Escaping the Sun

One day I have decided to move to London. Seriously. And the day of the move came. It was in August last year. I started writing this post on August 28... Uh! Life caught me in a tumble.

Many Londoners won't like hearing this, but I actually like the rain. It's cool.

Everyday there are new things happening. And everyday I'm thinking to write them down. And everyday that doesn't happen.

Besides new curious things to see, there are some new words to learn as well. For ex. people use serviette for napkin, underground or tube for metro, lue for bathroom (not sure even how to spell it) and so on.

It Does Say Underground and Toilets after all

The accents are something else. But that would be impossible to express in writing. The only case that I remember, just because I could not get it even for the 5th time, is the word "cutlery" that sounded 100% "calorie".

That's because this place is a big jungle where monkeys from all over the world gather and each thinks they know how to speak the language. At first I was worried about my accent and wanted it to sound British. I would be very surprised when people said it's beautiful and even found it sexy. I'm OK with it just being beautiful. Now, I think I will keep it. It's part of the journey of self-acceptance after all.

Part of the London Jungle

Attempts at Keeping it Green

Fascinated

One of the Bridges

People here were very helpful from the first time I stepped on this land. Some offered to help me with the luggage on the steps out of the underground. And no, they did run away with it. Others helped me figure out the payment system for the transportation.

The Real Jungle

People here complain. After all this is not paradise and all the PR and marketing in the world can't hide the real. I heard they complain like nowhere else. I even heard someone feeling bad about complaining prior to coming here. But then, after coming here, he discovered it is actually trendy. 

It Looks like People Here Are Not Too Fond of This Place and Their Politicians

Speaking of transportation, very soon I learned it's a money drainer. But not without limits. It's a pretty good service after all. Considering it moves around over 8.5 million people everyday and more.

USEFUL TIPS : If you come to London, even for a short time, get an Oyster card for traveling on any type of transportation (ask the assistants at the tube station). It costs 5 pounds, which will be refunded if you return your card at the end of your trip. With this card you will get a daily cap on your travel so you're not spending endlessly.

You can top it up at any underground station as well as at various convenience shops around the city.

If you don't have enough money for a trip, you can still take a bus for just one trip and then the money will be deducted when you top it up next time. Click for TFL travel fares and more.

Mom’s Pest Control

Murdarici [Moordarich] was my housemate for the last three months or so. He has many good qualities. One thing I especially like is how smart he is. Once I asked him to bring me my soap. He stopped from cleaning himself, looked at me attentively and perked up his ears as I repeated the request. When he realized I was being silly, he dismissed me, continuing with his cleaning.

"Don't Mind Her. She Likes Me."

He is not one of those needy, clingy cats that nags and rubs on you. He is super independent and that I absolutely love about him. Once in a while he comes and lies on my feet. Of course, than I want to pet him and play with him. But he doesn’t mind if I pet him and play with him any time either. Actually, he is getting addicted to it. I’ve got to keep him away, lest he becomes clingy like the rest of the cats.

"I Love It When You Do That"

It took us a while to become friends. He was keeping his distance before he realized he’s got nothing to fear. Now when I come from somewhere he runs to me as if I’m his long missing friend.

I forgave him some of his mishandling of my property. One morning I found the oven open. It had three pieces of chicken left there from evening. One was missing. After my investigation into the matter, I have learned that Murdarici is quite capable of opening the oven door and doesn’t have an issue with getting anything that doesn’t belong to him. I love animals. There is a saying: since I’ve got to know people, I love my dog even more. Joke. I love people too. But I do have a problem when pets get into my stuff, messing it up or eating it. Or I should say, they a have a problem. :)

"My Nose Hurts"

Another thing I love about Murdarici is that he is Mom’s pest control. One day I even helped him catch a mouse in the barn. The mouse was in a sack. Murdarici managed to immobilize it, but couldn’t get it out. He also catches birds, when they go to sleep at night in the walnut tree. Ferocious. 

Mom & Murdarici Talk a Lot (guess who does most of the talking)

One June morning on the path in the garden, I ran into this dead rat. It was pretty dead. I mean it’s been there a few hours perhaps, because it was stiff. Ha! I had my suspicions that it might be Murdarici’s doing, but didn’t give it much attention. The only thought of concern that crossed my mind was that he dragged some poisoned rat from somewhere.  But I think he's smarter than that. 

Dead Rat

Later during breakfast Murdarici came looking at me with big eyes. I asked him: what’s the matter? Then, I noticed he’s got a bigger nose and some blood stain on it. He must have been in a ferocious fight and that rat bit his nose. That’s why he didn’t care to eat it at that point. I empathized with him as he laid down. Since I was eating, I had to pet him with my feet. He doesn’t mind.

"Are You Taking a Picture of Me? Stop It."

And of course he is beautiful.  Don't you agree?

One day, while perhaps chasing after a mouse, he fell into the outhouse… Yep! Guess who had to clean him? Mom only yelled at him, and chased him away. So, he was sitting miserable in the grass at the corner of the house, meowing pathetically. And I had only one rubber glove.

The System Error & Aaron Swartz' Depression

"...My ways are higher than your ways..." - Is. 55:9

Some weeks ago I've cruised on ways unfathomed and learned of things foreign to me. Somehow I ended up at the MakerSpace in Dallas at a meetup on Ventrifuge. I've been thrown into a pool of brilliant, creative techies and my mind feasted on all the curious inventions and ideas people work on. People where talking about hackaton, natural voice recognition, growth hacking, mc10, bionic skin, muse app, founder2be, founder dating, cofounderslab, kickstarter, indiegogo and on.

Back at home, drifting from one concept to another on the wiki pages, one incident caught my attention and has been on my mind for a couple of days (and now weeks). I've learned about the death of Aaron Swartz. 

It was only mentioned briefly in relation to an event or a product he helped develop. So, I was curious to learn about what I imagined would be an older guy from the tech world. I never heard of one. We usually get stories on entertainment industry celebrities who are old and pass away. Never an IT celebrity.

Sadly, Aaron was only 26 and he died by taking away his life. Two years from today. This is something that grabbed my heart. Something is utterly wrong here. I ask Why?

I immersed my self in learning about his life, the story around his death, public's reaction to it, and the depression Aaron Shwartz was undergoing. 

His action described by Boston Globe underline his genius. He downloaded millions of articles, engaging in "a cat-and-mouse game that would extend over three months. JSTOR would cut off the Internet protocol address Swartz was using; he would switch to another. MIT detected and shut down the registration for his computer; he altered his computer’s identifying information. Officials would conclude the ghost downloader had moved on, then he’d reappear weeks later".

He was relentlessly pursued by the federal prosecution, actions some described as prosecutorial overreach. Sadly, his case was later described as "hardly a clear-cut case" and there seems to have been "a potentially serious flaw in the case against Swartz". After two year of fighting the legal system, charging him with 13 felonies, and threatening him to 35 years in prison, he gave up. Perhaps, too early.

Aaron seemed to have been a wonder of a kid, too smart to just accept thing as they are. Thinking outside the box was part of his DNA. He challenged the system, educational or political, and perhaps was an inconvenience to some.

Thinking outside the box was also the nurturing environment at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Aaron spent his time. MIT is described as standing for values such as: "compassion and creativity, challenging authority, and pure scientific inquiry". And MIT began to embrace, and celebrate, its hacker ethos, which extrapolates to “resenting any person, physical barrier, or law that tries to keep them from doing this”.

Sadly, MIT did not come forth to speak up for Aaron, when its support was most needed. Nor after his attorneys and his father pleaded with them. Now his father "can’t walk through campus without feeling that MIT betrayed his son".

Furthermore, it seems that MIT, although claiming to take a neutral position, has supported the prosecution by handing over many records and helping the secret service hack into Aaron's computer. This action become more severe in the light of the fact that "MIT has consistently sold itself as a leader on open access to scholarship". As a result, fear swept over the students and faculty. Students were afraid to post on official MIT forums openly. Willow Brugh, a Media Lab research affiliate said, “Why would anyone possibly speak up against an issue like this?... In order to have academic integrity, you need to have to a safe space for people to dissent”.

Aaron's father says:

"Aaron had all these resources. He was bright, he had a very competent legal counsel, he had money, he had a family that supported him, and he was destroyed by the legal system. I was better connected to people at MIT than almost anyone else, right? What happens in these instances where people don’t have these connections and this sort of level of determination? They get completely crushed."

The prosecution was as shocked by Aaron's desperate gesture. As an explanation, a representative was quoted as saying that the "rule of law must be applied regardless of someone’s talents, stature, or political beliefs". This is ideal, but is it really applied so? Sadly, it is often overlooked when it comes to money and mutual gain. But not in cases like Aaron's.
 
My intent in starting to write this was to address the depression issue. So, I will make at least some points at the end. I asked myself: where were his friends and support? A reality is that Aaron has lived more "online than he did with his friends". His father was there fighting for him, so I assume his family. I admire this man and the house of ideas, in which he has raised his sons.

Given such pressures and persecution, even a healthy person would develop depression. It would be hard for anyone to withstand such life threat. Aaron already suffered from depression. Did anybody know about it? Is a prosecutor supposed to take it into account?

The prosecution lacked a good psychologist on board. Someone not specialized just in personality disorders or personality pathology, but also in the variety of healthy personalities. Is there actually a Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) somewhere? Was there anyone to provide a psychological profile? How about something like this:

Aaron Sw., a creative, brilliant genius. Non-conformist thinker. Free spirited and somewhat rebellious. Such people are passionate about what is right - justice, equality, freedom. They will point out the wrongs and fight only for what they believe in. They want their point to be understood, because usually it is backed up with facts and research. Yet, they are very sensitive and fragile and feel things deeply - prone to depression. They pay attention to detail and seek perfection in everything they do. The kind of people you would want to build the planes you fly. :)

Apparently, calling what he did a "felony" and threatening him to 35 years in prison, was way too disproportionate to what he did. It did not make sense. This was not the right way for the prosecution to proceed. They lacked wisdom and discernment.

Overlooked in the whole process was his sensitivity and fragility. He was pushed and not heard. You can pressure a hardcore criminal this way, but certainly you don't use the same methods with everyone. Or do you? This obviously was not a case, where you have to crack someone up to admit something, because they are hiding it or refusing it, even if they know they did it.

The way he was dealt with was not right, it was not fair. And he understood it this way. He made a statement by his very resistance to being called a felon. Of all places and all things, the law is where fairness and justice must shine. It was not just. And isn't justice what the legal system is to uphold? Since such personalities are sensitive to things being just perfectly right, despair builds in, loneliness builds it, isolation builds in, because nobody hears or understands. What did the legal system prove in the end?

Another thing overlooked was his intelligence and insight. As a thinker, he could see into things and understand an issue further and quicker than an average person. Apparently, he was a great asset to society, who's talent could have been employed. Yet he succumbed to the futility of things, amplified by a cruel & cold system approach and his depressive states.

A person of such creativity and intelligence is also a free spirit. He doesn't act in order to harm, but rather there is a logic for a higher good. And Aaron seems to be such case. Must such personality characteristics be overlooked? In favor of coldly following a law? At one point one should get the point. And at one point, one should acknowledge his merit. At one point, one should back up and try to be reasonable.

I think he gave up to early. I think he should have kept fighting. The truth eventually surfaces. And there is always a way out, other than in death. THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY OUT. Yet, this is the thing that depression robs you off: one stops believing that there is any hope for your future.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, know there is a way out and if you suffer from depression:

Sleep well, go for walks and connect with REAL people. Talk to a friend (or someone) about it. Don't be embarrassed. You are not alone.

p.s. This case and others have been wake-up calls for the IT entrepreneurial world, as more have shared their experiences with depression.

p.s. To this day there are attempts made to rectify the system error.

My Failure at Failing

You’ve heard of Max Lucado? Considered one of the best writers of our times, he's got this amazing writing style where his prose flows like poetry. Beautiful.

Yet here is one striking fact about Max Lucado: as great as he is, nobody wanted to publish his first book. Do you think he gave up? Obviously, no. But he had to send his manuscript to fifteen publishers before one finally said yes.

John Maxwell, the famous leadership expert, asked him if he felt discouraged and ever considered giving up. Here is what Max Lucado replied: "No. Every time I got the manuscript back, I thought: Well, I’ll just try another publisher”.

Good thing somebody said yes before he ran out of publishers. J

Thumbs up for Lucado. This is what Maxwell calls: the ability fail. I wish I could say I’m good at it, but I’m not. Why? Maybe because nobody likes to fail, me including, and even less people want to admit it. We are geared towards success and we want to tell everyone about our successes. We want people to know us for our successes, don’t we?

Look on Facebook, Instagram or other social media venues. Everyone posts exciting vacation trips, happy family pictures, romantic moments, best shots. Nobody knows that on that trip they had the worst fight and most of the time they were bored; that that family is on the brink of divorce; that although smiling that apparently successful man is in deep depression, about to lose his job, or considering suicide. Many cringe inside, comparing their deepest feeling of misery to others’ most exciting moments, while still hitting like. 

Comparison. The biggest enemy of self-image. The birthplace of a failure mentality, for that matter. But is failure such a bad thing after all?

I’m learning that failure is not failure unless you fail to get up and try again. This is how unsuccessful people think. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. After all, if life is a journey it is ok to hit potholes and bumps, to run out of gas, to get lost, but quitting gets one nowhere.

I’m learning that every successful person has failed many times and that there is value in failure. The founder of Honda Motors said: “Many people dream of success. To me success can be achieved only through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success only represents 1 percent of your work that results from 90 percent of that which is called failure.”

I’m also learning that there is a difference in failing and seeing yourself as a failure. “I have failed” is different than “I’m a failure.” Somebody said that making mistakes is like breathing. But if you regard yourself as a failure you will never be successful, or hope for an improvement, because you’ve made failure your identity.

I’m learning that although many people will measure my success according to how often I have failed, or didn’t succeed, it’s been estimated that most successes failed an average of seven times before they succeed. So, it’s ok. Even if I’m only one step better than last time, I’m making progress.

So, depending on your attitude toward it, failure can make you sink to the bottom or help you along the journey. And a lesson to learn is how to fail forward. 

To do that, I thought to adopt a different attitude when encountering failure, inspired from smarter people, like J. Maxwell:

1.  Not to take it personally – I've messed up. No doubt. I’ll do better next time.
2.  Let it be a learning experience & use it to grow – unwillingness to be stopped by failure & willingness to learn from failure.
3. Not to give up, regardless of what other say – failure comes easily to everyone, but the price of success is perseverance.
4. Let failure redirect my life – it’s just an adjustment, it’s not that I’m bad or wrong. But if the passion is still burning in my heart, the right thing to do is to keep going.
5. Keep a sense of humor – it’s easy to laugh when everything is going great, but it’s important to laugh when everything is going wrong. I love this quote.

There are always possibilities out there. If not, we have the capacity to create them. Look around, everything was created by humans, just like us. Surely, there is a door somewhere. Seek and you’ll find. Knock and it will be open onto you. Even, if sometimes we have to take detours. And when you really want it, someone said that the whole universe will join in to help. I call it the hand of God.

p.s. To the point -  watch and be encouraged.

Tell me One Thing...

Wow!!! What a great blogger I am. I'm consistently posting at a frequency of one post per year. So impressive. I'm even considering starting a second blog... Uh!

It seems that life happens at such speed and I don't have the time to sit and record it. I'm afraid to miss smth. So many stories I could have written just as great as the others about how "wonderful" life can be.

Sometimes I wonder if anybody really would like my stories, since they all have this sharp cutting edge. Perhaps you are looking for something more inspiring?.. Well, I guess whatever impresses me, I write. And some things I find shockingly impressive. Like for instance, the public minibus driver who calls a 9 year old a "debil", which really means "idiot", "retarded". Should I tell you why? Or does it really matter? Poor kid was struggling to close the door, so when it finally closed, it slammed. What is even more impressive is that none of the adults said anything to that, nobody raised to defend the child... Funny society.

Hot chocolate in the middle of the night (almost like coffee)

Or a friend tells me her supervisor is "chewing" her out. When she complained to higher authorities the response she got was: try to be manipulative, be "nicer" to her (which really meant: 'kiss her butt'). I don't know why I find this hysterically sad. Perhaps I'm pretty naive. When will I grow up finally?!

My Wonderful Life in MD: Warm Me Up with Love!

It's bloody cold. It's been like that for over 2 weeks. Lately it also started raining. I don't mind any of these. Not at all. Not if...

…if I just could return to a warm home… It's that simple. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, to be brave. I tell myself: this is not a problem, it's ok. Except, I hate the cold. I hate the way it makes me feel, the way it impairs my capacity to... anything. But... I've got to be brave. I can handle it.

I like the good intentions of our mayor to turn on the heat in the city. The only small, insignificant thing is that they don't warm me up. But I've got to be patient. It just isn't my house's turn yet. Why can’t we just turn it on when WE need it? Wasn’t c o m m u n i s m just a wonderful idea?