Dannata politica

Crossposto. E che anche se scritto caotica, questa e' la mia idea sulla politica e piano piano diventerà sempre più chiara. Chissà che non ci sia un modo di far diventare la democrazia una cosa meno idiota.

Era una risposta ispirata da questo post del caro gionni, ma era troppo lungo quindi lo metto qua :)

ma porca eva! Vado per leggere l'articolo e scende un lenzuolo azzurro per invitarmi a condividerlo su Facebook che mi impedisce assolutamente di leggere l'articolo! E rinfrescando la pagina non si leva, ne' c'e' nulla che me la faccia chiudere. Ti dico quel posto era il male sono felice di averlo mollato.
In tema, andando sulla fiducia visto che appunto non riesco a leggere l'articolo: proprio ieri discutevo con Paolo l'importanza di un luogo IMPARZIALE che ci dica TUTTO quel che succede. Non solo. A me sono anni che il divario destra sinistra fa salire la febbre dall'incazzatura, perché alla fine da quel che vedo come osservatore esterno e' che destra e sinistra vuol solo dire dove vado ad approfittarmi di più, che mezzi ho per farlo, e chi mi aiuterà a farlo. Prendo un esempio lontano dall'Italia per chiarire: Al Jazeera un paio di settimane fa scriveva che Obama aveva fatto non so quale terribile torto alla Palestina accettando di trattare solo con Israele in so quale contesto: allora io, che leggo solo qualche volta le cose, posso pensare: oh che peccato Obama che delusione, ti facevo cosi giusto. Ma e' un momento passeggero perché SO che la realtà e' un tutto, possibilmente da guardare con il senno di poi, e non e' solo uno stralcio di notizia. E infatti ieri Paolo mi dice che Obama ha fatto incazzare gli israeliani perché incoraggia lo stato di Palestina ai confini del 1960 o quel che e'.
E Paolo dice "Mi ha sorpreso, visto che in vece stava tradendo tutto quello che aveva promesso". Ora io dico: e' POLITICA. Al MEGLIO, uno farà come Obama: ha un obiettivo, o cinque. Nel giro di 4 o addirittura, se possibile, 8 anni, cercherà di raggiungere quegli obiettivi. Per raggiungerli, e' EVIDENTE che dovrà dare un po' di qua e un po' di la', dovrà dire no di qua per poter dire si di la'. Distratto ovviamente dal dover combattere contro questo o quello che lo intralcerà non perché l'idea sia giusta o sbagliata per il popolo, ma perché non conviene a LUI (O lei). Al meglio.
Al peggio, e in Italia siamo al peggio, ma anche, mi dicono, qui da noi in UK, abbiamo gente che vuole ottenere per se' un sacco di cose, magari, se siamo fortunati, qualcosa per il "popolo", e farà quello che e' nella sua natura per ottenerlo: quelli che mi danno l'idea di fregarsene di chiunque al di la' di loro stessi sono davvero pochi, a sinistra o a destra.
Berlusconi e' il signor egoismo. Ma, pur nel suo egoismo, negli anni ha fatto anche cose eccelse, le ha gestite bene... meglio di tanti altri che hanno come unico merito di aver una buona retorica.
Il punto e', ormai e' odiato da gente che votava a sinistra e gente che votava a destra, non so quante speranze abbia di PIACERE. Potrebbe magari ritirarsi e fare qualcosa da dietro le quinte, chesso', fare il ministro dell'impresa o della finanza, invece no, siccome e' un piacione sta in prima fila, si fa buttare addosso di tutto, e si fa le plastiche per apparire più bello.
La vanità l'ha fregato. E qualsiasi cosa di buono avesse mai potuto fare, il non capire che avrebbe dovuto stare fuori dai riflettori gli ha impedito di fare un sacco di cose che avrebbe potuto fare. Li' e' stato stupido lui. Ma il punto, di nuovo, e': basta guardare a destra o a sinistra. Diamine il tizio francese e' un pervertito del menga, ma che mi frega che e' l'unico candidato di sinistra? E' un pervertito e come tale va trattato!
La politica va aggiustata: bisogna guardare alle persone, alle qualifiche che hanno, e NON a destra o a sinistra, basta, e' roba antica, antiquata, basta destra o sinistra solo persone, come nell'industria privata, diamine!
Uff questo commento e' diventato un post. Ma insomma rimane il fatto che come in Francia, a Milano da quel poco che ho sentito di entrambi sia Pisapia che la Moratti non le posso reputare persone serie, non le reputo persone qualificate, almeno leggendo qua e la'. Googlo per capire di più e vedo solo opinioni, mai fatti. Cerco sulla BBC che, scopro recentemente, ha l'obbligo di essere imparziale, e vedo solo fatti: Moratti ha perso e questo si dice riflette male sul governo Berlusconi, dicono. Pare che senza di lei Milano sarà piena di extracomunitari, questo si dice, questo dici. Ma in giro vedo solo articoli su lei che balla e lui che mette manifesti, che diamine, ma e' davvero questo quello di cui ha bisogno la gente per votare? Ci deve essere un articolo serio da qualche parte che dica cosa entrambi dicono di voler fare per Milano, che pero' abbia anche investigato se quanto promettono sia anche possibile. E poi vorrei anche un paragrafetto che indichi che entrambi hanno le qualifiche per ottenere le cose che promettono o hanno gente in squadra che permetteranno loro di farlo. Cosa bisogna fare per cambiare la politica verso questo? Solo allora potrei averne interesse.

Why I'm leaving Facebook/Perché abbandono Facebook

A while back a friend wrote a now-famous post about why he left the world of scientific research. That was a clever, well-thought out, well-written and very noble post. This is a rant, so you've been warned. I was introduced to Facebook by a friend of mine, back in hmmm, 2007 perhaps, and it was mainly presented as a place where it was easy to upload pictures and share stuff with people you knew. As soon as I went in there, I found people I thought I'd never hear from again, and most of them I was thrilled to have found, people life didn't give me the chance to get to know better or spend more time with, now I could finally interact with, get closer with, keep up with and it was a privilege, a joy! In some cases, I even managed to close a few ghosts from the past, by seeing them now, removing them from my mind, finally seeing that there was nothing left to share and so on: that too was invaluable, and I was grateful to Facebook for it. These were the arguments I used FOR Facebook with people I tried to convince to sign up so that I could more easily keep up with what was happening in their lives and in their heads. Then of course Facebook got filled up with useful distractions (bits of news, really funny stuff and so on) and some not so useful, stuff that just wasted my time (games I liked, games I didn't, games I got invited to, apps that just made me compulsively waste my time, scrolling down useless posts on my wall to get to the people I cared to know about and so on). I still liked it, however, and it was still all worth it: every time I uploaded a video or a picture with no hassle at all, no cropping or resizing, and knew that an old dear relative would see it easily on her niece's account, I felt it was all worth it. [As an aside keep in mind that using various apps from browsers like Firefox, I wasn't exposed to all the ads. The few times I would see Facebook without all my little blocking apps, I saw that it got more and more frightening: enormous quantity of ads, then invitations from Facebook to JOIN THIS! LIKE THAT! BE FRIENDS WITH SUCH AND SUCH! Thanks to those little apps though, I managed to keep that side, the side that is REALLY worth millions and millions of currency, under control.] Then, of course, some ghosts from the past found ME. It was always a "free stab". In some cases, it was worth it: ghosts laid to rest, people seen for what they really are, final explanations exchanged, last words rectified in case we died and got filled with remorse. But others, they just weren't. They just appeared, and I really really didn't want them to be anywhere near me, not even have their name associated with mine. But there was an easy way out: block them. "Block them!" I would say to my friends who had similar concerns about going on Facebook. In truth, a friend of mine who actually translated the terms and conditions in one of the languages told me he'd never go on Facebook because he really knew what the privacy terms were. I thought at the time he was a being a tad paranoid, after all I had nothing to hide from any government, not even the American one. Now I see that those people I convinced to come online saying "just block them", I have to say "ah by the way that's no longer sufficient". And other people for whom I am the common friend with someone they really really really don't want to see again, are no longer safe in just blocking, since there are occasions were people you have blocked can see you, particularly on common friends' walls, even though YOU continue not to see them. Some friends suggested it might be one of those untrue hypes, a typical internet hoax. Besides another friend saying he did some tests and found it to be true, I realised that you know what? Even if it isn't true now, from past experience of their changes of privacy policy that I needed to keep up with and change my settings in order to retain the level of privacy I wanted, I didn't know how many things I might have missed or was already unwittingly doing that might damage my friends' privacy requirements and how many more here would be in the future. So, that's it. Goodbye Facebook. There's only so many times you can lose and regain trust.

Un po' di tempo fa un amico scrisse un post, ora famoso, sul perché lasciasse il mondo della ricerca scientifica. Quello era un pezzo intelligente, scritto bene e molto nobile. Questa é una sfuriata. Siete stati avvertiti. Facebook mi era stato presentato da un amico nel 2007, ed era stato presentato soprattutto come un luogo dove era facile caricare foto e video su un server e condividere cose con persone che conoscevi. Appena entrata, vi trovai delle persone che pensavo non avrei mai più sentito, e la maggior parte ero felicissima di aver trovato, persone che la vita non mi diede il tempo di frequentare, conoscere meglio. Ora finalmente potevo avvicinarmici, rimanere aggiornata ed era un privilegio, una gioia! In alcuni casi, sono anche riuscita a chiudere con qualche fantasma del passato: vedere come sono ora, togliendomeli dalla testa, finalmente vedendo che non rimaneva nulla da condividere e così via. Anche quello era preziosissimo, ed ero grata a Facebook per questo. Questi erano gli argomenti che utilizzavo per convincere alcune persone ad iscriversi, anche per poter più facilmente aggiornarmi su quello che succedeva nella loro vita e nelle loro teste. Poi chiaramente Facebook si è riempita di distrazioni utili (pezzetti di notizie, cose davvero divertenti e così via), e alcune meno utili che si limitavano a farmi perdere tempo (giochi che mi piacevano, giochi che non mi piacevano, giochi a cui venivo invitata, scorrere giù sulla mia bacheca a trovare gli aggiornamenti delle persone che mi interessava davvero leggere e cosi via). Tuttavia, continuava a piacermi, ne valeva ancora la pena: ogni volta che caricavo un video o una foto senza alcuno sforzo, senza tagliare o aggiustarne la grandezza, e sapevo che qualche anziano parente sarebbe riuscito a vederlo comodamente dal profilo della nipote, mi sentivo che valeva davvero la pena. [Come nota a parte dovete tenere in mente che grazie a molte piccole applicazioni dei browser come Firefox, non ero esposta a tutta la pubblicità. Le poche volte che vedevo Facebook senza i miei trucchetti protettivi la quantità di pubblicità, gli inviti a CLICCA QUA! DI CHE TI PIACE QUESTO! CONNETTI CON QUEST'ALTRO! erano spaventose. Grazie a tutte quelle piccole applicazioni, però, riuscivo a mantenere quel lato, quel lato che DAVVERO vale milioni di dollari, sotto controllo.] Poi, naturalmente, dei fantasmi del passato hanno trovato ME. Era sempre una "coltellata gratuita": in alcuni casi, ne valeva la pena: fantasmi finalmente in pace, persone viste per quel che sono, ultime spiegazioni scambiate, ultime parole dette rettificate nel caso uno di noi morisse e dovesse vivere col terribile rimpianto. Ma in altri casi, semplicemente non valeva la pena. Apparivano così, e davvero non volevo che mi si avvicinassero in alcun modo, nemmeno avere il mio nome associato al loro. Ma c'era una facile via di scampo: bloccarli. "Bloccali!, dicevo ai miei amici che avevano simili preoccupazioni riguardo all'andare su Facebook. A dire il vero, ci sarebbe un amico che mi aveva detto che non sarebbe mai andato su Facebook in quanto ne tradusse tutte le condizioni di privacy e quindi le conosceva nel dettaglio. All'epoca pensavo fosse semplicemente un tantino paranoico, dopo tutto io non avevo nulla da nascondere a nessun governo, manco quello Americano. Ma ora vedo che a tutte quelle persone che ho convinto a venire online dicendo "bloccali, semplicemente" ora devo dire "ehm, non è più esattamente sufficiente, mi spiace". E altre persone per cui sono io l'amico comune di persone con cui davvero davvero non vogliono avere più nulla a che fare, non sono più al sicuro semplicemente bloccandoli. Alcuni amici hanno suggerito che fosse l'ennesima bufala che vuole condurre al panico su Facebook. A parte che altri amici hanno detto di aver fatto delle prove ed effettivamente hanno riscontrato che è vero, che anche gli utenti bloccati, se interagisci sulla bacheca di un amico comune, ti possono vedere (ma tu continui a non vedere loro) mi sono resa conto che sapete cosa? Anche se non fosse vero ora, ci sono stati abbastanza cambi improvvisi alla politica sulla privacy in passato con i quali ho dovuto aggiornarmi e cambiare impostazione per mantenere il livello di privacy che volevo io, senza contare quelli che mi sono magari sfuggiti e quindi stavo magari danneggiando quelli di amici senza saperlo e quelli che arriveranno in futuro, che non importa. Quindi addio, Facebook. C'è un limite a quante volte puoi tradire e riconquistare la fiducia.

no thought

I love it when lots of work comes in, so much that it suffocates all my time and all my thoughts. I love silencing my head.

Thank you,
for always thinking the best of me,
for seeing me for better than I feel.
For reassuring me despite my aggression.

A grateful tiger.

Poem

Find me a name, just define me.
As I inspire you you might just find me,
don't leave me by the side as you go running,

turn around and call me
by name and tell me,
You Are. And define me.

The veiled curse of Hope

I could write a book about the importance of (free) will as opposed to hope. I might in the end but because this is the internet and I do have a family to look after, I'm going to have to do it a little at a time, in bits scattered here and there.

When we hope, we give power to some outside source to change what is happening in our life. That outside source can be life in general, (so, unspecific sources of events), people (the interviewer for our new job, the policeman who will decide whether to let us go or not), or, it can be a supernatural being (God, a saint, a fairy).

If we look at it that way, we see that a synonym for hope is delegate. Imagine replacing one word for another all the time:

"I hope it will be sunny tomorrow"="I delegate to the Earth to make it sunny tomorrow". It makes sense. We still haven't invented Gyro Gearloose's weather making machine.

"I hope they will give me that job"="I delegate to the people I interviewed with to decide for me for that post". This kind of makes sense too, as long as there is an awareness that you have done what you could to influence that outcome, and now it is someone else's turn to do their job and decide about you.

"I hope my new boyfriend won't make me suffer"="I delegate my new boyfriend to ensure my lack of suffering". This starts making my ears itch. You are delegating the job to ensure your lack of suffering to someone else? You are removing from yourself the responsibility to contribute to the relationship in a  productive way, to keep an eye and ear out for your partner's behaviour to see how he's feeling about you both, and choosing to be blind to the flaws he has that will most likely lead to your suffering. From my point of view, your suffering is therefore ensured.

However, this can be changed a little, to mean "I hope this relationship works out well", and then it can become acceptable: you are not delegating, assuming you are aware that you will put all your best efforts in the relationship and hope that your partner does the same. There is only so much you can do to ensure he puts in his best efforts too.

"I hope God will change my life"="I delegate a supernatural being to do all that is necessary, big and small, to change my life. Even decide in what way I want to change it".

This might occur in the form of a prayer for something definite. "Please God give me the strength to face that interview". In this case you might be performing some kind of meditation that helps you focus on what you will do.  Prayers work a little like hypnosis, or eastern forms of focusing: at first you pray a lot to get to that state of mind, then all you need is a "power phrase" in your mind to get you going. However, the belief in a supernatural being can be brought to a very dangerous place. The place where you delegate everything to this all-powerful being. 

This is bad enough, but when that supernatural being is not even in direct contact with you (and therefore you can pretty much imagine him or her to be able to do, or want to do, anything you want, so it works, as I said, more as a meditation that leaves you in control), but is actually interpreted through a person (a priest), you can immediately see how terribly dangerous it is to delegate your happiness, your decisions, your choices and how you feel about yourself to a person that not only you are delegating with the power over you. He is at the same time supposedly delegating power to this supernatural being, and telling you what this supernatural being, now in charge of you and your destiny, wants, wishes, decides.

We as humans clearly have a disposition towards giving up responsibility for our actions, for our lives. It must be a remnant of the fear we must have experienced as animals, or more recently as when we were  helpless babies: we had to struggle to stir events in our favour (cry to get food, shelter, protection, and so on, or hunt constantly, or run in fear). We deep down love the idea of being looked after, being dependant on fates, other people, the whims of nature. Somehow, just like abused people return to be abused, we feel reassured by the repetition of a condition that may have been unpleasant, but we knew it, we were familiar with it.

That is the problem of course. Accepting responsibility for our actions, the consequences of the same and the end result of each and every day of our lives, takes heaps of courage because it forces us to admit we do not know how things will turn out. We can try our best and aim as straight and true as possible, but we may have gotten our targets completely wrong and cause completely unplanned and unforeseen things to happen. People who stride into life with apparent confidence, take control over the same and are always changing, revolutionising and experimenting, strike us as "bold", or sometimes even arrogant! We envy them, secretely, and despise them at the same time. These feelings were reinforced and taught to us by many many religions, who have taken the deeper, purest meaning of spiritual belief and inspiration, and have turned it into into a massive, devastating control tool.

If we are meek, as sheep, and delegate our lives to outside forces, whichever they are, we are safe: someone knows better than us.

This leads to a greater discussion about religion, which I will tackle bit by bit. But my aim now is to point out that by merely swapping the words, from "hope" to "delegate", we can see whether that hope is positive thinking about the future (which is of course fine), or whether we are relinquishing responsibility: which is still fine, of course, we are free to do as we please. BUT it removes our right to shake our fists in the air and get mad at someone else if things didn't go our way later.

A book for free: The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

I will start keeping track of the books I read, with a review: if you like the book or think someone will like it, just send me enough for postage via paypal at valsarno at gmail dot com and I'll send it to you, for free. Or perhaps if I'm feeling generous (and rich), I'll even pay for postage.

This is the Amazon link for this book: The Night Watch

 (By they way, image comes from interesting link about London Book Fair and Russian Lit, too. I hope they don't mind my using it).

This is the first of a series of books my friend Toby Deveson says are increasingly brilliant. I might mention this guy a lot: keep in mind the most amazing books I have ever read mostly came from his suggestions or deliberate book sending. I believe few things are/should be a most welcome gift than books, and I have enormously appreciated his effort to educate and drown me in the otherwise unaffordable (at various times) beauty of the written word, which is why I am inspired to continue his lovely habit.  

The Night Watch is a book about Others, people who have awareness of the underlying world of magic called the Twilight, and have the ability to manipulate these underlying energies either for good or for evil. Of course, as one would assume, the line between what we'd consider good and what we'd consider evil is very very fine and at times quite blurred, so the book revolves mostly around this speculation.

There is indeed a hell of a lot of speculation in this book: the main character Anton, a Light Other (meaning he is there to enforce the treaty that prevents good ones from doing too much good and bad ones from doing too much bad), speculates A LOT about whether one action is good or evil and about all the machinations and manipulations of his boss and older, wiser magicians, to ensure good  (supposedly, or hopefully) is done through the years. I must admit some of that speculating you want to skip over, and dear Anton comes across as a bit of a drag. Sometimes.

The other thing Anton does a lot is try to figure out where these manipulations and deceptions are actually occurring. This is an extremely frustrating aspect of it, possibly the principal aspect. The consideration that the evil side's (The Day Watch) point of view is somewhat preferable because at least they are open (or you expect them to lie) is often put forward, presumably setting up the premise for the next book in the trilogy, the Day Watch (which I won't link because I haven't read it yet and don't wish for spoilers).

Another source of frustration for both our main character (but not, oddly, for other Light ones?) and us readers is that they can do so much good... but they can't. There is a treaty in force which actively stops both Light and Dark ones form acting out their natures... and the Night and Day Watch respectively  enforce that treaty policing each other. But fun does talk place anyway, don't worry.

On the whole, if you manage to skim read or stomach all the speculating and the frustration of figuring out the machinations and not being able to trust other main characters, the actions and adventures are quite engaging. The ending is almost cheesy, but on the whole it did leave me wanting to read the next one in the series... tough not quite as urgently as, say, a Harry Potter (it was the back book cover that draws that comparison in the first place... JK Rowling... Russian Style. Ah, give me a break . If anything that sort of comment would have put me off buying it in the first place! A book that is sort of like another one but different is never very promising).

New yous

I want to change jobs.

Seems easy to say, doesn’t it? You know you’re doing one thing, and you want to do something else.

Now, I work form home as a translator. So, one would think, that’s even easier, right? I mean you don’t have to send any letters of resignation, no awkward goodbyes, no fear of unhelpful recommendations. You just, well, change jobs.

I could say that it’s difficult to think about working in a different location than your home because you suddenly have to rethink the very way you bring up your children, the way you pay for childcare, your wardrobe and the fact you can’t get away with making a constant mess of your hair anymore. You will need a hairdresser. But that’s all shields. The truth is, I no longer know how to interact with people I don’t choose to.

I have become intolerant, in my isolation, of many qualities in people that I never quite liked or understood anyway, only now I could actually choose to not frequent those people who possessed those qualities. And these people were: greedy, materialistic, mean, plain evil, shallow as puddles, dull, uninteresting, obstinate, prejudiced, intolerant of any diversity, obtuse, prevaricating, quick to anger, resentful, demanding, focused on exterior appearance, and many many other qualities I find insufferable (even when they surface in me!).

Of course we are human beings. I dislike a great quantity of human beings, that is the sad truth. Therefore, I know there is a high chance that working anywhere, I would come across and have to frequent on a steady basis some or even lots of these people (depending on how big the company is, but the smaller it is, the greater the risk it is made up SOLELY of those sorts of people).

So I cannot really see myself working outside my home anymore.

I am possibly the clumsiest and least organised person you know. So, my idle thought of making jewellery for a living remains that: an idle thought.

I am not disciplined enough to write a book, as I always wanted to: I get bored very quickly and find it hard to find the time. Plus I do need to earn money so I carry on working and in my rare free time I prefer not to carry on working.

So I don’t suppose I have much choice, and so I will approach this writing business from another point of view.

We mostly tend to write about stuff when stuff is bad. When stuff is good in certain areas, (but stuff is never good in ALL areas, is it? Or is it?), I think most people tend to prefer to write less about themselves, because, and it’s true, most people feel GUILTY in saying “I have made good choices that have led me to a relatively privileged life”.

Well I have decided it’s ok to write about it. After all, I would have loved to have read about someone like me when I felt trapped and miserable and lonely and all the rest of it.

So I will start sharing thoughts on how you can be talentless and difficult as a person, yet be entitled to a decent life anyhow.

Not today though, I must take my daughter to the playground after lunch.