Back home

Just got back from vacation. Summer is over. But my everyday life is good. I'll just take it as it comes, perhaps in slow motion mode for a while :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qm5rd1kciM

Do You Really Want to Know?

Why do people ask questions that they clearly do not want to know the answer to? For example, why ask me how I am feeling when you know that if I say bloated, gassy and/or horny you will be appalled. The truth is you want me to say, “I’m fine and you?” because you really want to believe that that is the case and you can go about your day without any reason to fear that I will go crazy, flip out and take you with me. Unfortunately, real crazy people never tell you that they are crazy.


I take a lot of flack from people because where I am from you do not ask strangers “what’s up” or “how you doing”. We don’t ask because we don’t really want to know and do not want to open the door for you to tell us. Have you ever seen the movie “The Invention of Lying”? The premise is that everyone in the movie tells the truth all the time because lying has not been invented yet. One of the best exchanges in the movie goes like this.
Ricky Gervais – (walks on the elevator) Hey/Good morning. How are you?
Jonah Hill – Alright I guess, I mean I tried to kill myself again last night.
Ricky Gervais – (clearly uncomfortable)


That is why I don’t ask everyone. I don’t care how you are doing. I don’t want to know that you had a rough night last night. We are not friends. In fact I probably would not talk to you outside the office if we had not been in the same elevator or we had not made eye contact which made pretending like I don’t see you impossible. The point is that we really don’t want to know what is going on in the lives of our coworkers, fellow shoppers, bus buddies or friend of friends and to be even more honest we don’t want to tell people what is going on with us. So we lie instead of saying what we are really thinking. We don’t say the following even though we are thinking it:


I don’t know you like that!
If I tell you I might as well say it over the intercom because you are just going to tell everyone anyway.
Hey there, nosy!
I can’t believe you just asked me that!
Pervert!
Is your life that boring?
Mind your business. I mean really, can I get some space?
I don't like you.
Actually, I hate this job.


There are any number of responses that we really want to give when people ask questions above their personal security clearance.


The other reason people ask about you is so that they will have a reason to talk about themselves or give you unsolicited advice. The thing is that I don’t want your opinion. That is why I did not ask you. I don’t want to know about your kidney stone, feminine cycle or sinus drainage. That is why I did not share. I do not want to let you in my life because then I won’t be able to get you out of my business.
However, there are times when people close to me go too far. I have an ongoing debate with someone about asking family/friends questions that you know only end up making you upset. I say don’t ask and she says she just wants to understand. The truth is she doesn’t want to know the truth because she wants someone else’s internal logic to make sense in terms of what she would do. That will never happen. Why questions just lead to more why questions and then someone is bound to get upset.


What typically happens is that she asks why the person did it, they lie because even they know the truth sounds stupid, she figures out they lied and get upset. She will then ask in a round about way hinting that she knows the truth. That person makes a last ditch effort to save the lie and then she explodes. That is totally pointless because she knows before she asks the first time that this was going to be how it ended and she was going to do the favor regardless. So why get herself all worked up? I don’t know and I don’t ask because I don’t really want to know.

(Amanda Jannan's blog, Friday, August 5, 2011)

The meaning of life

Lesson

1984

Fragment din "1984" de George Orwell:

The Ministry of Truth - Minitrue in Newspeak (note: Newspeak was the official language of Oceania) - was startingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant leathering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was devided: the Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts; the Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war; the Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order; and the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
The Ministry of love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all.

When crazy people say amazing things

(de unde si ipoteza ca nebunia poate veni din prea multa inteligenta - folosita gresit, insuficient exploatata or something)
Din cronica jurnalistei si umoristei quebecoase Julie Laferrière (ziarul Métro de Montréal), care descrie saptaminal cite un original utilizator al transportului in comun:
À maintenant deux pouces de mon visage, l'homme d'environ 40 ans aux cheveux noirs en bataille parle haut et fort afin d'enterrer sa musique imaginaire. Imaginaire, parce qu'il est muni d'écouteurs... qui ne sont reliés à rien. Mais, de toute évidence, il entend des choses en stéréo.
"Au Brésil, ils n'ont pas de montre parce que ça structure le temps. Y'en ont pas besoin. Y sont déjà dans le futur. Pis y'ont la plage. Qui veut savoir l'heure quand y'a la mer?!"

On kissing

Presque tous les humains embrassent et pourtant la science n'a toujours pas réussi à déterminer pourquoi ils le font. Est-ce instinctif ou culturel? Une chercheuse américaine a compilé des études historiques, sociologiques, neurologiques - et même zoologiques - pour percer le mystère du baiser.
Dans son livre "La science du baiser: ce que nos lèvres nous révèlent", Sheril Kirshenbaum, de l'université du Texas à Austin, tente de remonter à l'origine de cette pratique, présente dans 90% des cultures à travers le monde.
D'après cette chercheuse, les scientifiques soupçonnent que le baiser serait un dérivé du reniflement. Certains anthropologues avancent que la première salutation de ce type aurait pu être un échange nez-à-nez où chacun humait l'odeur de l'autre pour le reconnaître ou vérifier son état de santé.
La première mention d'un baiser sur les lèvres se trouve dans la littérature indienne d'environ 1.500 av. J.-C. Un texte védique, en sanskrit, décrit une pratique qui consiste à humer avec la bouche. Un autre raconte comment le "jeune seigneur de la maison lèche souvent la jeune femme". Un autre encore parle d'amants qui "posent leur bouche l'une contre l'autre". Enfin, une ancienne loi hindoue réprimande l'homme qui "boit l'eau des lèvres d'une esclave".
Dans ses "Histoires", rédigées au Ve siècle av. J.-C., le Grec Hérodote évoque les baisers qu'échangent les Perses: lèvres à lèvres pour les personnes de même statut social, celles d'un rang inférieur devant embrasser le sol ou les pieds de leurs supérieurs.
Un mythe babylonien, gravé dans la pierre au VIIe siècle av. J.-C. et inspiré de légendes orales bien plus anciennes, fait référence à un baiser de salutation et à un baiser de supplication (par terre ou sur les pieds), rapporte Sheril Kirshenbaum.
La Bible elle-même regorge de baisers, tout comme la littérature et les arts plastiques occidentaux. Parfois décrié comme sale, le bouche-à-bouche européen a tout de même traversé les âges, se propageant même là où les explorateurs du Vieux Monde se sont aventurés. Le baiser de salutation a toutefois été délaissé ponctuellement, par exemple dans le Londres des années 1660 décimé par la Grande Peste, où il a été remplacé -c'est plus prudent- par la poignée de mains.
D'après Sheril Kirshenbaum, aujourd'hui, plus de six milliards d'êtres humains posent régulièrement leurs lèvres sur celles de leurs semblables, pour des raisons sociales ou sentimentales.
La chercheuse confie avoir été surprise par la différence qu'elle a observée entre les sexes. "Je n'aime pas du tout les stéréotypes de genre, mais j'ai vu tellement d'études sur cette division", note-t-elle. "Les hommes ont tendance à décrire le baiser comme un moyen de parvenir à une fin, espérant obtenir davantage, tandis que les femmes accordent beaucoup plus d'importance au baiser lui-même".
Ils tombent d'accord en revanche sur les conséquences que peuvent avoir de piètres performances en la matière. Ainsi, d'après une enquête citée par l'auteure, 59% des hommes et 66% des femmes disent avoir mis fin à une relation parce que leur partenaire embrassait mal.

Par Leanne Italie--, The Associated Press | La Presse Canadienne – sam. 5 mars 2011 10:39 HNE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgncPD0bew

PS: Mai zicea o critica a filmului "Frech Kiss" ca un sarut French (=cu limba) e un act mai intim decit a te afla cu cineva in pat.

(hahahah - how ironical - postare din vremea celui mai crunt herpes din viata mea!)