Read With Kacper

Today's reflection will be on advertising, and some extremes of it that I recently found while browsing the depths of internet. To start, the ad, that made me reflect on this topic was by a Polish tech e-shop called "x-kom". They were made popular for their campaign advertising left-hand profiled computer mouses. Sounds dull, right? Nothing abnormal. Yes, indeed. However, it gets weirder when you find out, that those ads were displayed on the main page of porn site... Often visited porn site, to be honest. A coincidence? I doubt so... And here my question arises, why do advertisers tend to do weirder and weirder ads, just to draw public attention? Why can't they go for advertise their products in a way that makes people think highly of them, just like a polish pop singer, Dawid Podsiadło did? He set up a newsagents' stand in the centre of Warsaw, where you could go and be sold the new album by the artist himself. This action made all youth (and youth in soul :P ) ...

Today the thought that has been stuck in my mind is how much there is to the saying that you can never really appreciate someone’s work unless you do it yourself. I got to experience this by myself by being in quite little time both teaching somebody, and being taught English. Not until I started teaching my sister this language I could truly understand how astonishingly hard it is to direct a good, interesting lesson, and establish a connection with your student(s). Of course I always thought highly of all my teachers seeing how much effort they put into trying to teach us both English, and some important life lessons at a time, but there always came moments when I’ve been critical of their work or materials they prepared. Now, my point of view has changed drastically, because every time I even try to think this way, I immediately see how would I feel in they position, because I know now how much effort, time and energy it takes to conduct even the most boring lesson, which has any p...

This week we’ve been really into politics, so it’s also a thing I’d like to reflect on today. The other day, I found myself watching yet another time “Last Week Tonight” with John Olivier, only to switch later to “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah, and later to yet another domestic TV programme, which summarises national politics in a satiric way. And at some point I saw the peculiar truth, that, the modern day politics is for me unbearable in a raw form. The satirical take on it is the only way I’m able to process it without losing my temper. I guess that’s because the amount of hypocrisy and lies in it is unfortunately only suitable to either distaste or mockery, of which the second one is less harmful and thus more common.

I was on a classical music concert today(Sunday) and there was playing a great violinist I know, who is now turning 79. But when you look at him when he plays, how lively he is then, how energetic, that’s just magic. You’d never say he is that senior. This observation made me think in a slightly more general way about how the musicians seem to never grow old. Barbra Streisand, Jeff Lynne, The Rolling Stones, the examples don’t seem to end. Those musicians, even if they are in their 80’s they seem to drain life energy from the music they make. And what more, they not only live active professional life, but personal too. The Violinist I know swims a kilometre every morning, Mick Jagger is known to run 10 km every week. So, is it, that these artist found the  widely seeked elixir of youth in their passion for music? ;)