and why it matters.
They were tough. They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing […]. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, […], and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. […]. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment. …
It would be funny if it wasn’t true
They say if you can’t fight them, join them. I say if you can’t fight them, get to know them inside out, and discover their Achilles heel. When dealing with narcissists, knowledge and self-awareness are your greatest assets.
The 10 commandments narcissists live by
- Everything and everyone can be turned into my narcissistic supply, ie anything that can reaffirm my sense of self-importance and grandiosity.
- Everything is my stage, right here and right now.
- Everybody is my audience, if you can not be the audience please make yourself useful with the lights, audio, and scenography.
- I am entitled to double standards, do as I say not as I…
Writing the biggest collective epic ever
Is one image still worth a thousand words?
An image is probably still worth a thousand words, I am thinking for example at Sebastião Salgado Workers, I am thinking at painters and visual artists, at moments of happiness forever captured, but what about the 995 photos uploaded on Instagram every second, the 4000 uploaded since you started reading this article, and the more than 50 billion photos uploaded on Instagram so far? (Omnicore, October 2020). …
#1 Value over Perfection
There are two types of people: those who work in sales, and those who think they don't.
I was a bit skeptical, the right word would be judgemental, about the entire cosmology of personal branding. What I understood about personal branding was that some Bamby-eyed people took their LinkedIn or Instagram profiles a bit too seriously and a bit too far, and managed to build fame out of the current global craving for hope, gurus, and God.
I was wrong.
Ms. Judgmental dug a bit deeper and changed her idea after binge-watching a series of TEDx talks on personal branding.
It turns out that personal branding brings to the table some healthy principles that can serve us all not only in building our own personal brand but also in discerning value from ehm …Bamby-eyed noise. …
Self-deception is as legit as any other coping mechanisms
Psychology Today describes self-deception as a series of behaviors and believes that we adopt to defend our ego.
Say what, “defend my ego”? This alone sets off all my alarm bells and makes me want to run to the closest fire escape.
I try to punch my ego in the stomach every time she comes around, and this is after we have somehow come to good terms, why would I want to defend her?
Well, because sometimes an illusion is just as good as a dear friend, it is what I need to make a moment last longer, sometimes in the midst of a shipwreck we just want to take a breath and linger on to anything that provides some comfort, or hope. …
#1 Silence is golden
We communicate to share, connect, and influence.
When we communicate we are silently tapping into our willingness and capacity to negotiate forms, meanings, and values.
Such negotiations lead to understanding and emotions, or a vortex thereof.
In a culture that is overloaded with information, effective communication has become imperative to elevate our exchanges, relationships, and collective human experience.
Here are the 10 commandments for effective communication I try to live by:
1. Silence is golden
If your words do not elevate thoughts, conversations, or people, please breathe in and shut the fu*k up.
I am not going to sugar-coat this, sorry (not sorry). Freedom of speech comes with enormous responsibility and accountability, you can not have rights without responsibilities. Please let’s all grow up just a little, whether it is a passive-aggressive anonymous comment on social media or interrupting someone who is speaking, shut the fu*k up, you can not have the cake and eat it too. …
(*) IT meaning anything that matters in our lives & collective human experience
I am a big girl with a big question for the World out there:
When did we lose it*?
(*) It meaning anything that matters in our lives and collective human experience.
Was there a moment in time, maybe an avalanche gaining momentum? Or, was is it just a careless slow falling down, an atom-by-atom erosion, an innocuous drop of water that has made a hole that is now dragging us down?
- When did we start becoming strongly opinionated and totally uninformed?
- When did we start mistaking the wi-fi signal availability for connection?
- When did we start lowering our gaze down and curl our chest in to avoid the eyes of passerby’s? …
UNEXPECTED LEARNING
Six life lessons from assembling my first IKEA Bissa
I am turning 46 in less than a month, I figured I could give it a try and assemble my first IKEA masterpiece, here is what I have learned in the process.
Directions
Life does not come with a manual, most IKEA furniture does. Read it and use it. Amen. At one point, you will murmur it is not rocket science and toss the manual, thinking you can hack your way through without directions, to then find yourself hours later digging into the rubbish bin.
Don’t let your ego silent or reject the help you are offered.
Step by step
There is a sacred order in the way instructions are compiled, it is not random, each step builds on the previous one, creating symmetry and stability. There will be times — like in real life — when you will think you can outsmart the manual and fast-forward, to then —unlike real-life — go back three hours later to the pages you skipped because they looked so ridiculously obvious. …
FASTING
I started fasting a bit like Forrest Gump started running. I started one Friday night without really too much thinking, I then convinced myself that 24 hours was feasible, then stretched it to 48, and kept going for 13 days, you can read more about this journey here.
Close to the due date (women need to fast according to their cycles), I started to fear going back to eating, I did not want to lose the mental clarity, the connection with my body, the new pace and peace, and the stunning profile of my body in the mirror.
It never stops to amaze me, how our mind, even in the most uncomfortable situations, is able to create “cozy corners” to cling to. No wonder our species made it to this century :-). …
I started fasting a bit like Forrest Gump started running. I started last Friday night without really thinking about it, I then convinced myself that 24 hours was feasible, then stretched it to 48, and now really I just don’t know where the limit is, I mean I know where the limit is, the limit is as long as I feel good.
About me :-)
I am Italian, food is in my DNA, under and all over my skin. I talk, think and dream about food constantly -even right now-, I love cooking, and for me eating is an unparalleled experience across all senses. I look up and try new recipes obsessively, the more spices the better, I come from a family where food was the favourite topic of conversation before, during, and after any meal. Growing up, the standard lunch included a generous plate of pasta, a main course (meat/fish+ vegetables or salad), a piece of bread to polish the bottom of my plate (also called scarpetta), a tiny piece of cheese, cake and coffee. …
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