Ibane’s ramblings
“The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc is bound to be noticed.” S. KierkegaardArchive for Opinion
A decade of emptiness…maybe?
The other day discussing with some friends about music, art and Tiger Woods, I raised the question ‘What would they consider the movement including music, fashion, art,…that could define the last decade? As for example punk did in the 70s’. The answers were vague and there was not for example a band that we could agree to be like the band of the decade. A bunch of good bands but not the band that you will listen to them in 20 years and you will say ‘that’s so 2000’.
I have done this exercise with different groups of friends and people from different backgrounds and the answers are as different as individuals. My first thoughts were that the inability to find what would be the cultural movement that represent the decade means that we have left behind a decade of emptiness and decadence in creativity. Later, thinking about it a bit more, I thought that this decade is the decade of the facebooks, twitters, myspaces, blogs,…it has been the decade where everyone feeling some creativity inside could share with millions and millions of people almost instantly, and if something cool is happening it gets old-fashion as quick as it gets trendy. So it might be that we have lived some good moments during this decade, it might be that we just missed it because we were busy with facebook.
In any case, there are still some days to end this decade so there is time to have some band of the decade and all that. Oh no…Enrique Iglesias singing again. I guess not then.
achievements
The other day I woke up with the story that for first time in history there will be more than 1000 million people hungry in the world (according to World Food Program). This kind of news always puzzles me and leaves me in shock. No because of the dimension of the tragedy, which it is, startled because next to that story you can read things like how many millions of euros/dollars bankers will distribute in bonuses or similar. I know, I can be accused of demagogic thinking, not seeing the global picture, that it is more complicated than that and all that crap. But the fact is that despite of having several organizations like UN, UNICEF,…with very important people leading them, in addition to that, hundreds and hundreds of non-governmental organizations fighting against admirable causes and having as contributors a lot of westerners with bad conscience, despite of Bono and his friends with their concerts, Angelina with her programs and Madonna adopting children, despite of all that, we are achieving that today people are dying because of hunger, as of the beginning of the times. Here the word evolution lost its meaning.
So I think that there is no more left that congratulate everyone because of the good job. Good morning and good luck.
P.S.: Please Bono another concert no.
western spirituality
Last night I watched a documentary from Louis Theroux, a very funny British journalist, which always deals with extravagant topics in his documentaries with a lot of English humor. Last night it was about India and the westerns going there looking for spirituality, healing their souls or similar. When I was watching it I couldn’t help to have uncomfortable feeling that something was not right. Seeing all this western whitey people practicing some type of yoga with fancy linen clothes and few meters away there is some slum without the basics needed for having a decent human life.
We, westerns tend to think that we are really good people, in most of the cases, except maybe George W. Bush and the plastic surgeon of Nicole Kidman, and with our actions we do no harm and even we do good. But I wonder if all these people that are looking for something doing some fancy crazy shit in some remote location in the Third World would get back to their countries and demand something serious from their governments like stopping weapons trade, better distribution of wealth or similar instead of doing some bullshit yoga in some lost beach with some guru crazier than a coconut. I wonder what would happen.
Anyway, see you next post, I need to go to yoga.:)
the less option
Nowadays when we need to make a choice the options available have really become limited. Today I find myself choosing between a horrible movie or horrendously boring one. So I always try to choose the one I think that it is going to be _less_ boring. And this is exapnding to other areas of my life, I am choosing the politician that I think that will be _less_ incompetent and will steal _less_ from public funds, I am choosing the bank which will ripped me off _less_, the mobile network operator that will abuse _less_ with their roaming, and in that way we can go on and on…so I am not sure if it is me that my state of mind is troubled these days or it is just that the world has become a really _less_ quality place. No doubt it must be the first reason…or _less_
old-fashion industry
I have been after a DVD movie for some years and I finally found it, but due to an old fashion business model where our music and entertainment industry is stuck with, I can’t buy and enjoy legally. Either I move to the country where I would not have the region restrictions or I pay the rights to produce the DVD in the region where I live. It sounds everything so last century.
I really hope that change come to these guys and understand that internet and people moving around the world is a reality. In the mean time I will have to find an alternative way to get that movie….
5 Reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook
Here they are my reasons why I prefer Twitter to Facebook:
1. Twitter is not bothering you with ads to sell you Viagra or some other shit.
2. People in Twitter usually have more interesting posts than in Facebook. I am not interested in how drunk you were last night or how cool you feel in Japan. Just say something interesting please.
3. Poke application, are you serious? after being poked is that suppose to make you feel better or something?
4. Twitter does not have stupid and wasteful applications. Do you want a virtual Gin Tonic? Do you want an egg or bunny? No,I don’t. Thanks.
5. Twitter founder is not wearing flip flops and jeans. Mark, really, it is not that cool to wear them.
Obviously tomorrow I will change my mind.
Job offer
We are looking for skilled candidates to cover a high-level position.
Requirements
– You must have an enormous greed.
– By any means you should apply any ethics or moral in your actions. You will be allowed or even encouraged to talk to any type of people with no resent or moral prejudices. Dictators, drug dealers, corrupted politicians, merciless property developers,…these will be your allies and main customers in order to be successful.
– You will and must take risks in a irresponsibly manner and not caring at all about the effects or the consequences as long as your bonus increases.
– Creating poverty, scarcity in job market, strengthening an unfair system and creating an unbalance distribution of wealth will be your drivers.
If you managed to screw up everything and create historical losses you will be compensated by an obscene bonus that you will be able to enjoy in some tax paradise.
Please send your CV to any investment bank in Wall Street or banks in general.
European politicians and some ramblings
Here I am, writing in an Iberia’s flight in my way to Madrid. Surprisingly the flight is on time and the flight attendants are not bitter, these two marks are usually distinctive in Iberia. Another fact that supports this, in Iberia Magazine, the CEO has a letter to the passengers apologizing by the mess (I guess he has different templates, since he must be using them so often). So here it is a bit of advice, if you visit Madrid, try to avoid as much as possible Iberia and Telefonica Customer Service. You will thank me. Obviously, if you have masochist tendencies I strongly recommend Telefonica Customer Service, and try for example to change your DSL line to a different address, it is going to be very tasty for you.
My flight is going through Brussels, which means that we are loading our plane with different European politicians and European civil servants. I don’t know how many of those guys are in Brussels, last time I have read that there are like 800 European MPs, plus 25000 staff. Then I was leaning in my seat, looking through the Belgium sky, and the figures start to fly, travel expenses by 800, translators, assistants, laptops, hotels,… and I got dizzy. I guess that with the European Parliament and European Commission we are trying to give an example of inefficiency, waste of resources, useless approach with no benefit for the citizen so it can be shown as a lesson not to be repeated later. Don’t get me wrong, I am in favor of a European Union, and I think that the way to go is to strength it, but with this army of bureaucrats overlapping competences and structures I am not sure if it is the way. Nowadays, we might have up to 4 directives or laws to address the same issue, one from your local government, another from the Regional Government, another from Central Government and the European one. As a tax payer, I get really uneasy when I see these legions of politicians traveling for example to support trade, the case of Spain for example, we have regional governments going to China to strength our commercial relations between Cataluña or Madrid and China, then 2 months later we send another bunch of them (this time we include our King in the trip, for the pictures, I guess) for the same, and finally we send a commission of Spanish European MP and at this point you don’t know any more.
The other day I got the papers to vote in the next European elections, and being honest I don’t feel like voting, I don’t share the current view and I demand more efficient institutions that really represent the interest of the citizens and not a bunch of guys bullshitting in Brussels with the translators, with lorries moving around tons of papers in 37 different languages and all that. European MPs, you need to work harder to get my vote.
By the way, as usual, Iberia lost my luggage…
Crisis responses
I have been trying to avoid to emit any opinion about the current finance and economic situation for many reasons, among them my opinion is irrelevant and also I don’t have all the information to build one that it is worthy to be considered. On the other, hand seeing how our leaders having privileged access to all kind of information from advisers, institutions…they were not able to foresee what was coming, not even close.
Now that we are sunk in deep dirt, our politicians, policy makers, bankers, finance brains seem to agree that the whole problem is that the coward consumers have stopped to do what apparently is so needed, to consume without limits and control. We have in Spain the prime minister asking (it sounded more begging) to consume as normal to recover faster, in Helsinki metro you can find an ad where they encourage you to consume to save the economy. I am sure you can find similar examples all around the world.
These messages coming from media in different formats made me think, having a naive thought, I thought that these unfortunate happenings would be a very good opportunity to change our economic model, a model that has carried us to have more poverty, more distance between poor and rich, and being very harmful for our environment. However, our leaders seem that the only message is “Please, keep on consuming to keep things the same because we are too incompetent to think something by our own”.
Well, I rebel against this, I am not buying these messages and all that crap, as a voter and a tax payer I demand a better solution from them. I know for some politicians will be the introduction of two activities at the same time, working and thinking. Bankers and corporations are other story.
What I talk about when I talk about running
No, I will not talk about running or maybe a little, it is about the book of the same title written by Haruki Murakami. I have not finished it yet but I have read through enough to build my opinion about it.
It is not a great book or don’t expect any high literature but I definitely recommend the book, even if you are not a runner. Mr. Murakami explains his big moments in life and link them with the running. His situations might be familiar to many because in my opinion he describes the battle of I think that almost everyone goes through and it is finding ourselves and what we want from life. Running here is just circumstancial, I guess that you can substitute for almost any other activity that define yourself. In my case, it is also running and some times Haruki put in written words what I have thought and felt many times when I am out running.
For me running has become my little island where everything else vanish and there is only left my running shoes, my music and the road. And it is something so deep in me that some times I get scared if some day I will not be able to run. That’s maybe the reason why I am planning to take the bike (also thanks to my blog colleague The Real Bookish) and swimming. But as far as I can I will keep running…
Sydney Australia
Ibane's ramblings 