Following on the heals of my Egypt trip was a weekend in the amazing city of Istanbul. At long last, my story and my pictures are here for you to enjoy!

My non-stop traveling is over. I’ve been to 20 cities in 13 countries this year alone – not including Switzerland or the US. Now I can finally start catching up on trip pictures and write-ups. Here’s the 2nd trip I did this year: the infamous Egypt!

Within the first 5 minutes, the instructor, after talking about positive feedback says, “Negative feedback is more personal, it’s more about the person themselves.”

What?

So if I go “this piece of your work is good” that’s about your work, but if I say “this piece of your work is bad” that’s about you? Really?

Let me be really blunt here: if this is how you interpret these statements YOU ARE STUPID (that is intended to be personal).

Was that negative enough for ya?

If I say “This patch is a big honking piece of shit.” it means… you made a bad fucking patch. Smart people make bad patches too. It’s not a reflection of your intelligence, so get over yourself. If I wanted to say, “man, all your patches are all horrible, you must be retarded,” then I could say something like that.

Most. Ridiculous. Assumption. Ever.

Edit: (Left meeting, published post, coming back this evening to finish): This holds true for more than technical arguments. Saying “that was a retarded decision” does not imply, in any way, that your are retarded. Smart people make bad choices, and such a statement simply informs you my opinion of a particular decision is that it was very bad. That’s it. Stop taking things personally people. Period.

In January of this year I started a long string of travels that will end in June. As such, I just haven’t had time to be angry at stuff, and it’s hard to be angry when you’re wondering through, say, Venice.

Anyway, my first destination was into the world of the ancients: Athens Greece!

The review is finally up! I’m only three months behind, but to be honest, with the amount I’m traveling I suspect I’ll fall more behind, not less.

Head over to this Boing Boing story and watch the video, but try not to read the headline or story text: BB story. And come back here when you’re done.

OK, watched it?

Sure?

Turns out, she’s an actress hired by the Danish government. That video is supposed to show that Denmark is an open-minded place where there are not reservations about sex and such. Is that the message you get when you watch it? Because it’s certainly not the message I get!

As it turns out, I’ll be in Denmark in April… but rest assured I’d planned the the trip before I”d seen the video. =)

It took a long time this done, but the review of my Italy trip is finally here. This write up is fairly long, but I did much more editing than usual, so hopefully it’s a more interesting read.

A bit out of order, but the review of my Dublin trip (which was before the recently posted Germany/Austria trip) is now up.

It took a while… but my review of my Germany and Austria trip is finally done. Links to reviews and pictures of the 4 Metallica shows are at IPOM, and linked from within the trip review.

I think the reason that both of these ideas generate such potent opposition is because neither of them are the whole story. Each idea has a little bit of evidence to support it, but by its nature any evidence of one is also evidence against the other. Since evidence against an idea is always stronger than evidence for something (it only takes one counter-example to disprove something, but a single example doesn’t prove anything) we have strong opposition to each idea from “the other side.”

The truth, as it usually is, is most likely somewhere in the middle. I think that everything happens for a reason – if you let it. Many people have made a decision somewhere in their life that they couldn’t explain. It was contrary to what it seemed they should do, but they just felt it was the right choice and they didn’t understand why until later.

There are things, I think, we’re supposed to experience, things we are supposed to learn in our life. Often this path is far from the easiest one to take, but it’s always more fulfilling than the easy way. I think when we stop and listen, we usually know which way holds the most for us. Sometimes there are many beneficial paths, even.

Contrarily, I do not, however, think there is any one single correct path for a person. Life is full of tons of decisions. Perhaps some of them are not consequential enough, or perhaps the difference isn’t enough for us to feel it. I don’t know. More to the point, I don’t see it as reasonable that assume there’s a series of “right” decision or that making a “wrong” decision means you necessarily miss a critical experience or a lesson. But of course, some lessons are easier to learn at certain times – and some doors are only open for so long.

Perhaps an example is in order. It is obvious to me I’m supposed to be here in Zurich. It’s also clear to me I don’t belong here in the long term. I made a lot of decisions that led me here. Different decisions may have lead me here – or somewhere else where I could have learned similar lessons. Any of those paths would have felt natural once I was on one of them. But the path of not doing anything – of not venturing far away and learning what was else is in the world, I think, would have seen me not just fall short of my potential, but also brought much less happiness into my life in the long term. Paradoxically, Zurich in-and-of-itself does not generally make me happy – in fact, it has many things that make me unhappy. But the travel opportunities, the personal growth required in such a change, and the experiences are completely… right.

It seems likely to me that most people – if not everyone – have certain potential destinies, certain things they can – if they chose – add to the world. Some people can, I think, see this easier than others. Of course, many people use their free will to fight their potential. Others don’t notice it, are too scared of it, or are too busy with drugs or other detriments to understand it.

In my opinion this is what makes humanity great. We constantly make decisions – sometimes those decisions take us in the general direction that makes the most sense at the time, sometimes not. However, in most cases, it’s not about right or wrong. If we learn and grow from those situations, it’s my experience we will continue to find open doors and new lessons. The things that happen are a consequence of our choices made from free will as well as the things we have and have not learned. A combination of “for a reason” and “free will.” I think we can learn most lessons in whatever order we chose. Or, as some people do, we can chose to not learn and grow at all. Such is the uniqueness and greatness of humanity.

It’s worth noting that I don’t use the word “believe” very often. Despite the fact it was a comedy making fun of religion, I think Chris Rock’s line in “Dogma” was quite right – beliefs are dangerous – they’re hard to change. It’s better to have an idea. Hence the repetitive use of “I think.”