We base sheltering on the assumption that the crisis we’re protecting ourselves from will pass, and that we’ll be able to reemerge. We can shelter from bombs and toxic influences, but the sheltering is always temporary. Once it becomes a permanent state, sheltering begins to lose its purpose.

It is particularly blatant with children. Sheltering kids from reality, believing they’ll be able to cope with it as adults, is one of the most stupid and tragic decisions a parent can make.

We wouldn’t simply hide from violence and wait for us to magically grow strong enough to fight back, would we?

Silly sheltering

We can talk about systems, organisations and countries being subpar, inefficient, but we often forget to mention these are all groups of individuals. Who’s in charge? Who makes the key decisions on how departments talk to one another? Who heads each ministry? Who sets the culture? And who could change it?

As an individual, it’s easy to feel infinitesimal when it comes to systems. Yet, it’s always down to people. We must always see the people behind the concepts that explain our reality.

Systems people

Most problems have solutions. Indeed, if they don’t, they barely qualify as problems—they are situations.

The issue is the cost of the solution in question. Can we afford it? Is it financially, temporally and technically viable? If not, the problem ceases to be a problem and becomes a situation.

Thus, in our complex world, the intelligent person is the one who can tell a problem from a situation and act accordingly.

Problems, solutions, intelligence

Unconditional support has a positive connotation. It has an attractive aura. Everyone in their right mind should seek unconditional support. Indeed, unconditional support will sustain our endeavours in the rapidly shifting world of trends and influences. However, it will also inevitably prevent us from evolving in the most artistically challenging and intellectually striving way.

Unconditional support can be the origin, but it should never be the destination. It can be the vehicle we drive, but not the road we take.

The vehicle we drive, the road we take

I’m a huge fan of gifting books. Even to people who don’t read. Especially if they’re kids. There is a presence to a book, a weight, an allure. One can never know when it will happen, or whether it will happen, but as long as there’s a book on that shelf, that child, the one who’s always found them boring, whose parents may have never shared the magic of literature with them, as long as one book remains, so will hope that the kid will pick it up.

When in doubt, give someone a book. It may be nothing. But there’s a chance it might be everything too.

Books as gifts

Expectations are the source of most dissatisfaction. This does not mean the key to our happiness is to lower them until satisfaction emerges. Such a logic can only lead to an ever-degrading mediocrity. Instead, we must be aware of expectations, adjust them accordingly, and revise them often.

The reality is expectations affect us as human beings as much as it does the things we consume. People have expectations of us and we have expectations of people.

Since they can be unshakeable burdens, we should spare others when we can.

Martian Thoughts

Silly sheltering

Systems people

Problems, solutions, intelligence

The vehicle we drive, the road we take

Books as gifts

Unshakeable burdens