F23

Yesterday, the whole country felt nostalgic as the people celebrated the (Day of the) Defenders of the Fatherland. February 23 is the Soviet legacy designed to recognize all those who “defended” the country by serving in the army. It was planned as a military propaganda, but turned into an ‘International Men’s Day’. Naturally there had to be a counter-balance to the International Women’s Day (March 8), because men needed justification of the presents they were giving to women. So, as men usually do, they turned Feb 23 into a blackmailing tool, so that women were the first to give presents if they wanted anything in return on Mar 8.

This whole thing is really funny, especially in the context of Ukrainian realities. Not that many people are patriotic enough to die for the country, and so many young men (including me) try to avoid the draft, yet all the men become the Defenders of this country when it comes to Feb 23.

Post-depression

The best thing about having depressions is their resolutions, when life is illuminated with some positive episodes. Constant upbeat reduces the excitement of achievements in life, but post-depression experiences are exaggerated to an extent of unmanageable joy. The reminiscence of the misery amplifies the delight of the new heartening outbreaks.

Emotional breakdowns tend to slow the motion of life and things that would normally be ignored tend to receive much more attention than they deserve. Little nuances of life grow into major factors of disappointment, thus causing the will power to disappear. Then you just have to wait for something very positive to happen to empower you for cardinal action. Life smacks you, but instead of letting it smack you again, you beat the sh** out of that b****!

Unbearable lightness of … future

The whole media coverage of the global warming and its consequences is leading us some place wrong. Every time I hear an apocalypse scenario, I ask myself whether or not I should go and commit a suicide immediately, or wait for a few more years before my life is taken by a natural disaster? No arguments needed - the question is pathetic (though I make it sound sarcastic). On the other hand, the cynicism of the media does not urge me to go and take action. Every new story just reinforces the feeling of hopelessness and discourages any attempt to contribute towards the change.




Surely, we should hear and know about the anthropogenic damage to the planet. Yet we should be left with a feeling of guiltiness, not hopelessness. With every new report we should be sacrificing the habits that kill the planet. Every other story should force us to give up our luxuries. Yet we nod in unison, as to acknowledge the dusk of the civilization, and keep working on making this world an unlivable place for our grandchildren.

In my globalistics classes, I challenge my professor with my deep skepticism. The ideas of globalistics seem very subjective and lack justifications. Yet, one thing I came to realize while writing this is that globalistics believes in some resolution of the current critical state. There no answer to what the resolution should be, but at least dieing with hope is better than dieing despair.

I *heart* peace

You never expect it, yet it comes and intimidates you either you want it or not. It has a tendency of bugging you at the most inconvenient time. It falls under a category of “unwanted surprises”. It doesn’t care where you are and what you do; it simply waits till you encounter it. It forces you to do things against your will.

It was there in my mailbox waiting to ruin my day. Had I known what it was, I would throw it away, and claim that it did never reach me. Once the envelope was unsealed, I was summoned to appear at the military enlistment office on a given day at a given time.

One disadvantage of living in a pseudo-democratic country is the military draft. Though the parliament has passed a law designed to reform the army system, it still doesn’t apply to people of my age. It will only come into its full effect in 2010, when the army will transform into a contract-based service. Until then, I somehow have to escape the luck of wasting one year of my life “serving” the values I do not share.

Two major arguments against my going to the army are: 1. I do not believe in orders, and do not respect people who follow them blindly; 2. I am against any form of violence, or any action that implies violence. I do not think I want to enjoy the punishments for being able to analyze the level of stupidity of a given order. Not mentioning the dreadful conditions that soldiers live in.

Woe from wit

This one ingenious quote is often sufficient to provide a comprehensive analysis of certain political phenomena. It belongs to Griboyedov, renowned Russian classic with a fine sense of humor, who ridiculed officials of his era profoundly.

I subconsciously refer to this quote once a week, when I receive my news magazine and get a grasp of what claptrap our politicians were up to. This week was no exception; in fact, it was a major exception, as national interests and state property suffered no substantial damage. The government was too busy trying to persuade the people that utilizing Ukrainian pipeline system jointly with Russia will do much more good, whereas the opposition was blocking the parliament trying to prevent a strategic mistake – Gazprom should have no more control than it already has.

One of the columnists made a wonderful parallel with physics, and wrote that “the people are busy evaluating the performance coefficient of their votes”. I have no idea how efficient my vote was, but I am sure its performance coefficient is rather low :(

Merits of education

If anyone ever tells you that Economical Cybernetics is a fun degree to have, spit in that person's face (please!)

Just for the heck of it, I looked through all the courses I had to take to get my bachelor's degree. Well, I ended up with a list of 66 classes in a 4 year period. Fun, eh?

Here is that list:

Accounting
Audit
Basics of ecology
Business in computer networks
Business Ukrainian
Civil defense
Commercial law
Comparative religions
Cultural studies
Decision support systems
Discrete analysis
Distribution of production capacities and regional economy
Ecological law
Econometrics
Economic analysis
Economic history
Economical cybernetics
Economics of enterprise
Economics of labour
Economics of tourism
Environmental economics
European economy
Finances
Finances of enterprise
Forecasting of socio-economic processes
French
Globalistics
Higher mathematics
History of economic teachings
History of Ukraine
Imitational modeling
Informatics and IT
Information systems and technologies in economics
Insurance
Intellectual data analysis
International economy
Introduction to specialty
Investment
Logic
Macroeconomics
Management
Marketing
Mathematical programming
Methodology of scientific research
Microeconomics
Modeling of economy
Modeling of economy
Money and credit
Philosophy
Physical education
Political economy
Politology
Probability theory
Program shells and packages
Psychology and pedagogics
Research of operations
Safety of labor
Safety of vital activity
Science of law
Sociology
State regulation of economy
Statistics
Systems of economic information processing
Theory of economic risks
Theory of random processes
Urban economics

Cyberwhat?

It is a miracle! I have started attending my classes. And the worst about it is that I am actually enjoying going to school diligently, and working on my assignments (despite the fact that I feel stupid).

Many of my friends wondered what Economical Cybernetics is all about. Well, here is a list of classes I have to take this semester:
Decision support systems
Intellectual data analysis
Business in computer networks
Forecasting of socio-economic processes
Environmental economics
Discrete analysis
Modeling of economy
Auditing
Globalistics

Unfortunately, our education system is not as flexible as in many other countries. All the courses are mandatory, and this semester the ministry is being pretty easy on us. Usually there are over 10 courses per semester, so this is like heaven for us.

Literary thirst

It is too unfortunate that I do not own a copy of the Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, otherwise it would have found its honorary place in my personal library. This book would certainly deserve to be referred to as funny if it were not for its gruesomeness. Burroughs did certainly master the art of coping with the memory of his own pathetic childhood by means of sarcasm. He should certainly be credited for his courage of exposing his deprived childhood of an abused kid in such a humorous manner. The moral is that the book is great, but I would not want to have lived Burroughs’ life at any given episode.

As I have finished reading it, I have realized that I ran out of books, so I had to choose something to reread. Out of all the books, I picked Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevskyy. After reading a few chapters, it no longer seems as a right choice – too heavy of a reading for a person working on his school papers. Classic’s archaic language is certainly not something I want to deal with after a few hours of in-depth systems analysis or Pareto decision making criteria.

My heart will go on

Life is not as bitchy as it pretends to be! I am just giving it more credit than it actually deserves… If you know how to read in between the lines, you should have read – MY DEPRESSION IS OVER.

The natural order of things has a strange aspiration for chaos. It always tends to yield to sporadic manifestations of mayhem. Patience is what it takes to put things back into their initial positions or effort – to relocate them so to attain a more favorable stance.

This time things just deflected to their regular track. Perhaps I have faced one of those exceptional instances when an effort is not enough to change things. Nevertheless, I am out of my somberness and can treat my job and my studies with a little more enthusiasm. I seem to be figuring out a way of ranging the alternatives and priorities of my life; and balancing my ambitions with my capabilities.

Flooding the eyes

I am suffering the worst hangover since IYLC. The birthday party last night came up as an opportunity to break the endless chain of thoughts generated by this busy working week I had. Sure enough this morning I have realized that not all the opportunities should always be pursued.

The idea of “flooding my eyes” last night was really stupid – I’ve acquired this kind of wisdom only this morning, when it was rather late to change anything. I so wish some smart people stopped the reckless youth from drinking so much last night, yet we seem to be growing in a democratic environment (parents do not seem to care)…

I wonder why in the world do smart people make stupid choices? And why alcohol always seems to be the right choice despite all empiric knowledge about the consequences? Rhetoric questions!

Well, I better go and get myself a beer before it is too late in the day. I do not want to waste another day of my short life.

When and why sh** happens

Why do all the miseries have to wait to come and wretch your life all at once? Or is it just all things seem miserable once you enter this cheerless mood? No matter what it is, here I am as down in the dumps as I can be. Things just seem to be not working out well for me these days.

Oftentimes I wish I was one of those careless people capable of not agonize after hurting someone’s feelings. I wish I could just say ‘no’ and move on without ever looking back.

I often wonder if moral values of mine do any favor to me? Or do they just stay on my way and hinder my achievements? Would it not be easier just to ignore the impractical virtues and values and pursue personal interests disregarding all the moral restraints? I guess it would, and yet the society and the natural order of things wouldn’t benefit. But who would care???

Workaholism

Starting today I am commencing a new life – no more job-related activity when I am home. Since my first day at this job I was working my ass off trying to implement all the “great” ideas and strategies I had on my mind. The position I took over in the company is new-found, so I have to develop things out from scratch. Preparation takes so much more time than actual work, and I was so anxious to start doing something fun, that I have spent hours of my free time working on various preps.

Now, when my job is rock-n-rolling me, I feel that I can not go any longer being so tired. I have realized that this is not leading anywhere good. Sure enough I am far ahead of what have been expected from me, yet this does not add any zeros to my paycheck. My work has obtained some shapes, and I am doing something substantial now, which means I do not really need to be spending too much of my free time. Instead I should be taking days off from the office, and working from home. You got my vow!

Loosing My Religion

Why would anyone care about my religious believes??? – That is the only question I had when I was filling out one of those endless employment forms. I did not mind sharing my blood type and my ID numbers, but religion was just too much…

It was never a secret to anyone that I am agnostic. I never made it clandestine. But, for God’s sake, I do not understand how my religious feelings can affect my ability to implement my responsibilities? Would my attitude differ was I of any particular religion? Or would my employers feel better if they knew I did not belong to any extremist sect (as if I would tell them if I did)… Very strange!

Mystification

In her last e-mail, Irina (my pen-pal I wrote about before) asked me a puzzling question: Who is a friend - is it someone you need, or someone who needs you? I really have no idea what a right answer would be or if there is an answer at all.

I referred to WikiQuotes to see what the holders of wisdom had to say and it gave me an impression that friendship has been deified to an extent that it lost its realness – it has become platonic and unreachable. It looks like the people of the great knowledge endowed friendship with some mystical sense, and wasted thoughts trying to demystify it. Why are we always looking for something more than what it is?

Irina’s question prompted me to think about my friends in terms of needs. It is peculiar how I can actually classify my friends according to their need of me or my need of them. Sounds rather mercantile and egoistic, but as long as it is honest such an exercise carries a practical value. At least it helps you to identify special friendships, find those people who need you as much as you need them.

Boycotting the Normal

Augusten Burroughs is my new star. His Running with Scissors is absolutely adorable. I came across a paragraph that matches exactly what I feel at certain times:

I told myself, All I want is a normal life. But was that true? I wasn’t so sure.
Because there was a part of me that enjoyed hating school, and the drama of not
going, the potential consequences whatever they were. I was intrigued by the
unknown. … Have I become addicted to crisis? I traced my finger along the
windowsill. Want something normal, want something normal, want something normal,
I told myself.

After reading this paragraph I came to realize that so many people around me think I am not normal. I do at times want to be normal, yet I have no idea what normal is. I totally understand that the category of normality is very subjective, but I feel that for many people normality equals to mainstream, something socially acceptable. There are so many underground things about me that if I started I would spent all of my life trying to change. The thing is, I do not want to waste my lifetime trying to be like others.

I realize that I choose to be different. I strive for individuality. Personality is not something to be dictated by the society, but rather something you decide to be. I guess one thing I would change is the perception of people. I do not want to appear weird to them, I want them to realize how and why I am different. I want to come up as shocking, not as a wacko.

The Stone Age marketing mix

One of my British friends taught me a great expression: Does it say bitch across my forehead? Unfortunately, I had a desire to use this phrase too many times over the past few days.

I got this new job that requires me to go door-knocking from store to store offering a product that they have no desire of dealing with. Honestly, I do not blame them… I would not want to handle all the paper work and headaches that this product brings along to their stores.

The problem is though in how I am being treated and the way the owners of these stores imply superiority over me, having no idea of who I am. Over the past two days at this new job, I came across so much rudeness and disrespect that it makes me wonder whether our society has ever left the Stone Age…

There is no doubt that our businesses are striving for free markets. Don’t get me wrong, they want their markets to be free of competition and reasonable profit margins, free of customer service and business ethics, free of regulations and basic laws of economics.

Well, if you ever make it to the point of starting a business in this country, you certainly deserve to put aside your I’m-being-nice mask and join the club of the careless.

Revenge and Forgiveness

Just finished watching one of the most thoughtful movies I have ever seen. This time it was The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman. The only word I can find to describe the movie is WOW!

The central idea of the movie is revenge vs. forgiveness. The central question is whether revenge to be considered courage and forgiveness to equal cowardice… An everlasting question that I have addressed myself with on multiple occasions.

One of the thoughts that I found to be amazing was the Ku wisdom. This Central African belief says that when you tie an enemy who hurt you to a tiny boat and let it sail till the person drowns, you have two choices. You either let the person die and spend the rest of your life mourning, or swim out and save your enemy – to admit that the life is not always just, to make a discovery that will help you dismiss your sorrow.

I have no knowledge of the Ku culture and people, yet this little wisdom wants me to be part of them. This approach is what I have been practicing all my life. I never let people drown, I was always there to give a hand – even to people who have hurt my feelings. Ability to forgive is a part of my personality. For better or for worse, I feel better when I know that I have stopped someone from drowning.