Tag Archives: opinion

The open-minded and the cocksure

English: rooster Magyar: kakas

Do you have an open mind? Why would you want to have an open mind?

Having an open mind makes you less judgemental. Being less judgemental makes you a better observer of things. You can see things from various people’s perspectives, put yourself in others’ shoes, feel what they feel. You don’t go around with a pre-set mould trying to fit people and situations into it.

I think this open mindedness is a very important quality in a writer. The less open minded you are, the less you see things around you. The less you feel what others feel. The less eyes you have to see with.

Sadly, having an open-minded personality bringsĀ  some pitfalls with it.

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it” (Terry Pratchett)

Continue reading The open-minded and the cocksure

How reading has become more social

For the longest time, we were talking about how the internet was making us unsocial. Rather than socializing with our neighbours and “real” friends and family, we were running after people we hadn’t even met, talking to them, chatting and exchanging ideas neglecting our real social lives (if we had any).

Or if we had a roaring online life it was automatically assumed that we chose internet social as a kind of consolation prize to real social. People were afraid that spending a lot of time online would lead to depression and unsocial, even antisocial behaviour.

The clerk, one of the pilgrims in Chaucer's Ca...
The clerk, one of the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury tales (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stereotypes of nerds have abounded in our social imagination a long time, of course. Think of Chaucer’s clerk in the Canterbury Tales with his threadbare overcoat, not speaking a word more than he could help, bent down with the weight of his twenty leather-bound books, a very rare handmade commodity back then. Continue reading How reading has become more social

On being Freshly Pressed

I had been nurturing my fledgeling blog for several weeks now when all of a sudden I receive this email from WordPress asking me to look out for my blog to be featured in the next few days. Continue reading On being Freshly Pressed

Unusual ways we’re using the TV

If household objects were people and they could be psychoanalysed, which object would occupy the prime position as the most attention seeking, the least self-effacing, the loudest, the most narcissistic, the most colourful and preening member of the inanimate world? Continue reading Unusual ways we’re using the TV

7 Job seekers’ conundrums

You’ve worked hard. You’ve gotten a degree. And then you start looking for a job.

You skim through thousands of job ads. You encounter buzzwords and concepts that whizz through your head like bullets.

Each one is a paradox. Or a tautology.

Or whatever. Continue reading 7 Job seekers’ conundrums

Ode to failure

What does it meanĀ  to lag behind, to loiter, to delay, to be undecided, to lack a goal? To fail, to fall, to get lost, to wander? To not be perfect, to not match exactly, to not fit a plan, to not fulfil the scheme, to not be of value, in short, to not be successful? Continue reading Ode to failure

Dinner and a movie– alone!

Have you ever tried to tell someone that you had an engagement Friday night?

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“I’m going out for dinner and a movie.”
“Who’s going?”
By that, they mean who’s going with you?
Try saying “Me.””Myself.” “I.”

Look of incomprehension. Then understanding. Then pity. Then the inevitable desire to “reach out.”
“We’re going bowling. Come with us!”

Why is it so difficult to understand that it might be possible to enjoy one’s own company?
Why can’t a person go for a dinner and a movie by themselves? Continue reading Dinner and a movie– alone!

It’s a dog’s life

English: Pencil Drawing

It’s a beautiful day and I’ve been at my window watching dogs pass by with their owners. Now, I live in a place where there is very little dirt and the concrete, on sunny days, it glows like a clean white plate right out of the dishwasher. Not a crack, not a speck of yesterday’s dirt. The water of the river is blue and the ships, they look perfectly painted.

There are so many dogs! The dogs here, like the people, have an attitude. Continue reading It’s a dog’s life

Why blog?

Sketch of gallery

Okay. So I decided to write something little, something small whenever I feel like it. Isn’t that really what writing is all about? I mean, writing doesn’t really move mountains, or solve the economic crisis. You may try to hit someone hard with words, but a baseball bat is better. A few years ago, I saw a big cow eat an entire book. Didn’t make the creature any wiser. She was still standing, tied to a pole, the last I remember.

So then, why do I bother to write these blogs? But more intriguing a question than that, why do some people read other people’s blogs? I mean don’t students just hate assigned readings and teachers hate grading essays? How many students will have their grandmothers die multiple deaths rather than admit they just didn’t do it or teachers invent departmental meetings to avoid contact with the written word in the form of student papers?

So why would you read the ramblings of someone you don’t even know leave alone stand to gain something from? Continue reading Why blog?