No coal in social!

Poverty

Poverty tells many stories... so listen carefully!

Looking in my mirror

"Begging", Musée Rodin, Paris

[...]
The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, “What great people!” They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.


The structure of the Greek economy is collectivist, but the country, in spirit, is the opposite of a collective. Its real structure is every man for himself. Into this system investors had poured hundreds of billions of dollars. And the credit boom had pushed the country over the edge, into total moral collapse.

[...]
Even if it is technically possible for these people to repay their debts, live within their means, and return to good standing inside the European Union, do they have the inner resources to do it? Or have they so lost their ability to feel connected to anything outside their small worlds that they would rather just shed themselves of the obligations? On the face of it, defaulting on their debts and walking away would seem a mad act: all Greek banks would instantly go bankrupt, the country would have no ability to pay for the many necessities it imports (oil, for instance), and the country would be punished for many years in the form of much higher interest rates, if and when it was allowed to borrow again. But the place does not behave as a collective; it lacks the monks’ instincts. It behaves as a collection of atomized particles, each of which has grown accustomed to pursuing its own interest at the expense of the common good. There’s no question that the government is resolved to at least try to re-create Greek civic life. The only question is: Can such a thing, once lost, ever be re-created?

Source: Vanity Fair

Homeopathy

Brussels, Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts

An interesting comic presentation about homeopathy, a real food for thought the very least.

Life Balance

Castells Competitions (building human towers), Tarragona, Spain

Someone told me: "I need to balance my life with LIFE". He, then, stopped. And, then, rephrased it to: "I need to balance my TIME with life". I didn't say a thing. But, will he ever understand that the first thing is what he needs to do rather than the second?

Summer Feast

Kew Gardens, Princess of Wales Conservatory.

A glorious feast for the summer that just ended. Hoping for a liveable autumn. My best to all.

Towel

Musee Rodin, Paris

A girl dressed for the beach with bikinis, thin sea dress and sandals. Late into the cold night. Inside the night bus. 

She is crying to her mobile and complaining to the friend she is talking to. It is about a small or big romantic tragedy of hers.

How convenient is the big sea-towel that hugs her bare shoulders, warming her and drying her tears.

Joke

Westminster view from London Eye on a typical day.

A Greek tourist, who was visiting London, waited for the rain to stop to continue visiting the city...

Fingertips

You have just woke up from a long nap. You feel invigorated. Alive again. It feels like Spring. No matter what the calendar says. Let it insist on summer. You feel like Spring. You never read calendars anyway. It is Spring. You can read it on the warm temperature. On the bright sun. On the scented breeze. On the fresh rain.

It is time again.
Time to leave behind the numbness.
Time to stretch yourself.
Time to grow.
Time to unfold your new green fingertips.

Sir Knight

Sir Knight walked out, through the dark, twisting and turning corridors of the castle, to the shiny, straightforward openness of the battlements.

There, gazing the waving sea of crops and the moving fields of waves underneath, was the person he was looking for.

Without even turning itself, the voice of the person met him almost the minute he stepped out. The voice was, oddly, tight and loose, commanding and surrendering, hopeful and despaired. The words spoken were fighting the Knight's presence and conscience, before they disappeared escaping to the castle's dungeon.

"When this pursuing, this persistence, is going to end? I grow weary of it. You know this situation has no future. Even the past, on which it is based on, is past gone. I am the wrong person for you. And you know it, although you deny it. From every possible aspect. I am moody, while you are happy. I am short, while you are tall. I am vengeful, while you are forgiving. I am poor, while you are wealthy. I am volatile, while you are tempered. I am impatient, while you are meek. I am unfaithful, while you are loyal. I am radical, while you are benign. I am bound, while you are free. You are like the sun, while I am like the cloud, You are a rainbow, while I am grayness. You know all these and you still deny them.  And no matter how much you deny them, I am the wrong person for you..."

Sir Knight placed both his hands on the battlements, gazing the mixed green and blue underneath him. "I know all these, he said softly to the voice, but, no matter what, you still make me happy".

The voice grew impatient once more and intercepted rudely: "Happy? Happy, you say? Happiness is overestimated. What is happiness? And what happiness are you talking about? We only have a bubble of happiness. If we have even that. A bubble! Elusive, unstable, breakable, short-lived like a bubble! Nothing more than a bubble. Made from dreams, intentions, lies, smoke, clouds and air. You can not be happy with that. You deserve more. More than me! More than a bubble."

Sir Knight smiled to the vastness above him. "For me it is enough. You make me happy." And he raised his hand gently to subdue a renewed string of objections. The voice had no choice but to remain silent, locked in the dungeon.

Sir Knight moved back to the castle. But, just before he re-immersed himself in the grayness of the inside, he added one last thing to the silent voice behind him: "You know, to make a rainbow, you need not only sun but, also, rain".