PećkoPivo » Wisdom

Balkan – the definition

Nikola Jovanovic — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:48:42 +0000

This definition is circling in Serbian for some time already, so I decided to translate it for all of you.

Balkans – plain on which the Romans beat the Avars, then Avars and Slavs beat Romans, and then Slavs beat the Celts and Avars, and then were beaten by the Turks and the Hungarians and Bulgarians, who were also fighting among themselves, and finally The Turks were defeated, while Slavs were left to beat the Hungarians and Bulgarians, supported by the Austrians, who were helped by the Germans, for whom it was not enough to be beaten once, but they came for more, and in the end, when there was noone else to beat, the Slavs began to fight against each other.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true…

Cartoons from: http://www.donika.com/cartoon.html

Piece of wisdom

Nikola Jovanovic — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:27:06 +0000

“That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.”
Paul Valery

I could have tweeted it, but then I’d probably forget it by tomorrow. This way I’ll be reminded from time to time about this amazing thought.

Notes and Neurons

Nikola Jovanovic — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:38:00 +0000

: Photo: bobbymcferrin.com

Remember Bobby McFerrin, the world famous author of “Don’t worry, be happy” song?

Well, if you are aware of him and his work, you also know that he is more then just a singer. His style and approach is very unconventional and his music cannot really be put under any of the genres, which makes him unique and which brought him 10 Grammy awards, invites to play with most famous orchestras in the worlds etc.

But not only… Recently he got an invitation to participate at the World Science Forum and its Panel “Notes and Neurons – Search for the Common Chorus”, which aimed to find answers on questions like “Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined?” or “Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment?” as well as to illustrate “music’s note-worthy interaction with the brain and our emotions”.

And he did it in his own way. They told him that not everyone is musical. His answer was to show the power of pentatonic scale:

See full coverage of the panel here.

Now, this video is fun to watch for anyone, but if you think a little bit about it, it’s much much more. It shows how wrong and limiting our education system is… Imagine if education was there to really support your creativity and not to limit it within the curriculum made in 1960. or whenever… Imagine if teachers were talking to us instead of lecturing us?

Emotions

Nikola Jovanovic — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:03:32 +0000

It’s not easy to define emotions.

No, really, it’s not… Try to define an emotion yourself.

Is it a feeling? Nope, I don’t think so – you feel an emotion, so they are connected, but it’s not the same thing.

This “feeling of an emotion” causes often your mood to change, as well as your physical state of your body. You react, mentally or physically because of an emotion, or by an emotion. This means that your perception of things is directly influencing your emotional state and reaction on various events, and perception is derived directly from your deepest beliefs.

So, I suppose it would be safe to say that emotions are our responses to the world around us? And then a feeling is a response to an emotion?

If so – is it safe to say that it is a psychological thing? I mean, many scientists are trying to prove that emotions are biological in its core nature, or at least biologically driven responses to a psychologically perceived stimulus (wow, I think I just confused myself!)

And how do we measure it? Have you ever thought about how EQ (emotional intelligence) is measured?

Hmmm

I also read somewhere that emotions “move us”, and based on my experience, I couldn’t agree more. But this is what puzzles me so hard. It’s an experience and undoubtly true, but why is it so easy to understand it and so hard to explain it?

Why am I even trying to understand it?

Well, thing is that I’m a very curious guy and since I got into people development for some time already, I got interested deeply into the topic as it affects my every day job (and my IT/geek background doesn’t allow me to just accept things as they are).

So, many things have happened and are happening lately in my life, and I usually cope well with different events and “swallow” them on the

way… but this time I caught myself reflecting and being overwhelmed with not just a huge number of, but also very strong emotions coming from everywhere and nowhere, depending on the way you look at it. And I started thinking how people, no matter how similar they are, still react differently on the same stimulus, and how this reaction defines where we are coming from.

Lemme try to explain by listing some of things I reacted upon (no particular order):

- Prom night 10 years reunion, or better a Prom night after 10 years, cause my high-school didn’t have a prom night because of the NATO bombing in `99 and because 2 of our classmates were killed in a terrorist attack couple of months earlier. So, we gathered after 10 years, now as refugees and displaced persons, to reconnect, to celebrate life and friendship and remember our late friends.
- my beloved coming back home after a year in Paris
- Partizan, my favorite sports club, winning trophies in almost all sports this year

I will stop here (and skip my professional life which is eventful too) as these 3 are more then enough to test you – I bet your emotions and feelings while reading them were going from “awww” to “why in the hell does he compares his beloved and Partizan”, or from “f…..g Partizan” to “disgustingly pathetic”.

What I am trying to say is that we are all using the same “set of emotions”, which proves that all people are the same, but based on our perception and previous experience, and most importantly our beliefs, different emotions, out of that set, pop up as consequences in different situations.

These emotions we usually don’t define and are not able to explain before they cause a reaction in a form of a feeling or a behavior.
However, in my moments of creativity, I think I see them as colors, and that is just for a moment, for a millisecond before they transform into a response. Sometimes it’s even a form, based on a previous and very subjective experience of course, but it is a form and it leads towards a reaction.

And now that I think of it, I believe that emotions are both biological and spiritual, or more likely the thing that connects those two.

I mean, how for god’s sake, could I otherwise explain all the colors bursting in front of my eyes during those 2 days of reunion, how comes that my blood boils every time I watch basketball matches of Partizan, or why my lips miracoulosly spread into a dumb smile every time I remember that She is coming back in 2 days?

(note: this text, like most of my texts, is written as a defragmentation process of my brain, which I do best while writing, so please bare with me and help out with comments and feedback)

Sudden inspiration

Nikola Jovanovic — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:53:09 +0000

“The empires of the future will be the empires of the mind.” W. Churchill, 1943

LISTEN TO THE WHISPER OR WAIT FOR THE BRICK

Nikola Jovanovic — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 05:52:00 +0000

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the brakes and drove the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, “What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?”

The young boy was apologetic. “Please mister… please, I’m sorry… I didn’t know what else to do,” he pleaded. “I threw the brick because no one else would stop…” With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. “It’s my brother,” he said. “He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.” Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.”

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handi-capped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out his fancy handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay.

“Thank you and May God bless you,” the grateful child told the stranger.

Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the little boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: Don’t go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!

God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don’t have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It’s our choice.

Instead of New Year Resolution…

Nikola Jovanovic — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:13:00 +0000

Just a few hours more and 2006 will be here… This is always the time when you are trying to reflect the year before and think of the new year… What will it bring? Ultimate happiness of all of us or more wars, blood, poverty and divides? Most probably it will be the latter…
For me personally, it will bring many important things… The future of my country will probably be decided – Kosovo negotiations will most probably finish, more blood will probably leak, more innocent lives will probably be lost…
And I usually think – what the hell can I do about it? Me alone? Most probably nothing… I`m too young, too unexperienced, don`t have the power to change such big problems… And that`s what is killing me… Perhaps I shouldn`t be thinking about it… Perhaps I should think about what I can do for myself – parties, chicks, travels… Perhaps I should pretend nothing bad is happening around me and leave my parents to care about big things… It`s their job, right?

Blah… not me… not ever…

There are way too many “probably-s” in this world… Probablys that we should act upon…

Check this movie below and start acting…

Happy New Year!
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What would it take to change the world?

Money? Power? Influence?

No, it just takes YOU!