There is a stereotype around here that American tourists love Ireland, love coming here and love learning all about Irish castles, beers and all that other stuff.
It seems that Irish stuff has lost a lot (almost half!) of its appeal, or maybe it’s not cool to have an interest in your ancestry anymore?
“And, God forbid, do not read the Soviet newspapers before lunch.”
“Um … Why, there are no others?”
“Do not read any then. You know, I observed thirty patients in my clinic. And what do you think? Patients who did not read newspapers felt great. Those who I specifically forced to read ‘Pravda’, lost weight.”
“Hmmm,” said the bitten one, ruddy with soup and wine.
“Moreover, reduced knee reflexes, bad appetite, an oppressed state of mind…”
[Translated from Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov]
Whenever current affairs get really divisive, my faith in humanity wanes. Like really, wanes.
I am referring to the combination of the Belfast trial, the upcoming referendum in Ireland, the Skripals, the Russian election and the tragic fire in Siberia…
Feeling overwhelmed by all the recent news coverage and watching friends engage in social media battles, I was walking down the street and I really didn’t know how to handle it… and then I realised I was near a gallery.
I went in to look at The taking of Christ by Caravaggio, the most celebrated painting available in Dublin. I sat beside it for like a half-hour, probably looking like a mad person.
I stared at it just to get my mind off the other stuff.
I vaguely remembered a lecture that discussed how the arms of the different characters are all disproportionate. Look at Judas vs Jesus vs guard in armour:
And then I thought: Jesus, there are some serious problems with this painting! Yet, this is one of the most celebrated paintings out there. And it is, in my opinion, beautiful.
Just because there is sh*t in the world, it doesn’t mean the world is sh*t.
I read a lot of personal essays from people in their late teens. The theme of hurting people’s feelings versus being honest preoccupies many of them.
It’s all the more fascinating for me because I’ve experienced two cultures that have opposing views on this.
I’ve often seen Irish people choose to err on the side of sugarcoating reality and lying by omission in the name of being kind. Around here, you will be forgiven for being misleadingly delicate, but not for being insensitive.
On the flip side, the brutes from the old country would soon forgive someone for not considering someone’s feelings given that it is in the name of integrity. I’ve heard a lot of Russians retrospectively end friendships while accusing the perpetrator of “how could you not let me know that”… <my ass looked too big in that>, <our mutual friend didn’t invite me to the party>, etc. The “it’s not my business” defence doesn’t cut it for them.
Looking at it from a skin in the game perspective, you make a much bigger gamble when you risk offending someone by being straight with them.
At the same time, people often get carried away with their opinions to the point of forgetting that it is, after all, just an opinion, not “the truth”, and so communicating it may not really be that beneficial for someone else. Realising the insignificance of our humble opinions may be key here. Not sure you can do that to facts that your friend would prefer to know.
Question.
Assumptions: you know each other very well and solicit your friend’s opinions.
Who would you rather as your best friend? The insensitive swine who won’t hide their thoughts or the kindly sweetheart that weasels around the truth to avoid hurting you?
No Frankensteins. You have to choose.
What is the purpose of having four political parties if for the last couple of constitutional referendums they all virtually agreed with each other on how people should vote?
I don’t necessarily disagree with them, but there seems to be a resounding group-thinking lack of pluralism.
P.S. Are you painting yourself green for Paddy’s Day?
Ireland is out of bread in anticipation of Storm Emma, or Beast from the East. It is cold and icy here – and there is very little bread in the shops. I wonder why the run was on bread and not, say, spuds or butter.
My mother tells me it was on the Russian news.
Checkout #breadwatch for complete ridiculousness.
My Image Experiment has me in possession of things that may be valuable to someone out there.
Valid in Ireland (in store or online), expires on 28 February, I have no use for it. First come, first serve.
Darkest Hour opened today in Ireland.
Spoiler: the most exciting thing about the film is Gary Oldman’s makeup.
The first half of the film captivates the viewer with the impossible situations Churchill is forced into, the many subplots shaping the final decision and lots of moral ambiguity. Churchill is portrayed as a somewhat flawed but likeable human being.
The second half, however, bores them with cliche rallying for a cause.
Interestingly, the audience was made up of a mix of school kids still in their uniforms and people over fifty. Millennials? Zero interest.
There is a hospital crisis in many places in Europe and it’s quite bad in Ireland. It’s a complicated situation. In the midst of this, one of Dublin’s major hospitals decided they won’t pay interns overtime.
Some background. Interns work anywhere between an average of 45 and 80 hours per week in my experience. I assume the hospital will pay for the on-call time (i.e. scheduled overtime), but not overtime done on regular days.
A lot of people who follow my education platform are interested in medicine. I decided to ask a question:
First, it doesn’t help the doctors’ wages that people who want to do medicine are ok with working for free.
More interestingly, I found that there was a big divide between men and women. There is an all out war at the moment on whether this gap is at least in part explained by the choices that women make (e.g. 1 vs 2).
In the sample, there were 241 women and 57 men. The sex of 7 voters was unknown.
Of the men who voted, 82.4% said no. Of the women, 69.7% said no.
Surely this is contributing to the gender pay gap?
Of the yes voters, 12.0% were male. Of the no voters, 21.9% were male.
Why? Some theories. The ones that are highlighted are the ones I feel are more plausible.
Problems:
There are few things I love more than blogging, but sometimes I leave the den to socialise…
It would be awesome to go to a place where you could mingle with women in business.
Why women? Places that aren’t woman-only, tend to be >80% men, something I learnt from experience. It’s not always conducive to making good connectons.*
So I went for a google for local female entrepreneurial stuff. It spat out a whole list of places. The websites scream empowerment through networking, in bright pink. One even offered good vibes. In bright pink. A bit like Ann Summers.
I also came to learn that women in business more often than not means C-suite employees of large corporations. Fair enough. Even here, with 1-2 exceptions, it is similar.
What I notice is that the average age is ~40. Also fair enough.
What I had been expecting to find was 30 year old entrepreneurs. I think that’s quite different.
But what does it mean?
That it’s virtually impossible to have built something by 30, in this part of the world?
That virtually no women in their 30s take business seriously?
*because it’s downright odd to come to a group of lads and say hello. They look so excited that it doesn’t feel like they have any interest in talking about anything serious.
P.S. Preachin’
Here is a “bored Elon Musk” type idea. (I get them a lot.)
Turns out, Kindle beat me to the punch:
“Unlimited Reading. Unlimited Listening. Any Device. Enjoy this book and over 1 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and recent magazines on any device for just £7.99 a month.”
*It would go something like this:
Could still do it for non-Amazon platforms. Writers, whatcha think?
…
P.S. Awesome video by Jordan Peterson on existentialism.
A millennial's musings 