Romante si nostalgie

It was a chance encounter. I like to tell myself that I stumbled upon him, but the fact of the matter is that he was there waiting for me. Waiting for my eager fingers and eyes. Waiting for my shallow cover to crack. Waiting for my curiosity to peek under his own cover. I fell in love years ago with a simple string of words. With the nostalgia. With the biting replies. With the sarcasm. And then I forgot. I came back to him on lonely Friday nights. Like the ungrateful lovers he often talks about. Only there to satisfy a moment's itch. Only remembering because of a chance encounter of the eyes. He probably deserves more. More than a dusty shelf in a forgotten library. I probably deserve more than this person I'm becoming. I should probably dig deeper than the same two pages that I almost know by heart by now. The books you read are a reflection of who you are. But who am I if I barely ever read anymore? Maybe it's time I give Minulescu a thorough read. He deserves it. And so do I.

Is this it?

Life is a continual flux. Change. Transformation. A recipe that constantly recreates itself with new components. New atoms, new molecules, new chemicals, new cells, new hair, new clothes, new songs, new places, new people. The only constant is the pattern. And to be part of the mechanism means to accept the rules of the game of transformations. To accept that some things have to be left behind. Why is it that such an integral part of nature is so difficult for us puny humans? Sure, we don't care if we lose an atom or two along the way. We never knew them on a personal level anyway. But when it comes to people and places, the story is entirely different. Saying goodbye never feels quite right. Some don't say it at all. Sometimes, it is simply implied in the structure of the relationship. People grow apart. Letters become brief. Words grow cold. It is the simple natural progression of two lives moving in opposite directions. And as we gain years, we accumulate more and more of these letters written in a hurry before getting back to our everyday life. Letters that feel like a pause in time. And we feel guilty. For not taking the time. For not writing more often. For not putting in more effort to keep this alive. It becomes a chain that we carry around our heart. As we gain years, the chain becomes longer as we leave more and more people behind. Is this what life is about? A growing progression of relationships plugged in to machinery that keeps them artificially alive? Guilt and regrets that weigh heavier by the years? Or maybe I'm holding on when I should just let go?

When life gives you lemons, be sappy!

Here's a round of sappiness. But it's the good type of sappy. It's the hopeful type of sappy. It's the happy type of sappy. So for a small moment in time, let's just be sappy!

 

Decisions, decisions

School and procrastination have been keeping me quite busy these past few weeks, but last night I got inspired and started watching some TED videos. This is an old one by Dan Gilbert (I really love this guy! Funny AND smart! Now if only he was younger and had some hair... oh well!)

The future need not be bleak

We need inspiration more often than we think. So what if it is an emotional response? So what if it is artificially created through images and sounds and specific words that are designed to make us react? If it can push us to greatness, then I am all for it!



Small note: greatness is good, but Nazi camps were not. In hindsight we see that, but in the moment, the line between the two can be blurred. So here's to being responsibly great!

My confessions

Ok so I have something to confess. About a month ago, I liked one of those "Spotted: (insert university name here) Library" on Facebook. Guilty pleasure I know, but it makes me laugh to see the kind of messages that people send each other under the cover of anonymity. That's the innocent part. The scarier part was this morning when for the first time ever I get an unknown text message on my phone (obviously spam) that was very similar to the ones on that page. Coincidence? I think not! Or maybe I'm just paranoid...

In any case, it does make you wonder just how much of your online activity is collected by Google and Facebook in their effort to "better target their advertising placements". Already I'm seeing almost only finance related adds on YouTube (after spending extensive time on Yahoo Finance, The Street and The Motly Fool these past months). Which makes sense considering that YouTube is owned by Google.

What's that there? Oh, just your private life going out the window....

To rule or not to rule... that is the question

This morning I was taking a break from studying for my risk management exam while going over today's Financial Times (yeah I know... some break!). And of course, about a third of the headlines were in relation to the Italian election results. But there was one article that I found particularly interesting in the sense that it was talking about how their political system changed since 1945 and how there are so many layers of government right now that it is almost impossible to take swift action to get the country out of the crisis. And it's true that we see this more and more in various countries whether it's the US, Canada, Romania or others (well I think.... I don't follow governments in other countries much). There are so many political actors that it is almost impossible to reach a consensus. Even in the US where they only have 2 parties, they can't seem to agree unless they have a knife to the throat. So is the solution to simplify the process? To strip down the layers and concentrate the decision-making power? We would have less trouble for sure! But coming back to Italy, the main reason they created this system was to prevent extremists like the fascists from taking over. It's a tradeoff like everywhere else: either efficiency or security, either high return or low risk. Somehow you still wonder if there isn't some magical middle ground that somehow we never considered. Beneath the edges of a cube, there's a sphere waiting to be revealed and a wheel with it.