memorable the bad tooth of our speaker or the element that takes him out of the crowd. 

And everything seems to be taken beyond our control: we have a fascination towards the macabre subjects, a sick interest towards the decomposing and the imperfection of the human being. 

I wonder if this betrays an uncertainty of ourselves that we are trying to discover in the imposed models?

And even weirder it seems that we start to see even in commercials, that advertising material that entices us to buy “the new”, “the magic”, “the perfect”, a world that no longer represents the aspirational model, but somehow returns to the reality we are embracing. And this in a moment which, theoretically means our world is rising from the economical crises so spoken of. It looks like we gave up searching for this "beautiful". It looks like we are bored with "perfection". 

And yet our world is full of aestheticians, of people who “beautify” us and our world accepts so easily the modified models to fit the aesthetic norms. But the fascinations for ugly remains clearly bigger than our behavioural decisions. 

In a world that becomes more perfect every day, we start to love more the simplicity and the story beyond the paint. It’s so strange our world and the perfection we are beginning to stop appreciating and to search again for the “fleur du mal”.

Freedom - Edge of Democracy

I am missing the lovely careless vacation days, when the sun used to set on my happy feet, when the sun used to shine through the towel hanging in the window and when the sitting used to be protected by linens all the way to the seaside. And on top of that people used to sing. We had no idea what democracy looked like, we simply enjoyed the freedom of family. 
Nowadays we run away from family commitment and embrace the freedom of movement. We are free to cross borders, yet the border of our mind and soul is stronger than it used to be... 
I wonder if we realise that we're on the edge of Democracy and feeling the fresh breeze of democratic air. 
We are free to buy all the "beauty" of the west and we are free to judge what borders to cross or not. 
Enjoy the freedom and smell of it! 

Sell Me An Insurance, Please

I think the insurance agents are exploiting the need we constantly have to feel safe and the need to know what will happen. But, still, when it comes to actually proving the safety they insure the insurance companies don't really insure you for nothing. For once, they come and tell you that whatever happens to your house you will be reimbursed. And you think, hey, next time my neighbour forgets the water tap on or has a problem with his pipes, I don't have to ruin my vacation plans and pay for the repairs. But after two or three years of paying for this insurance, the neighbour does it again and I turn up to the insurance company and they tell you that that is not insured or that the insurance will only pay for the repair. Now, i am thinking like this: i am paying the insurance company 1% of my investment and in 10 years you give these guys 10%. Now if I never benefit from the insurance they have their salaries assured, but for me it's just money spent. 

I want to have the safety feeling and that's how a salesman comes and sells me the dream of security. However, you end up finding out that the insurance doesn't really insure anything except the exceptional cases when you have nothing to do with this. And it's pretty sick and frustrating to discover that all the money invested by you ever in insurances would not pay off the trouble you have in case of the smallest shake. And I am not talking about the physical earth shake, but by any sort of shake you may live during the normal day life. 

So, basically "Lie to me" it's a beautiful title for the happening of a salesman coming to visit you with a smile on his face, with the lessons well learned about what answer to give you in case you say NO or I AM NOT INTERESTED or GO AWAY. I have lived through this a couple of times and it turned out they had answers to absolutely every answer of mine. One day, I decided to try them out and tell them really frankly: I am not interested. And of course the thousands of questions rolled. I had to make the effort of explaining my refusal. PAL, I DIDN'T ASK YOU OVER AND I DON'T NEED YOU SINCE I HAVEN'T LOOKED FOR YOU. Is it that difficult for you to get it? I am sure the answer is not, it's just that you can only think of your sale. Well, salesman, your death would not save anybody's life, thanks to Arthur Miller's insight, and my opinion is your sale would not make my life better, but poorer. So, please, feel free  to sell your goods somewhere else. 

Thank you!

Pal, I didn't call you, I didn't look for you, I don't need you.

Stand Out or Stand In

Our world is on constant movement. 

We live with the constant fear that every second spent is waisted. It has become so obsessive that the 80's expression of "sleeping together" no longer has the secondary meaning, but rather the literal meaning. 

And the fast pace we move in makes us forget to use words with secondary meanings or play with words. I am beginning to think the days when pun, irony and sarcasm were invented were slower times, clearly more challenging for the mind. People didn't have so much education, but they were challenged to use the little vocabulary they had in different circumstances. 

In a way we seem to live our lives more on the verge of correctly expressed, rather than richly expressed. Our thoughts are not entirely expressed. 

We don't have time to think of beautiful words, we just make sure we are saying it right. 

And that is how we are becoming robots who know how to "correctly" communicate for every type of receiver. The receiver is probably also a robot transcoding our message and putting words into actions. 

And in such a world it becomes hard to tell a story to people who cannot take time to think twice. We think at first and act upon our thought. It seems like we are all on a race against time. Funny enough, at the end of the road there is no prize. So, why rush when you can enjoy time to feel good and use your brain?

I believe that if you want to stand out, take time to think twice. Learn that pun, irony and sarcasm can actually win you an auditorium, while blending in can only fit you perfectly into the "world lego". 

Make Youself noticed, not blended

The clothing fabric makes all the difference... While models that fit so beautifully on the billboards wear clothes only for a few hours, the rest of us, the consumers, need to wear them for the whole day, so think twice when picking. And think your health is more important than being a look alike. And think you could be different by choosing to be different than the billboard. 

The fabric can actually make you feel uncomfortable and cheap, though thinking you could be special just by blending in. But think about the many people around you who are wearing for the very same reasons. 

The new moon is a good example of being differnt everytime...

Lullaby

Oh my darling Caroline ... And the story is so sad that it kind of got me thinking deeper. I learned this song when I was a kid as I was perfecting my English language over a hot summer's day. And I kept it as a sweet memory of the age of naivity. And even deeper than that it seemed like our generation has a big problem: we have always been self sustainable. There never seemed to be someone to hold us up, to hold our hands and our parents knew very little about us. Now we find it hard to understand those who have little clue about the world and those who listen to the mass message that there are impossible things. For my generation nothing seemed impossible. And we seemed to have dared the faith with a lot of our decisions. And lucky enough I am happy to say I know people who changed the world and who keep having an impact on it. We sang our own lullaby and because we were always the sollitary climbers of mountain tops, we now seem to disrespect all the helpless people around us... You think that's wrong? I believe it's worrying that the new generations have no clue of their direction and see very unclear that they have not many shoulders to lean on. I believe our generation will need sustainable future to feel confident in the future... And a stronger lullaby to build it up...

Inevitable...

In the silence of the night you may feel the presence of loved passed ones... and then you realise the whole you have left in your heart... And I feel the loss, the enormous fell out of possession and I think constantly if love should also mean letting go in this way, or if we are used to possess people just like things...
It's hard to deal with death especially when it strikes in such a short notice... And it makes you think there must have been something you could have done better and it makes you feel helpless in front of it... And it make you feel like God is somehow this undoubtable step we all have to take... While life is just something chemically happening... However it's even more complicated when it comes to you being the one who decides when one's suffering ends and where you play God. There is nothing even more painful than playing the Great Divine. I don't want that and personally I believe I would become a vegetarian were it to live out of my own hunt. And this is how thoughts came into action and brought the mind to the endless wheel of justice which led the heart into infinite tears... It's hard to lose one soul, it's even harder when it strikes you that your time may be one day just as limited as that. And it's a wake up call to do what you like and what you feel it's right for you.
Keep your head up and enjoy the sun, the rest will happen anyway... Inevitable...

Where thoughts collide

The two most important persons in my life are trying to build me different images for a dramatic situation. One of them is pretty practical and choosing to end a life than see it go through all the pain and suffering. The other one chooses to hope and fight for life. The most painful of all this situation is that the sweetest being in my life is suffering a great deal and I am the one in charge with her happiness and well being. 

I love the fact that from time to time I get the chance to see my parents be terribly profound and keep their parenting style in attitude. I wish they could keep that forever. But I guess somehow the lesson about life comes also with the sad truth that all life must come to an end. However this end as certain as it is, somehow scares us. Or the suffering is what kills us. Or the simple idea that we stop being a whole being. We know from start that we will be imputed of the life we so freely received it. And we never seem to get used to this fact. 

And the sad truth is that recently we are confronted more and more with the serious Cancer affection in various shapes. I wish I could declare war on this disease. But I cannot. I feel helpless in front of this thing eating us alive. 

Now it's my cat, since winter it's Smaranda (helpsmaranda.com), a few years back it was my grandma, and so on. However you put it, it's not the state of mind. It's clearly something around us. It's clearly all the food we are so easily and cheaply fed. 

And there is little known of what we seem to turn into an angry God called Cancer. His royal highness seems to have his own shrine... 

Smile For A Smile

This is a judgemental analysis of the world today. Please take time to think about all the things that are sold to you every day with a simple smile and then take time to think if you could do the same thing in your own activity.
We buy from smiling people, from enthusiast neighbours and because of recommendations.
Smiles are very useful to our world, so a little smile somehow obliges us "to buy".
The communist society knows one individual gets into a factory and then lives working there for the rest of his life. But in the capitalist society, individuals are free and encouraged to move ahead. The entrepreneur is encouraged to change people, the business doesn't evolve around employees, the world, society, but it develops together with all these things and, of course, its entrepreneurs' ageing. So, please move ahead when you feel you are getting at the end of this step's development. Instead of having the boring look that doesn't help you, please do something you love with a smile on your face.
That should help you feel better and that will empathically transfer to your audience. And the world is much more beautiful where there is no tension.
Also, enthusiasm of the new that makes you feel self-confident is what helps both you and those you are addressing. What is best for you may be best for others too. You just need to show them and make them identify themselves with you.
Recommendations are trustworthy when the person making them is one similar to you. So you have to identify with them. Smile and the person next to you will smile back. And, there, you sold a smile!
The point is you have to embrace the new not just as consumer, but as personal development also. And that is how our world will keep rolling into the FUTURE.
And please put your heart in what you do and you will win more fans. Stop being afraid of anyone judging you. Everyone makes mistakes.
In a world that makes individuals feel lonely, you get the chance to win people over by listening to them or showing empathy. Understand their position, put yourself in that situation, stop judging and then talk to them. You will have them closer and this obliges them to trust you.
Talk too much and you lose interest. You have to save energy for the rest of the day or for the meaningful moments in your life. Jobs are not meant to exhaust you. Jobs are meant to give you the rewarded activity in a capitalist society. Other wise there is nothing new with the "job" word.
And a smile on your job will make people lose any power they think they might have upon you.

Faith and More

Throughout history humans have fought for food. No matter what vision of expansion a leader embraced, the main purpose for conquering new territories was food. 

Nowadays, food is much easier to obtain. We have food, if we work for it. The money we make allows us to buy food. The rest are details. No one is willing to fight for it anymore. There is no reason to. No one knows why battles were lead anymore. Nobody cares about history. And the apocalypse is always just a biblical word. We are fed on daily basis with strange information of panic, which leads us into more and more consumption. 

I guess we lose the main perspective from time to time and we become blinded by the ever new releases of great variety, when as "animals" our main concern and interest are the basic needs. The rest is advertising in our vains. 

Coming back to our modern life, where we go to the shop to buy something to eat and find a great variety to pick from, I have to say the struggle has changed. We now fight with the decisions we make. Our brains cooperate with the advertising messages harder and harder. We no longer feel the need to fight, we need to get as if it would end tomorrow. And there are boxes bigger and bigger getting on the market. 

Think twice before thinking we have a hard life. We have a very easy life. Easier than your pet's maybe. And yet, your pet is treated with good intention. But what if you meant wrong? Too many 'pets' and survival of the fittest.

Still, what if one day our resources would be less than the demand we have?

Somehow, we have that today in our world. We have a few corners of the world where people are not properly fed. They fight for their everyday survival. They don't fight for territory, because there is none left. Those who want to thrive leave the desert. And the outside world shall be conquered for food. They have to make it in big cities in order to reach that food everyone is talking about. 

And  somehow we have it in us to love the death stage. 

Think only of the cruel movies with box office success. 

And then count your blessings for still being alive in a time where fight is mainly with our minds on the world stage. 

Keep your sanity with every word you read and don't get lost in survival elements!

True Beauty of Crises

Because our world is going through a crises, we seem to return to the good old "poverty" values. We aim more to the natural standards, which may result in a good turn for our ever consuming world. 

I am happy to be part of the generation that stands tall in front of the world crises. 

It's not easy to go through something which is in theory a collapse, which will be talked about as the world crises of the 21st century and yet it is a moment to realise that values are not lost, just rediscovered. I am happy to be part of projects which promote that kind of simple beauty we seem to have lost among the artificial things. And it's hard to know where beauty lies when all that has been promoted as premium has been fake. I believe brands are the first who need to reinvent themselves in such a world change. We redefine movement in a world that needs faster mobility and has less physical activity. We are the ones who learn poverty may mean beauty, if class is added to it and if harmony joins. It's not easy to return to values that were never taught and to educate kids in the manner which proves there is life beyond the unreachable aspirations of marketing. And the crises is teaching us just that. 

Consumerism is winning new values and reusability becomes marketable. Thanks to some big metropolis who redefine style in the vintage version and thanks to some smart marketing tools, we learn to recycle the old into new fashionable things. 

I take a bow in front of the artists and creators who know how to promote as classy the simple miracles in our everyday lives. 

We need to keep in mind the beauty of basics in order to keep track of our human condition. 

Little Big

I grew up surrounded by mature people. For me they were the big people. And I wanted to be just like them. I had no idea what that meant. I just knew they knew everything, they could do anything and there was nothing scaring them. Except the regime.

A few years ago, all grown up, I was asked what I wanted to become. And the answer shook my entire ground. Now I was big, I had nothing to fear, I have done a lot, but still I felt I haven't done much. And still I was big. Somehow I felt there was a lot more to do than the standards I had before. And to think there was actually nothing to be afraid of. And my only fear was that I would not do enough.

Now, I consider I am that big person. And it all stays in a different context. I ponder now not only my doings, but the magic my friends make come true. And they touch people's lives with the things they make. And this way, my new context lies in the generation that moves this world at present times. Quite proud to brag about being big.

I have to name here my friend who works for the biggest company in the world and small as she may be, she does something that moves the world.

I have to remember, my friend who is an architect. And with her ideas she changes the world aesthetically. Proud again for such company.

I cannot forget my artistic friend, who does everything to make the world better and who raises emotion.

And another good friend who works in a place where people are boasting with pragmatism and yet she moves this company through her charm and communication.

With all these friends, I have to aim to be big. In a society which sells lack of culture as a model, I am the proud friend of such people moving world with great heritage. And I stand up straight and say hello to whomever looks down on me because my values are bigger than their pity small hearts and minds.

Writing can change the world with a good speech. A good speech can free minds. Freedom comes from value and Freedom is what gives you the power to create, to move or to change. Freedom is what makes one Big.

Woman in Her 30s

I received as a gift this book from a friend of mine when turning 30 and I decided to open it and start reading it once again.

The story is about a father who tries to worn his little girl about mistaking her infatuation with love over an older man, a colonel. The father is fairly concerned with his daughter's  desire to marry him for his position and the impression he makes on the little girl. And in spite of her father's advice she decides to marry him. And the rest of the story should be read to understand what Balzac was trying to say. 

The main idea I got was that in our early years we are looking for models, for men who can be up there on a pedestal and who can guide us in our lives. These are stories very well put together. The guy on the horse was a colonel who has lived most of his life as a career man. Now he was looking for a wife to stay home and wait for him. 

The modern woman I believe is a lot more sophisticated. She wants to have her career and her life to be guided by her rules. It is very hard for the modern woman with a career to make up her mind about who is suitable for her to stand by for the rest of her life. By the time she reaches that point in her career she is self sufficient and he only needs to come in and feel in a soul whole. And he needs to understand that coffee can be made or just drunk, but it doesn't make a difference at the end of the day who made it and who drunk it. It matters that there is someone there in the morning to share the coffee with. And it matters that his arms hold you and tell you "Good night!" at the end of the battle. Somehow, the 30 year old woman now-a-days is the colonel who needs a sure thing when arriving home.

Monetarity

The effects of monetarity and the lack of morality: we are paying more money to a woman taking off her clothes than to a teacher taking out her knowledge... And the problem is we are losing morality and encouraging monetarity in a world that's losing more and more the idea of selfesteem. We have come to measure our lives in money. We learn in as many words as possible or even invent more every day for the simple process of consumerism. I still hope we will some day recover and regain all the moral value we've earned through the test of time, wars and revolutions. However the future is not so nearby. We are somehow blind not to see that the herds will not go in the right direction, but the individual must make the right choice. I believe it is mandatory to learn how to make most of the essential stuff yourself. The processed info is enough being fed ot us. Literally or literary, we ar beginning to miss the importance of making. We are producing for society, but never making stuff that will test of time.

In my opinion, the future will show the test of time. And the one who knows how to actually make something will have to win versus one who doesn't. In theory... My theory...

The Weakness of Being Weak

I was kindly asked today what is my purpose in writing. For the right answer I had to take some time to think about it, though I've known it all my life: there is nothing making me feel better than the writing. This is what helps me say things as truthful as I can. With irony and deep analysis I see the world as a better place. All the sad truths most people get angry about, I am now facing with a smile and an ironic thought that it shouldn't be changed or else we wouldn't have anything to laugh about. I turn the disturbing dysfunctional into the strange matter to laugh about and move on, the buffoon of the court. 

And with all your judgemental writings, you don't want to change anything?

said the man with the voice. No, I don't want to change anything. I want to make a point and those who will be willing to listen may change something in time or laugh with me at the moment. 

But this means you are weak and you are not a weak person, continued the man with the voice. 

I am weak, that's why I write about it. I am weak, that's why I never change things, but I rather stand back, as a decent and quiet observer to the useless panic, the crazy yells, the unfair thefts, the disturbing sounds, the indecent approach to the normal life and the rest of our everyday encounters. 

From dusk till dawn, walk your feet in a crazy pace or in a slow move and you will notice a funny story, you will see someone who raises emotion in you. And that someone has a story to tell, has done something wrong and while counting up deeds, you will have to laugh about it, about life, about the world we live in. 

And this I call weak, not strong. And proud to be standing up here on the mountain and chase the stories down the piece of paper, the blank webpage, the empty text message. 

From time to time I get my head in the clouds and forget I am still down here, with the feet deep in the earth. But it helps. It helps a great deal to be the urban anthropologist. 

A good day for thoughts, for chatting, for getting back to writing. 

A good day for a walk down Calea Victoriei, Bucuresti.

Happiness You're Looking For

I keep seeing silicones and anorexia promoted as beauty. I see fake eyelashes and fake nails as beauty. Personally, I hate that. Not because I couldn't afford it or because I am afraid of the pain to get there, but because these are fake values. And it all comes down to the reality we embrace versus the beauty we have promoted in the media. It all comes down to accepting who we are in order to be happy. Everywhere you look you see people being miserable, being tired, constantly complaining about their lives. And we are being promoted to impossible standards of "perfection".

Let's stop for a while and see where we stand by looking at ourselves in the mirror. With a critical eye, just notice what is there to be changed in the mirror. Look straight into your eyes and find the sparkle you lost. Remember the last time you looked at yourself and you've seen exactly what you expected and then try to go back to that time.

This continuos complain on all media and the constant raise of the standards does not make us happier, but constantly unhappier. Also, the reach of standards does not make us happy unless that is what we aim for. And we don't. Think clear for a second and notice what you really want. You don't want to be miserable in a box, you want to be free to explore the world.

Take time to walk your thoughts, anger and frustrations off.

That is where real beauty lies and that is what makes you happy. That must be the happiness you are looking for.