Happiness requires strength.

Being happy requires guiding oneself on the right path with a firm, steady hand. 

Sticking to the right long-term strategy is staying on course. Emotions, temptations and whims are random winds pulling and pushing which ever way.

Many end up as a shipwreck because they are too weak to stay the course. But choosing to be strong or weak, we encounter pain at some point. There is no such thing as painless life.  

#InCaseYourMomDidntTellYou

If they did it twice, they will keep doing it.

The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.

Two times is a pattern. If a person in your life does/says something you cannot stand; decide if you can just put up with it. If not, they should not be a part of your life. 

Maybe you don't love them that much, if this little thing is a deal breaker. Maybe it's not little but really non-negotiable, like infidelity, physical abuse, drugs. 

Either way, "giving them a chance" involves chance, which is gambling. Gambling some months or even years of your time on Earth, and some other, truly great opportunities. Maybe, maybe, maybe -- knock on wood -- they will change. Actually, they won't, but maybe-maybe-maybe. In a year or two. Or in ten. Your life, though is evaporating right now. 

So, either shut up and put up with it, because you need them as they are. Or if you cannot, then just  tell them to see you when they are a different person. 

This may be harsh on on them -- and on you -- but short-term pain is better than a major life disaster.

 

#InCaseYourMomDidn'tTellYou

The Constitution is in people's minds, or else it's nowhere.

We Americans may not realize it, but to a citizen of Romania or Somalia, our daily mentions of The Constitution -- with straight face -- come across as a childish naivete; a delusion of eternal Hippies who don't understand true dynamics of power. Simply because our world has not brutal enough to compel us, to bully us into growing up.

Only about five years ago have I fully grasped that significance of the habitual reference to The Constitution. It is not a child's pretend game, it is reinforcing a central pillar of the American society. 

The Constitution is in people's minds, or else it's nowhere. A piece of paper in the Library of Congress cannot be a central pillar of anything, nor can it protect anyone. It is people and their commitment that makes our Constitution alive. And that would fade away if its significance hadn't been reiterated daily. Corruption would become an accepted norm.

Is America at crossroads like Russia in 1917?

In the year 1917, after the fall of Russian monarchy, that country had a choice of a dictatorship and a dictatorship. The head of the newly formed Provisional Government, a relatively young politician Alexander Kerensky had attempted to steer the democratic course, an option that wasn't really on the table. 

The result was the greater of the two evils, a horrendous regime under Stalin, on par with the German Nazis, though not quite as bad. 

Is America at crossroads today, 100 years later, trying for a sane middle ground? 

Could it be that the only two realistic options are the crazy left and way-less-than-perfect right. Is American political dynamics at risk of repeating the Russian mistake?

No, our options are not the same as Russia's in 1917, not dictatorships. But if everyone is hell-bent on having their way exactly, down to the last letter, then nobody will get anything. We'll end up in unmentionable substance up to our eyebrows. Just as Russia. And we aren't going to like it.

Eat that Shakespeare, boy!

We don't teach literature right. A kid comes into the classroom, and comes back out the same, untransformed, having completed some boring and annoying assignments, but just the same as before. So no education happened. We need to teach the children to actually appreciate beauty. Teachers stick something "classical" under their noses. Children react as if it were a pile of tasteless, unseasoned greens. Eat it, it's good for you! Eat it, I said. No candy, until you eat it! No cookies! No reality TV! Eat your Shakespeare, boy!

Students need some emotional resonance. Whoever came up with the whole idea of that checklist-based rote in literature courses? Shakespeare: this, this and that. Faulkner: that, that and this. Got it? Okay. Now you are educated.

Go write an essay; go recite a monologue. There's a good lad. The teacher checks off another B-, the kid goes back to his or her seat, both much relieved: it's over.

That's not education, that's a waste of time. If there was no actual emotional reaction, the whole thing was pointless.

Beauty has therapeutic value. It heals our psyche. I am sure we could prove with hard facts and figures that Bach and Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Picasso lead to us having better doctors and engineers. There is actual business value to beauty.

That is why schools should instill sense of beauty and good taste in children, not have them cram a few irrelevant plots and passages. Those are usually forgotten after the finals.

Trump is at it, Again. Is America Buying a Lemon?

At the recent orgy rally in North Dakota, Trump has demonstrated that he has no new election strategy in the presidential race, now that he has secured the nomination. The same cheap verbal tricks and clever name calling. That's it. That is how he manipulated the fools on his side of the isle. He is the GOP candidate. The million dollar question is: will the same verbal fluff will work on the rest us. Will Trump make the sale?

Trump himself has been called many names that are, in fact, an accurate description of his essence. He has been called a persuader by the cartoonist Scott Adams. He has been called a salesman by yours truly. But, being an objective judge, I would not award myself the first prize in this label contest. The top prize would go to the former candidate Mitt Romney. His choice term is con artist.

Con artists perfect their persuasion techniques. Con artists have no intention to actually deliver. Their top priority is getting a certain fool -- the mark -- to do drop their vigilance and make one mistake. Hand over the money, open the door, cast a ballot. This time, the mark is America. Are we buying it?

The 2016 Race: Masks Come off, Standards Shatter.

This rant is a reaction to a rather depressing article on npr.org about hate messages on social networks, but it is more than that. I have been reading the news. I am connecting the dots. And I see one ugly picture. I see the shattering of standards of minimal decency, of treating all human beings with basic respect. The 2016 campaign isn't over, but the standards are gone.

The article I mentioned is about a social media app called Yik Yak. It is used on some college campuses to let the students chat with each other anonymously. Naturally, under the mask of anonymity, people could get a bit nastier than normal, but just how bad could it get? If you guessed threats of rape and calls for lynching, congratulations! You are correct.

That was just one dot, mind you. How about the incident with written hate message at CSU Sacramento last January? Another red dot.

There are more dots, to be sure, such as every other thing that comes out of the GOP front-runner's mouth. My favorite one is his retweet of "Jeb speaking Mexican", but there are plenty more, and plenty more to come.

I have said it before and I will repeat it: he is a salesman. The real problem is, that stuff sells. His personal contribution to the standards-shattering is probably significant: he came out, walking all over certain norms of social conduct and not only is he just fine, he is being rewarded. What a courageous pioneer.

Only two years ago, the country had a chance to "admire" Rush Limbaugh, but at least -- thank Goodness -- he has been loosing business. I will not claim that the standards were very firmly established. Nor will I deny that racism and hate were an issue all along. But at least, there was a widely accepted consensus that those were bad things.  In the offices and on public forums, people had to either be decent or to wear a certain mask if their spiritual face was too ugly to bear.

I had once told my kids that in Germany, swastikas were illegal, but in the United States they were only de facto illegal. Nobody would arrest a Nazi, but nobody worth hanging out  with will ever say hello to them, either. I told my kids they were lucky to have been born in America. This is the most successful nation in the world. We have standards here, for crying out loud!

Back in the twentieth century, the country has been at crossroads. Thanks to the human rights movement, thanks to the turbulent history of the 60's and 70's, we are headed in the right direction. Were headed, that is. A ship like USA doesn't turn easily, so it must be that for the last several years, we have been making a supertanker's equivalent of a swerve in the direction of the dark ages.