Envelope / Develope

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash It probably happened to you, when getting in a place where you have this uncomfortable feeling you don't belong to, all things are not common to your life and people have the easiness which seemed cultivated to you. Joining a group or conversation and, poof (as my daughter says) someone is bludgeoning you with a question which splits the audience in two: - Have you read ... (and put here the title of a book in the top of the lists from a prestigious newspaper)? The polite answer would be to tell the truth, listen to a glorious summary of the book, or to bend the truth and play noob. Many times, although, when I have the feeling that people are just flashing their "cultivated" image, I want to pull them in a "social bloody" embarrassment by luring them in the waters they might not comfortable with. My strategy is to pick on the display of the ideas in the book and then pull together references from  other books and ...

Photo by Braden Jarvis on Unsplash If you read the biography of Freeman Patterson you will be puzzled his first call of what to do with his life was not photography. The man has a Master in Divinity degree and a bachelor in philosophy. He worked as a photographer for some newspapers as a temporary job and then decided to pursue photography full time. It is an interesting life trajectory to veer from seriously thinking in God to dream in banal images! You will find many photographers who will show an interesting image but will not have the inner structure to explain the thought process or whether it represents more than a fantasy. The scaffolding process on reaching a certain image, which reflects an emotion, a thought or just life, is appealing when you read Patterson's books about photography. If you juxtapose the education with his images, some of them have an eerie feeling, something that gives you pause and wonder what is a photo for human psyche. Yes, he is fro...

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash I don't know what is worse: the whole pandemic provoked by the corona virus or the consequence of shutting down businesses due to the risk of contaminating their customers? There are industries where people are clustered together, where you have to be close to your client: airlines hospitality (Disney, cruises) entertaining industry restaurants, fast food establishments, wineries, breweries anything related to well being and not health care As I outlined in a different post, year 2020 is essential for US presidential elections. Mr. Trump understands the whole economic factor is so important to get elected a second term. With the forced close down of the major economic sectors (car manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, airlines, entertaining), the crisis in the health sector being overwhelmed by the peak of people admitted in ICU, banks hit by a slowed down economy, there is a perfect storm to bring his chances very down. There...

"That is the reason you should read a book, from time to time. Whenever you are left with nothing, to have something to think about the book in order to not feel alone" This is the conclusion from a post in " From the people who are boasting about their studies but are not reading any books " (Romanian only). Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash The quote stroke a chord with me because resonated with an old idea "there are many educated people but only some are cultivated". Or about people who are in a highly visible social roles but are embarrassing themselves when talking or expressing an idea. You know who you are, social clowns! Their life is more than enough and they preach from their position, lacking the understanding that many more others have been in their shoes and somehow conversed in a more polished or elegant way. Another title of this post could be "you lost a parallel/inner life when you haven't read books". I am...

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash   The Covid-19 virus is here to stay. The isolation will only buy time, the WFH will not get back the industries, the jobs and the permanent fear that another virus can hide somewhere. The only major reverse back to normalcy would be to find a treatment/vaccine which could be easily accessible. In order to get validation for it the only action which will convince population and recover the whole lock-up is to put off the spread in Italy. What is it done to get to that ideal scenario? Maybe we should have a website updating this pursuit and calling for volunteers (big pharma, I am quite sure there are many volunteers waiting in the wings !).

" De aia nu strică să mai citești, din când în când, o carte. Măcar atunci când rămâi fără nimic, să ai la ce te gândi, ca să nu te simți singur." Este un citat din " Despre cei care bravează cu studiile dar nu citesc ". Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash M-a frapat textul pentru ca am avut acceasi impresie despre o multime de oameni care sunt "educati" dar nu sunt "cultivati". Sau despre oamenii care ajung intr-o pozitie vizibila social dar care sunt penibili sa exprime sau sa transmita o idee. Un alt titlu pentru post ar putea fi - "ai pierdut o viata interioara/paralela cind nu ai citit carti". Nu cred ca am vreun motiv sa justific de ce citesc carti, dar se pare ca exista o lipsa de intelegere de ce cartile sunt total diferite de ce citesti pe internet. Si spun asta dupa ce am incercat sa inteleg de ce o multime din oamenii din jurul meu imi spune ca nu are timp sa citeasca. Eu sunt total socat cind aud asta. Nu...

Photo by Rob Schreckhise on Unsplash In times like this I wonder if the people with their hand on the power lever have second thoughts - about handling the major problems instead of wasting our money and their life time in petty quarrels or egocentric show offs. They can be in a hospital fighting for their life or looking at someone close to them separated by a thick glass. If you are a doctor, sick on a hospital bed, will you relinquish a ventilator for a younger bum? Is any doctor going to apply the same rule, the younger have priority over a ventilator? Or, if you are a famous basketball player, are you going to make that gesture? Yes, I know that at this moment nobody wants to think about it, but how about doing more that just staying put within your four walls? Is this crisis going to move a few marbles and change your view on life and what you will do from now on? You probably may understand there are more barriers the wealthy and the powerful are putting betwe...

Photo by HH E on Unsplash Today, 16th of March 2020, I saw again a stock market in free fall - almost 12% down. Friday, 13th of March, the whole market was up because of the fiscal stimulus released by US government. The funny thing is that I just finished a discussion with a friend who is telling me she is waiting for the signal to get back in the market. I almost laughed, because there is no signal, the market is on uncharted territory and inevitably that is not a strategy for investments, maybe for daily traders, but I would not do that in the current market. Yes, we are in the COVID-19 craziness, self isolated and looking to Italy with increased anxiety. It is not their fault (Italians, Koreans), dear readers. It is the laissez-faire of an entire political class, an entire generation in power which cannot comprehend simple mathematical models and technical prognosis about the possible quick exits for mankind. We can blame the bat-eaters in China, or the travelers ...

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash I reached this conclusion, influenced by one of my dates. She was an attractive grand-mother I met through some friends and in one of our dates she mentioned that, through life, she always wanted to celebrate small events in her life: kids managing to ride a bike first place in a school competition for kids learning something new and applying it (first time) successfully in life  getting the first client in a business moving to a new place working hard and failing successfully and learning the hard way something I was not that type of person, but having a daughter and "suffering" with her through failures and small victories, I understood in the monotone rhythm of life there are not many "grand" celebrations and we should punctuate our existence, enjoying small victories. Sometimes, life is not giving you many big victories and you have to have the next prize on the horizon to keep you going. And here I am, ...

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash If I ask my friends who are married, why should you date, the answer is mostly "you don't want to be alone". All other reasons they got together in the first place, are almost forgotten. The loneliness reason is a cinematographic scenario which plays in my head with a few variations. I imagine the daily routine when you are coming back from work and open the door of your home and nobody is there. It's like entering a deserted town, you being the only inhabitant. The door is the threshold between social and loneliness, you wave on crossing it, with life subduing its noise, far away. you warm up your meal and there is only one plate on the table. Maybe that is the only plate ever used in the house. Sometimes is the frozen, cardboard wrap hanging around somewhere like an abstract animal sacrificed in the ritual called "dinner". you feed your pet (dog, cat, fish...) and then pause to remember what is next, lik...

Photo by Jacek Dylag on Unsplash Podcasts are having a second life in the current media environment (2020). People are reviving the old habit of listening to stories on different subjects and being close to interesting or "out-of-normal" events in a disconnected-when-I-have time manner. Podcasts are the new way to be informed with specialized info channels, when your life allows it. If Apple managed to monopolize and to spear-head the streaming music industry with the iPod/Apple store, some new companies are trying to grab the audiences build by niche players in the podcast world  - Spotify, Soundcloud. On the same vein, the broadcasting companies are trying to have a second wind from podcasting their shows, by making them free and then getting money from advertising by having millions of listeners. I compare the podcast industry with the auto industry of 1920s: many attempting to break the ice, a few with an effort to monopolize the streams. My predict...