Look out the window.

Seriously, look out the window, please. Jut don’t forget to open it first. All done? Is the sky bright blue or steely grey? Is the grass emerald green or dusty yellow? Are the people outside talking to each other, gloomily walking home or running from the rain with shrieks and laughter?

Now, close the window. Look at it. Not through it, at it. At the lint stuck to the glass, at a couple of stains left from the recent spring cleaning or at the dust looming in the corners. Or, if you live in a family that is as obsessed with cleanliness as mine, at your reflection.

Here comes my last request, and that’s it. Now, without opening the window, look outside. Look carefully. Does the grass look the same to you? Can you hear those two guys on the bench talking as clearly as before, when the window was open? Is the sky all that blue?

I’ll dare to answer that for you. No. Because of the dust, the grass is tinted a slightly different shade of green. You can only hear small parts of the conversation. And the sky…the sky is stained, its blue isn’t half as deep and saturated as it was when the window was open.

Where am I going with this? You see, to me, the sky, the grass, the conversation are all a metaphor for reality. It’s everything you see every day, everything that happens to you, your family and friends, people you don’t know, the world on the whole.

And the glass is the social opinion. It’s what people around you think about the said world and the way they describe it to you. You can’t judge the opinion itself, you can only judge what things look like through it, this glass that is supposed to help you form your opinions and superstitions.

Different occurrences require different kinds of glass. For some things it’s cleaner, for others – filthier. But, no matter how sparkling, it still doesn’t let you see the whole picture. Things are distorted, even if ever so slightly.

The same way, society can make even the most innocent thing look vulgar and dirty. Or just forget to tell you some of the details which, in hindsight, turn out to be crucial to the story and make it look completely different.

In the end, the choice is yours. You can either look through the glass or open the window. Take notice of the things people tell you about what they think on this or that, but, eventually, if you have to, swipe their opinions out of the way.

Like I said, it’s up to you. As for me…humpf…it’s so stuffy in here…would you mind if I opened the window?

To sleep, perchance, to…

No, just sleep for me, please.

How many times have you found yourself barely standing, trembling and feeling infinitely miserable, thinking…I’ll go to bed as soon as I get home. Ha-ha. I don’t mean to be mean, after all, I have the same problem, but, still. Why do we have such a huge problem with finding enough time to sleep?

By the time you get home, you’re usually pretty much awake, and after you’ve eaten, you need to do all sorts of things, like check your VK or Facebook account (or both), read your mail, work, VK or Facebook again, tweet something, eat some more, try to workout, fail, go back to VK or Facebook, and so on, so forth, until you realize that it’s 3:00 in the morning, and you’re supposed to be getting up in three hours.

 

So, then you think: I can’t fall asleep now, I won’t be able to wake up! So you make up your mind to stay awake. And THE VERY moment that thought enters your head, BAM! Your eyelids start drooping, your head feels heavy, and you decide to just sit back on the couch (or your bed) for a second, and may be close your eyes just for a minute, and then…it’s 9:00 AM, and you’re an hour late.

                                                                                           

But even if you’re lucky enough to react to the sound of alarm, you immediately curse your luck, because, and I’m sure that most of you will agree with me, waking up after having had just two or three hours of sleep. Is. Horrible. Whatever plans or thoughts you might have had regarding this day, they’re gone. There is no way that you’re doing morning yoga. A big, healthy breakfast or 30 extra minutes of sleep? Hm…what kind of question is that?! Sleep! Dressing nice? Applying make-up? (Guys – hair product)?

NO. YOU'RE CHOOSING. SLEEP.

So…is there a way out? Sure. There’s always a way out. I could tell you that you should plan your day, drink some herbal tea that will help you relax, delete your FB profile…but the ONLY real solution to the problem is to make yourself so tired during the day that by 9:00 PM you will fall snoring the moment you reach your bed, or whichever horizontal surface it is that you usually sleep on. So my advice to you (and myself) is:

If you want to get enough sleep – make yourself DO STUFF.

Get A Grip On Yourselves, Kids!

While learning English, I’ve spent a lot of time watching British and American movies and TV series, reading English books and so on, so forth. While enjoying all that, I’ve also been aware of the differences from Russia that I encountered on the way. Differences in culture, people’s mindset, so on, so forth.

What probably struck me most, though, was the difference in the process of upbringing the children. We do not share the tolerance they have for their misbehaviour, we don’t treat our teenagers like gods, mesmerised by any sign of affection they send our way. And I was also fascinated by the notion of imaginary friends.

I thought of it as of an interesting cultural peculiarity, one that has never been even known or experienced by Russian children. At least, to my knowledge. So I was simply amused by the idea. T

hat is, until I heard a licensed pshychologist say that having an imaginary friend is a protective mechanism used by many children to shield their delicate minds from harsh reality: a death in the family or drastic changes in their way of life.

I lost my grandfather at the age of seven. We moved around a lot, so I had to change schools five times. One of those times was abroad, while my English was shaky at best, and the only relative living with me at the time was my grandmother, who threw tantrums every time I didn’t feel like accompanying her to the beach.

And, through all that, guess, what? My pscyche is fine. I never had an imaginary friend. I am very sociable, far from being an under-achiever, and I love my parents. I even love my Grandma. And I tell them that. Am I one of a kind? No. (I don’t believe that “Everybody’s special” stuff, either). I know lots of people whos childhoods sucked, and they’re fine.

In fact, the only people I’ve known or heard of in Russia having imaginary friends or stuff like that are severely challenged mentally or had alcoholic parents who beat them. You know, those who actually needed something to protect them. That I can understand.

So, the next time someone tells me that it’s normal for a child to be talking to thin air, I’ll tell them to pay attention to that kid – he or she is not well. Problems at school, sick aunt – whatever, playing with your dolls is one thing, but making up a nonexistent friend instead of making new ones is either a sign of huge psychological problems or, much more often, just a shout for attention.

Don’t spoil your kids. Someone will have to deal with them when they grow up. But no-one might want to. And who are they going to shout to then?

What DO We Talk About?

People have always loved to talk. It was that desire to share one’s thoughts and experience that lead to the appearance of speech. These days, it’s very easy to socialize. There are no rigid frames to communication, one can contact practically anybody, tell the whole world, what the day was like. At least, the part of the world that’s aware of the internet and Twitter.

You’d think, what endless opportunities that gives us for creativity, for ideas, for finding like-minded people. But, no. I mean, there are, of course, all t

hose things, but in order to get to them, you have to get through such enormous amounts of junk and drivel, that your fingers, already raise above the keyboard, fall hopelessly.

That is a very sad paradox: while getting access to masses of information, what 90% of users actually take are soppy phrases for status-updates, one thousand and one tutorial for making your eyes (already drooping with make-up) even prettier, endless pictures of kitiies/doggies/babies/expensive cars and, of course, a right to illiteracy.

On this last point I could talk for ages, but, to be honest, I don’t really want to, because I feel squeamish. I love Russian, I love English, I don’t mind new words and phrases entering these languages, but I will never understand those native speakers who allow themselves to distort their mothertongue, excusing themselves by the fact that: “It’s the Web, everyone does that here!”

That’s one problem. Now, let’s turn to internet-communities. It’s always a pleasure to see like-minded people burning with the same ideas or just enjoing similar activities get together to share impressions, news or simply talk to each other. Alas, it’s not all that nice and pretty.

I don’t mean the haters, whose point of life is taunting the people on the net who can’t get to them. It’s the most devoted members of said communities who bother me. In a while, some ofr. them turn into fans. And then – into fanatics. After that, talking to them is near to impossible. Are you prepared to talk about cars 24/7? You’re boring. You told a girl who wants to weigh 75 pounds to stop torturing herself and eat something? You’re jealous and know nothing about beauty. You didn’t denounce ever eating meat after seeing footage from a slaugherhouse? You’re a corpse-eating  freak, burn in hell!

Why? Because their initial narrow-mindedness gets even worse because of constantly talking about one topic only, so, eventually, any deviation from the course they’ve taken is considered a crime that deserves a punishment as severe as quartering, along with nail-pulling strangling.

And, of course, there’s always the herd instinct. Spending too much time with a bunch of people, mulling over the same thing time and again, anyone can get caught up in the craziness. There’s no place for tolerance – the real kind – not the one gets everyone squirming once a touchy subject like sexual minorities or racie is as much as brushed during a conversation.

And we do need patience. Respect for other people’s opinions needs to be cultivated in every single person. That way, many of today’s problems would just go away on their own.

In the end, no one can tell you, what and how to talk about. But, please, let’s not be primitive. We mustn’t forget that speech is a gift that only humanity has been granted with. Don’t just walk all over it.