Buzz Words

"Interesting how people sometimes just think of a 'buzz word', say "I just discovered a phenomenon".. write a book about it .. and then go over the world talking about it" ... All this, independant of how stupid or rediculous it is ! It is just renaming some well known things, putting them in a certain scenario - frequently - very weakly interconnected , and claiming inventing something ... Buzz words !

Parkinson's Law

or The Rising Pyramid

Work - it is said - expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. 'It is the busiest man who has time to spare'. A lack of real activity does not necessarily result in leisure, and a lack of occupation is not necessarily revealed by a manifest idleness. The thing to be done swells in importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent.

C. Northcote Parkinson

As interesting this statement is, and considering the improtant light it sheds on our use of our time - not just filling up the idleness, one is inclined to think about personal time management habits, and our allocation of our time to work, instead of allocating work to our time .. An interesting duality, that extends itself to themes related to determinism and taking charge of one's own circumstances... Important in its links to proactivity in creating one's future self, based on current allocation of work to available time (NOT time to available work) [ present self = sum of experiences of the past self ]

What does it mean to be Normal ?

What does it mean to be normal (Adapted From Coelho's "The Winner Stands Alone"):

• Normal is what can make us forget who we are, and what we want .. so we can work and produce and give birth and make money..
• Wasting your years studying in college to discover in the end that you can’t be employed
• You retire, and discover that you don’t have any more energy to enjoy life, so you die of boredom
• Believing that power is much more important that money, and money infinitely more important than happiness
• Making fun of everyone who seeks happiness instead of money, and accusing them of lack of ambition
• Comparing things like cars, houses and clothes, and measuring life by these things, instead of trying to find the true purpose of life
• Getting married, having kids, and staying together for a long time after the death of love, saying that this is ‘for the kids’
• Criticizing everyone who tries to be different
• Putting a piece of colored cloth around your neck, although it has absolutely no use other than being called a tie
• Never asking the direct question, although the other person can guess what you want
• Keeping a smile on, even on the verge of crying, and feeling sad for those who show their feelings
• Despising all that easily achieved, because it is worthless if it didn’t take sacrifice
• Following fashion, no matter how silly and uncomfortable
• Wasting a lot of time on external beauty, and little attention to internal beauty
• Using everything to appear above other humans, although you are normal
• Facing the door in an elevator, pretending you are the only one there
• Covering the christmans tree, in the southern hemisphere, with snow, even though christ’s birth had nothing to do with winter
• Going to a charity tea party, and beileving you have done enough to end social disparity
• Eating three times a day, even if not hungry
• Always saying you tried, although you never did
• Delaying the important things in life till later.. where you will have no more energy
• Avoiding melancholy with excessive doeses of tv-watching
• To believe that being a good, honest and decent person will make other see you weak, breakable and easily manipulated.. and to believe that aggressiveness and rudeness are equivalents of a strong personality

The Winner Stands Alone - Paulo Coelho - Book Review

"The Winner Stands Alone" is a good book, which contains interesting analysis of the development of some personality types, their actions and justifications, and many deep and sharp opinions about a host of matters connected to consumerism, and the 'society of spectacle' (show society).. The sharpness and strength reached a climax somewhere after the mid of the novel, and then went down.. I would say it had an assymetric inverse parabolic shape..

Here are some of the quotes from the book :

“Change only happens in the times of crisis”

“We have all heard of a disease in central africa causing sleep.. we should know that a similar disease also inflicts the spirit, and it is very dangerous, because it can’t be noticed at an early age. Take notice of it with the first signs of indifference of lack of enthusiasm! The only vaccine against this disease is realizing that the spirit suffers – a lot – when we force it to live superficially.. The spirit loves all that is beautiful and deep!”

“Blessed is he that gives your children wings and roots”

“Talent? Yes .. she would like to believe that.. but she knows that in reality this is just the results of a game of dice between gods .. picks up specific people, and puts others in the other side in an a vast hole, where they can’t exit, can only clap and worship.. and then criticize later when time becomes against those gods”

“The Higher class tries to market its values. Ordinary people complain of divine injustice,and envy power, and are hurt when they see others enjoying.. They don’t understand that no one is really content, that everyone is worried and doesn’t feel safe.. and that what is hidden by jewelry, cars and fat wallets is simply great inferiority complexes.”

“We become gradually over the years, people below average.. We care not to be looked at as weird or extra-enthusiastic”.

“ Doctors look at the results of tests that completely oppose what they thought was the real reason, and have to decide what to trust, science or their hearts.. They have learned with time to trust their instincts, and saw improvements with their patients.
Businessment spend a lot of time on charts and graphs, then go in a manner that opposes the market completely, and then get richer !
Artists write books and movies that everybody says “will never succeed”, and “who cares for these things” , to end up Icons of popular culture.
Spiritual leaders preach fear and guilt instead of love that hsould, theoretically, be the most important thing in the world, and get more believers..
Only one group always fail to walk against the flow: Politicians. They want to satisfy eveyrone and they adhere strongly to the rules of politics. They end up resigning, apologizing and contradicting themselves.”

“He didn’t know that pure evil has a baby’s heart, doesn’t take responsibility for his actions, and is completely sure that he is right. He doesn’t fear, when he doesn’t get what he wants, to use everythiig possible to get to his aims. She understood know how did the angel become a demon: he always had in his heart revenge and hate, although he claimed that he grew and conquered all his wounds.”