I read this morning that to drop out of the rat race, all you need to do is to realise its absurdity, stop taking it so seriously and stop competing. Unfortunately my own experience suggests that if you try to do that, not only do you stop competing to climb the career ladder but people… Continue reading more about the rat race
Author: Liam Mor
fat and crazy
Last week on the tram, there was a fat woman with crutches shouting abuse into her phone. Nine years together and you leave me. I want compensation. You say that I am paranoid and schizophrenic but you should be the one on medication not me. Later in the week I was flying out of Amsterdam… Continue reading fat and crazy
We Live Among Strangers
We evolved living in tribes, knowing everyone and related to most of them, through blood or partnerships. Nowadays we live among strangers and this does not fit with the way our brains work. People move away from their families for work, live isolated in unfamiliar cities or foreign countries and make “friends” through social media… Continue reading We Live Among Strangers
five years
Listening to an old Bowie song (or track as they used to be called before the Apple Collective) I noticed that David was singing that we have five years. Did Placebo have this song in mind when they wrote much more recently that we have twenty years ? Anyway it just made me think about… Continue reading five years
Another Mayday
Tomorrow is the first of May and there will be the usual riots in the centre of Zurich. Rich, privileged, teenage kids will cover their faces and run around trying to look tough and impress their friends with a little bit of bravado by facing off the riot police. Kind of like the rap artists… Continue reading Another Mayday
Rat Race
When I was young people used to talk about the rat race, the 9 to 5 lifestyle and overwork. Now people talk about work-life balance, the 9 to 6 lifestyle and burnout. What has changed ? Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness changed nothing. The Industrial Revolution and opportunity to free mankind from the drudgery… Continue reading Rat Race
Curtain Twitching
Today I woke to the radio news announcing Whitney Houston’s death. She was 48 and died in her bathtub. A few months ago, Amy Whitehouse died at the age of 27. Axl Rose just turned 50 last week. Celebrity is a strange thing. We all recognise celebrities’ faces and voices but they don’t recognise us. … Continue reading Curtain Twitching
Priorities
Why is it, that when you go and visit someone in his office at work and the telephone rings, he says “hang on a moment” and answers the phone ? Just why do people who make the effort to be physically present have a lower priority than those who don’t ?
year zero
It is rare to hear someone saying “200 years BC” or “1956 AD”. This distinction reaches so far into our past as to be meaningless in today’s fast-paced and constantly online world. Surely we should abandon this anachronism with its outmoded religious references and replace it with something more relevant to the way we do… Continue reading year zero
festival of consumerism
Christmas is near and, even though I realize that this is a festival of consumerism, I am shocked by the blatant overbuying of unnecessary stuff. People are buying too much food, too much alcohol, too many gadgets and just too much stuff.
teaching the non-controversy
Surely the truth is the truth ?• Why do some people believe in evolution and others believe in creation ?• Why do some people believe in global warming and others do not ?• Why do some people believe in using vaccines and others believe that they are harmful ?• Why does support or rejection of… Continue reading teaching the non-controversy
more from less
As I wrote before, capitalism is a pyramid scheme – to survive it needs to grow or to borrow. In the current economic climate many organisations are trying something else; they are trying to squeeze “more from less”. Where does this approach come from ? “Faster, better, cheaper” became fashionable in organisations after Daniel Goldin… Continue reading more from less
Nahmad Exhibition
I went to the Nahmad exhibition in the Kunsthaus in Zurich yesterday. The collection belongs to a Monaco-based family and includes works up to 1970 by various artists, including Monet, Kandinsky, Picasso and Miro. I liked the Kandinsky and Picasso works, especially Picasso’s paintings from the 1930s. While Hilter was rising in one part of… Continue reading Nahmad Exhibition
complexity
Today I was reading about a Stanford University professor called Robert Laughlin who thinks that, in a thousand years, all the carbon that we are mining today will be in the ocean. We will either have mined all the available carbon energy sources or we will have decided to leave them alone. The excess carbon… Continue reading complexity
capitalist democracies
Europe is in financial turmoil. The debt crisis has taken hold, Greece and Italy have national debt problems. Both are struggling to apply austerity measures. Italy has has its debt rating reduced so it will cost more to borrow. And here I am in Switzerland which is suffering a little from the high franc but… Continue reading capitalist democracies
Contact Gonzo
The Theater Spektakel in Zurich is a three week long festival with theater, dance and other performances from around the world. They have some weird and whacky things, some of which work and some or which don’t. There are crowd pleasers and performances which leave the audience perplexed but there is always something interesting. Also… Continue reading Contact Gonzo
the end of greed
Recently I read that the Amish (who are descendants of Swiss German emigrants) are an anarchist society. I don’t really agree with that. They maybe have little hierarchy and have limited acceptance of government but they live their lives according to religious dogma. There are some anarchist aspects, I suppose, such as their sense of… Continue reading the end of greed
career
I had an interesting discussion with a friend last night. We talked about “living in the moment” which is, of course, a theme in Buddhism. And we talked about living your live with integrity. This is the theme of my blog entry today. I try to live with integrity and honesty and honour. This is… Continue reading career
Street Parade 2011
This weekend I went to the Street Parade which is a dance festival in the centre of Zurich. There was a huge crowd of people dressed strangely and enjoying themselved in the sunshine. The crowd seemed less drunk and drugged up than usual and the atmosphere was peaceful enough. If fact, it was a great… Continue reading Street Parade 2011
USA borders
This week I saw President Obama on television almost shouting, “Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we have always been and always will be a triple-A country”.Looking at a map of the world the following day I realised that you can… Continue reading USA borders