četrtek, 24. september 2015

SAVE OUR SOULS!

SOS! SOS! SOS!

Everybody is screaming SOS lately or so it seems. Europe is under attack from Muslims. But is it? One thing we know for sure Syria and Afghanistan are under attack and Iran is under attack. Is Europe?

Crowds of scared refugees are running to Europe for safety. Hungary is closing borders and they are not the only one as Sam Smith would say. Is it righteous to do that? Debatable. Is it humane? No. Hungarians have every right to do that but they aren't showing compassion or any type of understanding of the situation. There are theories that this waves of refugees were planted and that they are part of an elaborate plan to enslave Europe to Islam. But the fact is in Syria a war is waging and is taking countless lives. People are scared and striped of every right. Their only way is to go away. But where can they go?

Where would you go if you had to leave everything behind or even worse, leave your family behind because you have to pass through some dangerous countries and travel thousands of kilometers? I would go somewhere I would live the life I hear about on TV. To a place that is regarded as good, where one would hope everything might be alright. For a lot of them that is Germany. And of course if you'd traveled thousands of kilometers you wouldn't settle for anything less. If you were traveling for months what are a few more days to get to where you think anything is possible. They are as much economic migrants as they are refugees but lets face it so would be you.

The situation the countries that stand in a way to Germany and promise lands is tricky. You can't just let people to go into your country without any IDs on the other hand you can't have them living on the border. What to do? It feels right to feed and offer a shelter to as many as you can and try to identify them. 99.9% of these people are ordinary people like you or me. Some of them are without doubt very bad. And of course there are those who take an advantage of this situation to smuggle and promote violence and racial, ethnic and religious impatience. But you don't need refugees for that. You find that in any small town.

Why are then mostly male refugees?
Because the trip from Syria to Europe is dangerous, exhausting and long. Many women and children wouldn't make. Think how tough it must be for them to leave everything behind. Everyone they love, everything they love. Their plan is to get an asylum and then their families can get to them by plane. And who wouldn't want that for their loved ones. It's less risky to go alone than to go with a whole family.

Germany is handling the refugee situation very well. It might be because Angela Merkel wants to win upcoming elections but anyway they are welcoming them. They offer them jobs, asylum and place to stay.

After all as a species we have been looking for better options and environment since the dawn of time and for the first time in history this right has been taken away from us because of fear.
Many years ago Benjamin Franlin put it well he said "Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."


petek, 22. maj 2015

Intelligence

Hi fellow insiders. It's been a while from the first blog post so let's dive in. The topic for today is intelligence. A pretty straightforward thing don't you think? In fact I think it's not, at least when you really think about it. So lets do just that.

Let's take a look at how our favorite encyclopedia Wikipedia defines intelligence."Intelligence has been defined in many different ways such as in terms of one's capacity for logicabstract thoughtunderstandingself-awarenesscommunicationlearning,emotional knowledgememoryplanningcreativity and problem solving. " Here is also the link to the article for the curious.

The easiest way to define intelligence is to say an intelligent person is someone who is smart. But who is smart? Someone who does good in school or someone who is good at pursuing academic success? No, intelligence is way more. It's about recognizing the flaws and strengths each of us have. Already in the early stages of our education the differences can be seen. Some are more talented for the abstract thinking, some for music, others for mathematics or drawing. The lucky ones quickly find their strengths. Everybody else will eventually find them as well, but it's up to each individual to develop them.

But developing requires learning but to learn we need a teacher. I believe that if we all had the same teacher the differences between everyone would be small. But we don't and that is the reason there are sometimes huge differences between us. Some kids aren't as privileged as others. Those who went to good schools have better opportunities to study and expand their mind with new ideas and knowledge.
An important part of intelligence is to be surrounded with smart people. If your parents know a lot of things, they can tell you a lot of things but if they don't, you have to learn them on your own. Parents can tell us a lot of things, some that help us in school, others helps us in life.

So I think intelligence is not measured by how much knowledge you posses. Because you can always get smart. You can always learn and experience new things. But it's about what you do with things you know. It's about being aware of your thought process. And if we are aware of what we are doing, and if we know the cause, we can rethink our choices and pick the best one. Intelligence is about making the best decision and knowing why you made it. That is why intelligence is often mixed with logic but we live in a world of emotions and laws of logic don't always apply.  Most only care and talk about IQ (intelligence quotient) but equally important is EQ(emotional quotient) which is quotient which measures how well you recognize other people's emotions and differentiate between them and use as information to guide thinking and decision making. 

An intelligent person is someone who has the potential to excel, does not necessarily have the knowledge but is very perceptive and is also aware of other people. By being aware of its thought process an intelligent person can find mistakes and adjust actions to environment.

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts. :)

petek, 17. april 2015

Inside 261

So in the first post of Inside 261 I want to tell you about what this blog is about. But to understand why I set up this blog you must know a bit about me.

I live in Slovenia and yes, that's the country Goran Dragic, Anže Kopitar and Tina Maze are from. I would think they are the most famous Slovenians around the world. Currently I am a student attending University of Ljubljana. I study engineering. The basic concept of the blog came from an idea of us students sharing ideas about politics, economical and social problems about ecology and the world in general but mostly it's just about how we think things could be better.

The name originates from the idea that every news and opinion, we get affects us in a certain way, as it may have emotional ties to us. In room 261 we share our thoughts, experiences and worries. We talk about them and we try to look at things from different angles.

With this in mind this blog is will be talking about pressing issues.The goal of this blog is to thoroughly study the problem and think our way through. I will avoid being emotionally tied and be as realistic in my solutions as, I'll be far reaching in my goals of changing the world.

P.S. If you have any ideas, problems you want to get another perspective on shot me an email to:
ebloght@gmail.com