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What happened to us all?

May 22, 2016 //
0

Islam Europe

I’ve just found this cartoon in my e-mail.
It was captioned: “The Winning cartoon in an organized competition.”

I instantly remembered some very wise words I’ve read long time ago:

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

“Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will, I (Prophet Muhammad) will complain against that person on the Day of Judgment.”

All religious teachings, all of them, maintain that ‘a man reaps what he sows’. It doesn’t really matter if the ‘result’ will come as a sentence delivered by a divine judge or if it will be just another bead in the string representing the life story of an individual.
I, for one, don’t see much difference between ‘fate’ and ‘karma’.

Then how come we keep acting as if we’ve never been warned?

“In my two visits to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp in Poland, I learned that holocausts and genocides do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, there is almost always a vicious campaign of incitement directed against the target group preceding them. What is troubling today, with the recent uptick in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents worldwide, is that extremists and zealots are not the only ones inciting their followers. In a number of Arab countries, Muslim children are taught ideas that distort the true meaning of the Quran and hadith too.”

o-gay-prophet-570

Love, more powerful than hate.

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Categories altruism, authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, effective communication, Frames of mind, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, Psychology, religion, Social justice, The kind of world we live in, The world as described in jokes, yes but

Intermezzo

March 28, 2016 //
0

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Just finished reading about the West as an object of hate.

Next in line is a book about the Orient as an object of study.

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Bearing in mind the fact that the Occident is still very much hated by a significant number of people residing in the Eastern part of the World it seems that we, the Westerners, have  been rather poor students of the Orient.

Or that some of us don’t give a damn about the long term consequences of their actions?

“To understand is not to excuse, just as to forgive is not to forget, but without understanding those who hate the West, we cannot hope to stop them from destroying humanity.”

I’d say these are very wise words which constitute an excellent starting point.
Towards the end of their book Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue that “despite Christian fundamentalists speaking of a crusade, the West is not at war with Islam. In fact the fiercest battles will be fought inside the Islamic World.” (translation belongs to me, I have a Romanian version of the book)
How about us, in the West, helping the ‘right’ side in an innovative way?
By giving them an example.
By mending our own ways, before telling others to mend theirs!

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Categories authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, forgiveness, Frames of mind, freedom, limited rationality, Mutual Respect, Social justice, The kind of world we live in, yes but

Computer tip

March 2, 2016 //
0

Let’s say you are like me, you are able to change a wireless card in your desktop but are no computer expert AND are running Windows 8 or 10:

Before doing anything else boot the computer and hit RESTART. Not SHUT DOWN but RESTART. For Windows 8 and 10 this not at all the same thing – here ‘shut-down’ is more like what ‘hibernate’ used to be for W 7.

The point being that if the computer has some updates pending (which would have been installed the next time you would have wakened it up) and you change something in it (a wireless card, for instance, 😉 ) it will have some trouble sorting things out. It will succeed, eventually. but it will take some time and it will get you worrying.

So hit RESTART first and open its belly afterwards.

PS
Don’t be sad when it ‘freaks’ out, for any reasons. Just take it as an opportunity to reinstall the OS. It will feel like a new computer. If you played safe and had everything backed up, of course.

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, physics, yes but

Care-i treaba cu Voiculescu

February 19, 2016 //
0

Antena 3 a organizat o intalnire cu spectatorii sai.

Daca stai sa te gandesti ar fi fost chiar ciudat sa nu fi folosit la maxim prilejul asta.

La un moment dat Mircea Badea a facut o aluzie la Dan Voiculescu iar cativa din multime i-au scandat numele.

Ceea ce m-a facut sa ma intreb: ‘Oare ce-o fi in capul oamenilor astia? Or fi platiti? Sau poate ca nu inteleg eu toate fineturile situatiei?’

S-o luam metodic.

– A fost sau nu ‘omul Securitatii?’
Inca nu a prezentat nimeni dovezi clare in sensul acesta. Este cert insa ca Voiculescu a avut legaturi stranse cu oameni puternici, atat din vechiul regim cat si din cel proaspat instalat dupa ’89. Pe de alta parte, chiar daca a avut legaturi cu Securitatea se pare ca acestea au fost cu acea parte a Securitatii care nu se ocupa de oropsirea oamenilor de rand. Amanunt foarte important pentru modul in care este vazut de oamenii de pe strada.
– Dupa Revolutie si-a folosit relatiile pentru a se imbogati.
OK, si cine dintre cei care au putut face asa ceva nu a profitat de relatiile sale?
– A infiintat un partid politic extrem de oportunist.
Si unde e diferenta dintre el si ceilalti sefi de partide?
– A furat de la stat.
Nu a fost, nici pe departe, singurul.
– A fost condamnat pentru asta.
Iarasi, nu este singurul.

Si atunci cum se explica polarizarea extrema a opiniei publice cu privire la persoana sa?

In acest moment al discutiei trebuie sa vorbim un pic de diferenta dintre realitate si perceptie. Aceia dintre noi care ne consideram intelectuali pretindem ca am auzit despre ea in timp ce restul lumii merge dupa principiul ‘ce e-n gusa, si-n capusa’. Sau, altfel spus, ‘faptele vorbeste’.

Cu alte cuvinte perceptiile intelectualilor sunt influentate mai ales de ideologiile la care au aderat fiecare dintre ei pe cand perceptiile oamenilor ‘de rand’ mai degraba de gesturile pe care le sesizeaza.

Parca a inceput sa se mai ridice ceata, nu?
Deja nu mai e chiar atat de complicat de inteles intensitatea cu care il urasc pe Voiculescu cei care se considera a fi de dreapta: Un tip care a avut stranse legaturi cu fostul regim, care si-a folosit relatiile pentru a se imbogati pe spinarea statului, pentru a infiinta un partid cameleon si o televiziune aservita intereselor stangii.
Pentru cei de stanga toate ‘realizarile’ lui Voiculescu – mai putin imbogatirea pe seama statului – sunt pe atat de remarcabile pe cat sunt de reprobabile pentru cei de dreapta. Ba chiar si bogatia lui devine oarecum acceptabila – printr-un proces de ‘normalizare’ (orice lucru des intalnit devine ‘normal’, adica acceptabil), cu atat mai mult cu cat o parte din ea a fost folosita pentru infiintarea Antenelor iar o alta parte pentru fundatia Mereu Aproape si pentru burse de studiu.

Iar pentru oamenii de rand, adica pentru cei care i-au scandat numele in piata si care nu dau atentie sofisticariilor ideologice, faptele sunt hotaratoare.
– ‘A facut televiziunea la care ne uitam? Si care a fost singura care i-a tinut piept lui Basescu pe vremea cand ne taia pensiile si inchidea spitalele?’
– ‘S-a imbogatit pe seama statului? Si care dintre bogatasii de astazi nu a facut chestia asta? Macar asta vad ca tine cu ‘noi’.’

Si uite-asa in ochii unora dintre concetatenii nostri Voiculescu a inceput sa capete un aer daca nu de haiduc autentic atunci macar de personaj tragic care a ajuns la puscarie nu atat pentru faptele sale cat, mai ales, pentru indrazneala sa de a se certa, la cutite, cu Basescu.

Logica pe care se bazeaza acestia fiind simpla. Ei nu neaga furturile lui Voiculescu, nu sunt naivi. Pur si simplu se intreaba ‘Bine, si restul celor care au furat de ce nu sunt in puscarie? De ce pe vremea lui Basescu au fost ‘saltati’ mai ales cei din tabara ‘cealalta’?
Asta in conditiile in care pentru foarte multi dintre romani a fura de la stat nu e chiar atat de reprobabil ca a fura de la o persoana fizica. N-am sa intru in amanunte, asta este o stare de spirit caracteristica pentru societatile care au trait multa vreme sub regimuri dictatoriale, unde statul este un dusman si nu un partener.

Greu de contracarat asa ceva, doar cu argumente de natura ideologica si mai ales in situatia in care interlocutorii nu sunt sensibili la argumente de genul acesta.

Pana la urma problema reala nu este Voiculescu in sine ci modul in care ne raportam noi la Voiculestii din jurul nostru. Si, impreuna, la stat.

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Categories alegerile pe care le facem, cadre mentale, coruptie, democratie reprezentativa, identitate colectiva, Justitie sociala, Nu prostiti poporul cu televizorul!, politica, respect reciproc, Tara din care traim, yes but

Working at both ends of the problem

February 13, 2016 //
0

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“Administrators at the Success Academy—a network of high-performing charter schools in the New York area—are standing behind what they call a model teacher, who was caught on camera ripping up homework and berating a first grade student for answering a math problem incorrectly.”

 

I totally disagree with this kind of behaviour.
Having said that let me offer you a glimpse of what’s going on in the minds of those who accept or even promote it:
Shouldn’t we be working at both ends of the problem?
Educate the educators about how to motivate the children to learn without crippling their souls AND educate the employers and their agents (managers) about how treating your work force with due respect would yield way better results than using mockery/belittlement as a motivation tool?
“Dr. McDonald, the N.Y.U. professor, who also sits on the board of the Great Oaks Charter School on the Lower East Side, said that the behavior in the video violated an important principle of schooling.

“Because the child’s learning was still a little fragile — as learning always is initially — she made an error,” he said in his email. “Good classrooms (and schools) are places where error is regarded as a necessary byproduct of learning, and an opportunity for growth. But not here. Making an error here is a social offense. It confuses others — as if deliberately.” “

When is it that any of us should stop learning?

And shouldn’t we also be educating ourselves about the fine difference between spoiling a child and helping him/her into becoming a fully-fledged adult (a ‘man’ in the un-gendered meaning of the word)?

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“Saudi women need to ‘think like men’

Gender segregation in Saudi Arabia has sometimes led to “immaturity”, a Saudi businesswoman and member of Jeddah’s municipal council has told BBC HARDtalk.”

 

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Categories authoritarianism, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, Frames of mind, gender roles, human rights, Mutual Respect, Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but

Manipulation 101

January 31, 2016 //
5

I published yesterday a post on this subject. In Romanian.

Today I stumbled upon another article which uses almost the very same manipulative tools. In English this time.

legal public urination

“Of all the things one could think of that New York City needs more of, public urination doesn’t immediately come to mind. But New York’s City Council, which is so far left it almost collides with the right, is about to make it happen thanks to it’s Speaker, a Puerto Rican nationalist who supports terrorists and rejects the Pledge of Allegiance.”

” “Under a package of bills New York’s City Council will consider to ease enforcement of quality-of-life offenses that lawmakers say clog the courts and have been disproportionately enforced against minorities, urinating and drinking in public would no longer be treated as crimes.
According to the New York Times, one liberal official who sponsored this change noted it was designed to help minorities “reach their full potential.” So not being able to legally pee in public is what’s holding minorities back?”
“Not only is this train of thought disgusting, it is demoralizing to minorities. How is encouraging offensive, anti-social behavior helping them, or anyone, to “reach their full potential?” “
 Now can someone explain to me how can decriminalizing something be interpreted as an encouragement towards that something?
And what’s the use of making it a crime to urinate or to drink in public? A crime? Something that will be written into your rap sheet and follow you all your life?
Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a 19 year old who had one too many beers. And had to take a leak. A cop happens to be in the area. Now tell me what are the chances that he’ll look the other way if you’re white? And if you’re black?
Do you understand, at least now, what the ‘liberal official who sponsored this change’ meant by ‘helping the minorities reach their full potential’?
Who’s going to give a real chance to a ‘minority’ with a criminal record? Who has the time to check that his only crime was ‘public urination’? Or that he had a beer in front of his porch? Not exactly in front of his porch, because he used to live in a ‘public housing facility’ but you get the general idea…
Reality check no 1.
How about providing some places where people can relieve themselves? Porta-johns for instance? Or functional public rest-rooms in all New York subway stations?
Reality check no 2.
Under the new legislation public urination would be still considered a misdemeanor, “Cops would have discretion to issue civil or criminal summons” but “The proposal would remove the possibility of permanent criminal records for public urination and violating park rules, mostly treating them as civil offenses, along with public drinking, littering and excessive noise.”
Now I’m wondering what the author meant by “But New York’s City Council, which is so far left it almost collides with the right, is about to make it happen thanks to it’s Speaker, a Puerto Rican nationalist who supports terrorists and rejects the Pledge of Allegiance.“?
What has the Pledge of Allegiance have to do with anything? What’s the relevance of the Speaker’s ethnicity, beyond the fact that belonging to a minority increased her awareness of the way the minorities are treated by some of the law enforcement officers?
And how come a ‘supporter of terrorism’ has been elected Speaker in the first place?
What’s going on here?
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Categories Choices we make, collective identity, corruption, democracy, effective communication, Frames of mind, human rights, limited rationality, manipulation, Mutual Respect, Politically induced fragility, politics, Psychology, Rule of Law, Social justice, The kind of world we live in, yes but

Religion is an ‘environment’, not a yoke.

October 20, 2014 //
7

It is up to us to decide how we put traditional precepts into practice!

islamic law about marriage

And what is there to stop the father from accepting her choice except for his ego or self serving interests?

Click on the picture, watch the video and then tell me what ‘higher instance’ forced any of those people to do what they did, to make the choices they made..
All individuals featured in this video belong to the Afghan people and, presumably, to the Muslim faith. Yet their attitudes cover the entire spectrum. Don’t tell me there is no such thing as free will and individual responsibility.

What forced the father to give away his daughter as compensation for his son’s “sins”?
Peer pressure?!? (‘Relatives’ that may become belligerent if their demands are not met.)
But who are these ‘peers’ if not human beings themselves?

When are we going to understand that we can not quell yesterday’s conflict by inflicting fresh sufferance?
This just doesn’t work!

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Categories Culture, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in, yes but

‘Sexist jokes’?!?

September 7, 2014 //
3

“Why did the woman cross the road?
Who cares what women do outside the kitchen?”

I was watching a BBC documentary about sexism and I heard the ‘joke’ I quoted above. (Sorry, I couldn’t find a link to that documentary, probably because they are still airing it, but I linked the quote to Yahoo answers because it seems that this one is quite popular)

The narrator had summed up quite convincingly the phenomenon: ‘every time when people not obviously biased against women laugh at sexist jokes the misogynists feel that their convictions are ‘right’ and this enhances the sexist side of their behavior’.

I understand this line of thinking and it is correct from the a psychological point of view. People seek validation from their peers, so each ‘public approval’ for one of their action enhances that particular streak of behavior. I’m afraid though that the real problem lies some place else.

A joke is supposed to be funny. That’s what makes it a joke and it’s up to us to determine what is funny or not.
I didn’t laugh at that joke not because it’s sexist but because, for me at least, it isn’t funny at all.

Some more jokes from Yahoo answers:

“What is the difference between a battery and a woman?
A battery has a positive side.”

So no ‘generic’ woman has ‘a positive side’!
OK, this leaves open the possibility for exceptions… a mother, a sister, maybe a wife… but still, I cannot wonder what kind of women has this guy met during his life? So hugely unpleasant yet passive enough as to feel no apprehension when stating publicly such a harsh position? I wouldn’t dare tell such a joke knowing that any one of my female friends would find out, including my wife. No, not because any of them would bodily hurt me or anything but because they would pointedly and purposefully react. Adequately. Well, in fact It wouldn’t cross my mind to use this joke otherwise than as an example but I believe you got the point…

“Why is the space between a woman’s breasts and her hips called a waist?
Because you could easily fit another pair of **** in there.”

Now this is a real good one. I don’t know for sure what those **** stand for but I’m afraid that the guy who came up with this joke would rather **** a bitch than a real woman. To each, his own…

If you don’t mind rather gross humor here is one for you:
“How do you make 5 pounds of fat look good?
Put a nipple on it.”

Excuse me if you are not and in both situations please consider the real case here: where is the sense of humor?

Maybe the last one will enlighten us.

” – If your wife keeps coming out of the kitchen to nag at you, what have you done wrong?
– Made her chain too long”.

I’m sure you all have heard about the three Ks – In German it’s Kitchen, Children, Church (Kueche, Kinder, Kirche). This expression was coined over a century ago by either Kaiser Wilhelm II or his wife Augusta while trying to belittle the feminist movement that was making inroads into the classic German Weltanschaung.
More than 100 years ago?!? Shouldn’t we get over it?!?
Meanwhile the situation has changed dramatically enough for me to ask you how come the guy in the last joke has a wife in the first place? Or maybe that couple is happy, she with the length of that chain and he with her nagging?

Now seriously, are we not all born by women? Educated, in the first few years at least, predominantly by women? So how come so many men are still finding jokes like that to be funny while so many women accept this situation?

One possible explanation may be that we are experiencing a reaction to ‘feminism’.
I’ve heard, and read, a considerable number of explanations about what it is and why it is named like that.
I must confess that while I agree with many of its goals I’m extremely unhappy about its name.

I think ‘suffragettes’ was, in those times, a far better denomination. It stated clearly what goal they had in mind – voting rights for women – and ‘disbanded’ as soon as they got what they had in mind.
But ‘feminism’?
What is their goal?
To establish that women are different from men?
OK, we already know that, don’t we?

Oh, equal rights? With whom? With men?!?

With which ones of the wide range of men? Men don’t have equal rights either… only in theory maybe, but in theory women have already been recognized (by men, OK?!?) as full fledged citizens. Well, there still is that small but nagging problem of being the masters of their own body (Roe vs Wade) but other than that there is no legal difference between being a man and a women. Not in the civilized world anyway.
So why are we still enjoying the presence of so many, and vocal, feminist activists of both genders instead of them joining ranks with the rest of the human rights activists?

Maybe because the entire human rights movement has reached a dead end?

Women want to be equal with men while men want to be equal among themselves and all pretend it’s their (constitutional) right.

In what sense can a woman be equal with a man? Or a man with another? Have you ever seen two absolutely equal eggs? Or, funnier even, can somebody pretend that egg yolk is equal to egg white?

Oh, the yolk is useless without the white (except for when you want to make mayonnaise) and the white is useless without the yolk (except for when you want to bake meringues) so no sensible person would ever dream of trying to determine which comes first… as we do with people… women come first when it comes to passing through a door and last when we are talking about promotions…

But who to change all this if not us?
We, men, should acknowledge that women are just as important as us, and just as wise, even if they cannot hunt as well as we do, while women should understand that their quest for ‘equality’ doesn’t make much sense.

What we really need is equal opportunity to develop our potential, regardless of gender. If a woman is denied promotion based on her gender and a less capable man is promoted in her place the real looser is the entire organization and its stakeholders. Shortly that woman would move over to another company if she is really good.
The same rationale is valid for the rest of us.
If a child, no matter how gifted, doesn’t get the right education to fit his potential, he might loose some. But the society at large looses big.
Even if the child is less than average he might become, properly educated, a self sufficient person. If not, chances are he’ll become either a ‘welfare benefits receiver’ or a ‘repeat offender’.
We all agree that an average person has more opportunities to become a respected member of the society if he receives more education, right? I’m going to presume we are talking now about proper education, the kind that benefits the recipient, not the ‘teacher’…
If we are considering really gifted individuals  then the situation is even clearer. What if Edison, or Marie Sklodowska Curie, couldn’t have learned what they did or experiment the way they used to? And now, that we are talking about Edison, do you know where Tesla came from? Croatia? Have you ever heard of that place before? (It’s in Europe, east of Italy).
I’m sure you already know where Poland lies, the place where Marie Curie came from, but I wonder if you know that she was educated in an underground university because higher education for women was forbidden at that time in her country by Czarist Russia, the imperial power who controlled Poland in those times.
Really bright people have a habit of being able to make it more or less on their own but also of looking for greener pastures. Not necessarily because they are greedier than the rest of us but because they need more resources in order to put their ideas into practice.

I’ll leave you to do the final reckoning.

Some additional reading about how men and women complement each-other in most unusual ways and how heavily this depends both on social habits and individual choice:
– Islamic women fighting for what they consider to be freedom (and I fully agree with them): http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/12/meet_the_badass_women_fighting_the_islamic_state_pkk_kurdish
– Islamic women fighting to preserve ‘traditional values’ (To what end?!?, I constantly ask myself but I cannot find an answer) http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-60-UK-women-fighting-in-Syria-with-all-female-Islamic-State-police-374761
– What women have to experience in places where their freedom is less than it should be: http://petapixel.com/2012/12/26/portraits-of-albanian-women-who-have-lived-their-lives-as-men/ and http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/30/unmarried-women-thrown-on-scrapheap-after-years-of-living-with-a-man-4713547/
– Not only women can play the role of men. The opposite is not only possible but also sanctioned by some societies: http://theculturetrip.com/pacific/samoa/articles/fa-afafines-the-third-gender/
– For some historical perspective: https://www.facebook.com/FranciscoFilipeCruzCulturalMarketing/photos/a.569976243114253.1073742149.305394226239124/569976396447571/?type=1&theater and http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/1106316
– Even what we call ‘values’ depend heavily upon the social developments that are taking place: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/homo-consumericus/201211/be-thankful-your-liberties-and-freedoms

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Categories Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in, The world as described in jokes, yes but

Sotloff IS a hero!

September 4, 2014 //
0

sotloff

I don’t particularly like to contradict other people but it’s exactly the fact that he didn’t see himself as being one that transforms him into one of my heroes.
May his gentle soul rest in peace.

Sotloff Family Remembers Slain Journalist As ‘Gentle Soul’.

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Categories Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in, yes but

How did things get so far?

September 1, 2014 //
0

mowing video games

So what do we have here?
An angry dad tries to cure his 24 years old son, who had never had a job, of his obsession for video games.
Meanwhile some other member of the household (a brother of the ‘video-games maniac’?) videotapes the whole thing (and has a jolly good time while at it). Click on the picture and watch it.

By now most of you have already sided with one of the two protagonists, right?
Are you sure you picked the right side? Well, admitting that the whole thing wasn’t ‘staged’…

First of all let me ask you when did that father find out that his son was so obsessed with gaming? Yesterday? And I don’t think he (the father) is a dimwit, check out his property…
Secondly, what would it be like to live in the same house with someone (a brother?) who acts like the guy who is filming the whole scene… Not the filming part, no, the lack of empathy – remember the chuckles? – is what’s bothering me.
Finally, we have reached the ‘main culprit’. No, he is not without any blame either, contrary to what some of you may think. OK, maybe he plans to become a professional gamer. Yes, there are some people who spend their lives in this manner. With relative success too! But how come his father doesn’t know about that? After all he lives into his father house, eats at his table and is already 24 years old…

Now don’t you think it’s high time for us to stop playing the blame game and to start understanding what’s going on with our youth? After all they didn’t grew up in a vacuum, it’s us who had helped them – in more ways than one – to become what they are now.

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Categories Psychology, The kind of world we live in, yes but
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