Thank You for smoking

Is a must see movie for every debater and highly recommended for everyone else. Why? It is packed with satirical, hillarious speeches, unpredictable twists and sceenes of the main caracter Nick who is trying to be a chief spokesman for the tobaco industry and a role model for his twelve year old son at the same time. There are also some very interesting insights into how and why to use arguments: Nick Naylor: "That's the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you're never wrong." After his divorced mom let him go to a buisiness trip to California with his father: Nick Naylor: "How did you convince her?" Joey Naylor: " It was an argument not a negotiation." Nick meeting with Jeff Megall, a film industry godfather, trying to buy more cigarettes into movies again: Nick Naylor: " Are you at all concerned about the health element?" Jeff Megall: " I am not a doctor, I am a facilitator. I bring creative people together. Whatever information there is, exists, it is out there. People should decide for themselves, they will, it is not my role to decide for them, that would be morally presumptious." After debating which flawour of ice cream is better in which Nick shows to Joey that it doesn't matter which flawor is the best, but to show that your opponent is wrong and you are therefore right: Joey Naylor: " But you still didn't convience me." Nick Naylor: " Its that I am not after you, I am after them!" After that a scene follows in which Joey smiles knowingly. A concept even a smart kid could understand, is usually missed by people who should get it. And people who do get it can "spin" them. There are so many more "nuggets of gold" in the movie so take 95min of your life to watch it, it will be well worth it!

Listen!

Why? Here are my reasons: 1. I hate monologue of the deaf ( Two or more subjects thinking only about what they will say or writte and ignoring others. ) 2. Ahhem , yes, precisely, of course and other such polite phrases acompanied by a stupid and ignorant face expression really don't make you feel understood. Or respected. 3. I don't like people shouting around me. Next time you are unfortunate enough to witness or take part in a verbal fight, think about why people started yelling in the first place: BECAUSE NO ONE WAS LISTENING. And when the voice volumne is matched by the other "fighter" even less can be understood. 4. I am feed up with Vatican apologising ( three times and counting...) for Popes speech in Regensburg. If only the Offended took a little bit of time and try to read = listen to what he really said , I wouldn't be listening to the same stories day after day... Furthermore I can only "pray" that hearsay will become a bit more understood concept. And hopefully people will start thinking about what they are listening to. 5. There is so much to learn from people if you really listen to them. Even if they are full of crap (i.e. a profesor who has a really unorganised, illogical and borring lectures) you learn that you should not listen to them anymore and waste your time. 6. Making someone feel understood brings people together. 7. It is nice to actually get the food you oredered. So:

MANAGE YOUR TIME ( part D )

After quite an extensive brain time out, it is time to talk about something extremely undesirable: about managing the time you have left, so that you make the most of it, and pass the exams the way you planned. By the end of this post you will realize that it is not just about organising, managing your time, it is about managing&organising yourself.

Basically, you can devide your 24 hours activities into four simple categories based on two variables: A is the thing you are doing with your time important for you and your future life B is the thing you are doing urgent or not. In this way we get a simple 2x2 matrix, four squares. For example if you are driving with a friend who just got a drivers licence, and he doesn't see a car comming from the right, it is most urgent and important for you to spend your time shouting at him not to drive off.

On the other hand sitting by your window and watching the neighbours go to work and come back again is mostly considered unimportant and not really urgent. And although that doesn't stop some people from doing it (sorry neighbour Maria), it just means our life goals can be very different.

The big Q here is in which of these "squares" is it best to insert your mental energies? Which things to do? It is not the urgent&important one, because you have to attend to these situations automatically or you will probably end up as a custumer for the undertaker. And both the unimportant squares can be logically ruled out, because doing things not in accordance with your Important leads you somewhere else.

So DO the important and not urgent things if you want the best for yourself ( said the granny). Besides it will also decrease the amounth of urgent have to solve situations, because you'll be working on a strange thing called prevention, which usually also decreases stress. So, after very pleasant holidays it is not only time to organise my time in a way that will allow me to study, but especially organise and manage myself in such a way that I will start to study. In the end it all comes down to motivation. Maybe the feeling that I am the master of my time and not the other way around will be a bit of a help in that.

Untill ORGANISATION&MANAGEMENT happens ( gets high enough on want to do list) it is time for another swim in the warm sea and perhaps a refreshing cocktail will be okay too.

Ego massage

After completing his spring exams, a student is found doing the most usual thing: Chilling out and enjoying his beer with his friends. The atmosphere in the bar is quite relaxing, there are many nicely dressed people walking around, exchanging looks, chatting with each other and having a good time. Or at least faking it quite succesfully. Since the music is quite loud, the student really doesn't feel like shouting to be heard, and to be honest, he doesn't have any really interesting ideas to share at the moment. So he enjoys the sweet bitterness of his beer, the soft sofa and the refriged air which is gently flowing from the convectors above. His mind is occupied with all the plans he made for the summer and in "deep" moments he can almost feel the cool, cristal clear water of the sea emracing his body, the soft and fresh air filling his lungs in the moutains, the extatic feeling of enjoying a great concert... Then his pleasant thoughts are suddenly interrupted. A good looking blonde and a stunning brunette step next to his seat. They are both dressed in red, which really shows their above average looks in a seducing, erotic light. The student is not at all bothered by the interruption, untill his eyes are scorched by an object. In the arms of the perfectly shaped, smiling brunette, his eyes find a bucket! There are some buds and ice bathing in it and girls both have bud written on their shirts. For obvious reasons, it took quite some time for the student to notice that. Finally he and his friends are asked a routine question: Boys would you like some? But just before returning a routine answer : No thank you, my La?ko will do just fine, something makes the evening a bit more interesting for the student. The brunette with the bucket, looks at him again and asks: Don't you also work for the same model agency as we are? The student is a bit surprised by the question, but quickly returns a bit borring, but relaxed answer with a smile: No, you must have mistaken me. She smiles back and takes her bucket to the next table where boys will perhaps want some of her stuff.

The student who never considered himself really handsome had his line of thought abrupted a bit. The first thought was that she had probably mistaken him for a driver or an administrative worker at her agency. But his mind check dismissed this option, because he found it quite unlikely due to the fact that female ex models mostly do such work. He didn't bother with any "deeper analysis", because he found the thought of being mistaken for a model more amusing. Another thought occupied his neural network, what if she works for an agency which employs casual workers for speeding up the sales? Another glance at her perfect figure and soft face dismissed this theory. Well, he really didn't feel like consciously think about it any longer so he just smiled to himself and left this situation to his unconscious mind for further processing. His conscious mind returned to more relaxing, seaside&cocktail connected topics.

Since the student still feels very holiday like, I'll leave the interpretations to you.

Heat pump

(There should be a picture here, but it melted away!)

It's geting hot, well maybe not as hot, but still .si hot. Brain don't operate well at high temperatures. My brain operates even worse in hot rooms. I need my brain to operate OK for at least a week to complete my spring exam season. Again I am wondering why I am not a natural science student. Apart from getting all sorts of scolarships from state fundations, and not even mentioning geting a job :), I would also learn about interesting and useful things ( probably) such as heat pumps, which are the most basic element for cooling our inner enviroment and heating our outer enviroment. Yes it is a really simple concept which transfers heat from one place to another. Well it uses energy to do so, but that doesn't really matter, as long our but is not frying and our brain can be optimally used. Why should we really care about the electricty bill and greenhouse efect if we can enjoy the soft, calming whisp of an air conditioner? And by the way, the heath pump concept is really easy to understand compared to other far more complex ideas. Can you really talk about society, global politics, poverty, globalism... if you don't understand processes as simple as moving heat? As Albert Einstein said: I am always amazed by the complexity of the nature. And if we add another: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Then some words spoken start to make a bit more sense... Well, what surely makes more sense, is why this post is soo confusing: MY BRAIN IS COOKING IN MY SKULL, because we still don't own an air conditioner!

PS: I also wanted to write about the economics of global warming, defects in slovenian educational system and poverty as a continous phenomena, but it is too hot!

IDEA

If fresh and original ideas are so valuable nowadays, where do they come from? I have an idea. I am going to write about ideas and hopefully learn something about them. Firstly, I am going to try to understand what ideas are, then I am going to speculate on how ideas are formed and finally I am going to try and create a few fresh ideas using my freshly learnd knowledge.

So what are ideas? The dictionaries say it is a specific thought which arises in the brain. Well that doesn't really tell us as much as we would like so lets see what the oldest science has to offer. Plato utilized the concept of idea in the realm of metaphysics where only ideas are the sole reality and humans can only see a blurred projections of this reality. John Locke, defines idea as whatever is the object of understanding when a man thinks?, which is a very empiristic way of seeing ideas. Hume differs from Locke by limiting idea to the more or less vague mental reconstructions of perceptions, the perceptual process being described as an impression. Which is quite useful for explaining how ideas are forged. But it doesn't stop here: Emmanuel Kant defines an "idea" as opposed to a "concept". Furthermore "regulator ideas" are ideals that one must tend towards to, but by definition may not be completely realized. Which is an interesting concept, but negative definitions don't really tell us much about how the creation of ideas takes place. Luckily, Wundt widens the term to include conscious representation of some object or process of the external world. In so doing, he includes not only ideas of memory and imagination, but also perceptual processes. This adds an important dimension in understanding this term. So after a rather boring repetiton of high school philosophy, lets speculate on how ideas are created.

The human capacity to generate ideas is associated with the capacity for reason and self-reflection. However, in a popular sense, an idea can arise even when there is no serious reflection, for example, when we talk about the idea of a person or a place. Methaphysics and Kant's negative definition don't really help us much in speculating how usable, tangible ideas are formed in "real life", so lets focus on other concepts about ideas. In essence it is a mental process ( our brain does...) and that this process uses some sort of an imput. I agree with those who claim that this imput can be both internal and external. And how does this mental process create something we call an idea? Well, this is how I imagne it:

The input is constantly being processed by our brain. This creates a "mind charge" in our brain. When there is enough "charge" created in different areas responsibile for different knowledge, these start connecting. And just like in thunderstorm lightning, different areas with high enough charge connect and form a line of thought, a concept... When different concept sparks connect in a new and original way a fresh idea is born. And just like lightning, the charge usually seeks the shortest path among charged particles. So the idea is useful when it connects two previously unconnectable parts. ( Don't forget that these are mere speculations).

Lets try and put all this theory into practice and see if it works: Again, we should try to connect previously unconnected concepts in the shortest, logical way. So for example, lets try and connect pigeon and a text marker. Well the first spark I got is painting the bird into orange with the marker. After some more thought, the created charge sparked even more directly, because I got an "original" idea of making the damned bird go of my window shelf by throwing the marker at it. But that didn't work logically. So after adding another concept into the mind game, I came up with puting an open marker on the shelf. Perhaps, the chemical smell would prevent the birds from landing there. Another a bit more complex idea is that I could open a bussines, which would train pigeons to fly text markers to students in student camuses,when they most desperatelly need them, during their exams... Yes I know, I haven't gotten any really useful or original ideas, but if I won't kill my sparking machine ( limit the imput with too much reasoning ) I am sure that I am going to get quite many useful connections in my life ;) .