That was how an old friend of mine – thanks Oache – was treating anyone who complained too much.
And there were plenty reasons to complain about during Ceausescu’s communist rule over Romania.
Five minutes ago I found this in my inbox:
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast,
The young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
The next morning while they are eating breakfast,
The young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
“That laundry is not very clean,” she said.
“She doesn’t know how to wash correctly.
Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
“She doesn’t know how to wash correctly.
Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry,
The young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a
Nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:
“Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.
I wonder who taught her this.”
The husband said, “I got up early this morning and
Cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others
Depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
I’d go even further than that.
The way we perceive what’s going on around us depends heavily on the ‘filter’ each of us chooses to use when trying to make some sense of this world.
The way we perceive what’s going on around us depends heavily on the ‘filter’ each of us chooses to use when trying to make some sense of this world.
Catalin Zamfir, a Romanian sociologist with a keen interest in the decision making process, has studied how individuals try to assuage the feeling of acute/constant uncertainty experienced by each of them during the constant (social) encounters that constitute ‘daily life’. In one of his early books, unfortunately not yet translated in English, he explains that ‘ideology’ is not only a blue print for future action but also, and maybe even more important, the lens/filter through which we perceive what is going on around us. An interface that translates ‘reality’ into ideas that make sense for each of us.
The interesting thing about ‘ideology’ is that it isn’t fixed. Each of us can choose from whatever is available in his time or even ‘write’ his own.
Granted, the process of selection/rewriting incurs costs/risks. Some obvious, like adopting a contrarian stance, and others very well hidden in plain view, like the dangers that arise from indiscriminately following a herd.
The interesting thing about ‘ideology’ is that it isn’t fixed. Each of us can choose from whatever is available in his time or even ‘write’ his own.
Granted, the process of selection/rewriting incurs costs/risks. Some obvious, like adopting a contrarian stance, and others very well hidden in plain view, like the dangers that arise from indiscriminately following a herd.
And this is exactly why we should strive to keep our windows/ideological eyes as clean as possible.
