Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.~ Henry Ford
Category: Thoughts & Scribbles
What Defines A Person?
What defines a person?
A person is what he thinks? Not necessarily, a lot of people think things they don’t apply in real life. Plus you don’t always know what they really think.
A person is what he believes? Even more than the previous point, a lot of people don’t really live by what they believe.
A person is his religion? Nobody follows their religion with 100% accuracy, and even if they think they do, they more or less follow their own understanding of it, which makes it pretty undefinable.
A person is what he says? Ever heard of lying, diplomacy, plain old hypocrisy…etc? All that tells us we can’t use what a person says to accurately define them.
A person is what he does? I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I personally think this is the closest to the truth of what a person really is: what he actually does.
Of course, nobody should judge people solely on what they do, everything has to be taken into consideration, and context is very important always, but in the end: what a person does, given what you know about him (thinking, beliefs, religion, what they say about theirself) is what really defines that person.
So if we look at it using numbers, I’d say what a person does accounts for 60-70% of what they are, with the other elements taking up 30-40%
Oil, Food, Control And The Arab World
Just came across this interesting quote by Henry Kissinger in the mid 1970’s:
“Control the oil and you control entire nations; control the food and you control the people.”
Rings very true, even if in a conspiracy theory kind of way, but yet if we look at the Arab world; we control most of the oil in the world, and we produce a lot of the food in the world, and have the potential to produce even more, yet there isn’t an area of the world that has less control, even over its own future.
What does that tell us?
One Person, Different Profiles
A thought that has been on my mind these past few days and that I thought I’d finally try to put down in writing, maybe in an attempt to sort out my ideas, and save them for future reference.
The thing is that on most of these web services where you have to setup your profile; whether it be a social networking site, a job site, or any other kind of service; and even offline; whether it be a CV, a business card or presentation; you always end up with a one dimensional profile of yourself, just one way of presenting yourself from just one point of view.
But is that enough?
Are we as humans really that simple, straightforward or even that dull?
I don’t really think so.
We exist in different contexts and move around in different circles in our everyday lives, and it’s impossible to believe that one profile totally covers us and describes us best everywhere, every time, with everyone.
Personally, at my current job, in professional meetings, IT discussions, and generally in that IT related context, I’m the product development manager who has years of experience in the field.
When I’m with a certain group of my friends, I’m a passionate photographer, who’s always trying out new techniques, playing around with new perspectives and building up a portfolio of interesting shots.
With others in different contexts like meetups, some conferences, some interviews; I’m known as a blogger, Subzero Blue, one of the first Tunisian bloggers, who has been blogging for years now and in some way or another helped spread blogging in Tunisia.
These are all different points of view that show a different side to the same person; and there are still more now; there were others before and there’ll be others to come.
So are the simple profile systems we have in place today truly representative of who we are as human beings?
Of course, if you’re already in a specialized context, then that’s no problem, you’re going to choose the profile that fits the most; but when it comes to more general services, it’s just not enough.
Simply put, the same person can answer the same question “Who are you?” with a range of different answers depending on the situation, the context, the where, and the when.
Profiling systems just have to take all those different answers into consideration.
The Masks We Wear
Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear. For I wear a thousands masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t be fooled. For God’s sake don’t be fooled. I give you the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water’s calm and I’m in command, and that I need no one. But don’t believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.[…]
Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.
— Charles C. Finn, “Please Hear What I’m Not Saying”
People Automatons
Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.
Democracy And Elections
The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.— Joseph Stalin
Couldn’t be more true…
Success: Doing What You Want To Do
What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.— Bob Dylan, US singer & songwriter
Randomly…
Randomly, out of nowhere, there was a big fat universe sitting around…
Randomly, this universe exploded and expanded into its current state…
Randomly, solar systems were created in which planets rotated around central stars…
Randomly, planet Earth was created with the characteristics we all know today…
Randomly, a single cell living entity came into being…
Randomly, this single cell evolved into many different, yet independently perfect species…
Randomly, these different species kept evolving to their current states today…
Randomly, one of these species became the human race…
Randomly, every single little organ, with every single tiny detail and every exact function was perfectioned and tuned in the human body…
And randomly, here I am writing this post…
What a wonderful world of coincidences…
Work: Job, Environment And Money
It’s evaluation period at work, that time of year when tension gets so thick sometimes it could be cut by a knife.
It’s also the time when a lot of people, depending on whether or not they get a raise or promotion, how much the raise ends up to be, or what that new position is, start thinking about their jobs, and if they should maybe consider moving to some other company.
Personally, I think there is a very simple equation to all this, which mainly consists of the balance between job, environment and financial satisfaction.
The main questions a person should ask himself are:
Job: Do I enjoy my job? Am I still learning new things in it? Am I gaining useful experience from it?
Environment: Do I like working in this company? Is it a healthy environment? Do I get along well with my colleagues?
Money: Am I comfortable with how much I’m getting paid for my job? Do I feel that I’m being compensated for my efforts? Is my salary advancing at a healthy pace?
Lucky are the ones who get to answer yes to all those questions; for the rest, it’s a game of balance between how many “yes”, “no”, “almost”, “barely” answers they give to those answers across the three areas.
For example: If you’re happy with your job and with the environment, then you can easily bring yourself to accept a salary that is a bit lower than what you wished for; and that applies in all directions.
Of course I’m not for a person staying in a job he hates just because they’re getting paid well, in fact I’m totally against that. But if the person’s job satisfaction is a bit less than perfect, but he’s very happy with his salary and the environment he’s working in, I think he could bring himself to hang on in there a little longer.
Personally, I’ve been applying this principle throughout my career, and up to now I’m very proud of how things have played out for me.
Work life isn’t all about the job, nor all about the money, nor is it about the environment; it’s a combination of all those to make up a whole experience, a big part of our life; and just like we do with life, we have to balance between all the different elements to get the most out of it for our future.