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? ;) 

Of all reflections I have on many things every day there’s this one, that occures to me the most often - just how fragile are we, as humans. It struck me again today, following these events:   Yesterday I was on a outdoor picnic for several hours, and it was really cold outside. No wonder I felt a little sick today, since yesterday I never bothered to clothe myself well enough not to be cold. Yet it didn’t interrupt me in making yesterday arrangements for today, and having to call it off due to poor well-being. And here I am. Thinking how our health and well-being are so easily deteriorated, yet how easily we forget about it as long as it doesn’t regard us. We make future plans, arrange our lives with no place left for unexpected obstacles, like sickness, and when it eventually ruins our plans it is like a bolt from the blue.  

This week, the reflection I had was caused by my weekend trip to Gdańsk. I went there with my parents, who once studied in Gdynia, and used to visit Gdańsk’s old town on regular basis - but it was 20 somenthing years ago. Since then the only place they’ve been to in Gdańsk was the Long Street and one or two close to it, because they never really planned on spending more time for visiting the old town, as they were so sure there’s nothing more worth seeing than the places they go to. Now, after so much time, they (and I) have spent more than an hour in this city’s old town and were simply charmed by its beauty, style, and atmosphere, especially the riverside, which they always thought was not worth seeing, because 25 years ago, from when they remembered it it wasn’t. This led me to a conclusion, how commonly such scheme can be seen - Judgement once set isn’t so easy to be change, which may cost you losing some many incredible aspects of life just because you once got a bad impressi...

Today I’ve been to my good old friend’s 18th birthday dinner. It was the first time we've seen each other since his last birthday, and it’s not anything bizarre for us - usually we only see once a year, because we both have hectic lifestyles and can’t match dates to meet some other time. However, when we finally meet, you couldn’t tell that we’ve not seen for this long - we immediately get along perfectly, find topics to talk through, things to do together. As if we’ve never stopped seeing each other. And today when I got home and finally sat down, I started to think about it.   The reflection I had on this was that true friendship can withstand even long periods of not seeing each other, because deep inside, nothing’s changed between you. I have also other friends my relations with whom confirm these thoughts, one of them left to other school, another to foreign country. With both of them I could not see for ages, and still act as if no time has passed at all since we’ve la...