Why Russian men over 40 look so ugly?

For any reasons. One of them - they are taught that beauty is feminine. When the ordinary russian man tries to dress up he could hear from his mother or father smth like "stop dressing up like a girl!". Nice clothes is feminine, nice looking clean face is feminine, sometimes descending to "if you don't drink vodka with me - are you a girl or what?"

Why does this happen? Why, in a country, where, according to Pushkin and Dostoevsky, 200 yrs ago men were spending half of their time in front of the mirror, now they are ashamed to look good?

The answer is Second World War (SWW) and terror of 30-40s. 20 mln died in war, most of them men. 20-30 mln died in Stalin's camps, most of them men. In the early 50s, the number of adult men was 5 times less than number of women. Go to the gks.ru - Russian State Statistics dept web site. Check out gender chart and have a look at 60-70 year olds. So, in market economy terms, the supply for men was very limited so the price raised enormously. Women were making all possible effort to acquire a man. Man, in contrary, were relaxed as the supply of women was excessive, Whatever you do, no matter how you look, you will find your girl.

This attitude was anchored in many generations. Only now, in generation that follows mine (born 1995 and later), I see that men are trying to look better, but still not in quantities required to make the country's young generation look nice.

We are living now face-to-face with other Russian-speaking nations, e.g. Caucasus. And it clearly shows that they were not touched by this gender phenomenon. They always look good, no matter what money they make and where they live. The Armenian guy selling flowers in the public market looks hell of a good compared to the big Land Cruiser driver of early 40s in ugly sport suit and "barsetka" - symbol of post-perestroika times - man's purse - size of woman's purse but shape of a business suitcase. 99% of them are black.

By the way, I could entitle this idea as "why Russian girls are so pretty?". The answer would be the same.

What is the perfect job for me?

I want to work for people. Not for myself.

I want a job that, at least partly, contributes to environment protection. I can't work for business that kills nature (humans, animals, plants, air, sea or land).

I want to interact with people. I want them either to share the common vision with me, or that I would have to convince them, develop them personally and/or professionally to share this vision.

I'm a change catalist and I'm good in breaking old laws. So I need a developing business or at least business that reborns.

Areas where I'm good at:

marketing,
sales,
strategy,
analitics,
creating team spirit,
unconventional paths,
convincing people in something,
listening, understanding, suggesting an option -> motivation,
openness/ transparency,
responsibility,
honesty,
training, consulting - and I feel this is my destiny


Areas where I need to advance:

enterpreneurship (I don't know and hardly understand the schemes of fast and furious money making),
focus on one thing at a time,
not still fluent in finance terms,
administrating the process (TdB, regular meetings),
I too much focus on tomorrow and do not deliver immediate result


What I like to do:

analitics
marketing concepts
creating plans
sales job, B2B
collecting info, synthesising, suggesting
working with people
physical job, if it's about creating something, like cleaning, planting trees, building/constructing
apply my intuition


What I hate to do:

monotoneous operations, I will hardly work on production line
physical job, same things
workgin in an environment with a risk to my personal safety
sitting on a meetings where I feels things are going wrong direction

No personal development happens without the inner crisis

I do not recall any big advances in my life when I didn't come through a sort of physical or emotional pressure in order to acheive certain advance.

You always have to make an effort to climb another footstep.

As the phycologist Julian Sleigh states, any problem or even crisis you encounter in life, can be used to develop yourself personally or professionally. It allows you to understand you inner "me" deeper. And this always leads to ballance in life.

Osho says the life problem doesn't need to be solved. It needs to be observed. Stand over it and look from outside. The problem will disappear.

It looks like it's very easy to eliminate the problem or crisis. And I tend to trust Osho as it was probably the wisest man of 20th century. But try to observe something, try to meditate. It's the world's most complicated thing I ever tried. This takes a lot of effort, not physical, of course, but mental, to free your mind from unnecessary garbage and clearly the the problem or to clearly see nothing. Although Osho says it should be no effort.

I remember well how I unblocked my French [language]. I was on a training in Paris and I knew I was subscribed to English list. Upon arrival, on a prebriefing just before the course began I saw the list and I didn't find myself in the only English group - I was mistakenly put in a French group. At that moment, I didn't really speak French - at least it was very hard to speak, there was this bareer. But after two days of enourmous effort, with only 10% understood, I found myself comfortable with French and it's fine since then. Not fluent, but comfortable.

My recent crisis, when I spent hours in social network during the end of quarter and failed the quarter actually, put me into dramatic hangover, with fever and other unpleasant stuff. I had to reconsider my attitude to work, to life sucking internet and other social networks, to be more focused, more organized. And it really works now.

I'm in a hotel room in Barnaul, Russia, hours before the inaguration of a new business partner.

Eyes are our key identity

My elder son, who is now 3 y. 3 m. old, when he notices a toy, a doll or whatever that doesn't have face, or upper part of the body, always asks "Daddy, where are his eyes?" (Папа, где у него глазки?). He never asked for face, or nose, or hands - only eyes.

It means that in his mind, yet unconditioned by modern lifestyle, an eye is the key identity element of any creature. Unless he sees eyes - he can't identify the subject.

Don't blog for others - blog for yourself

The best blog is the blog created for yourself. It is the most sincere, the most clean and normally the most honest.

I've been starting blogs many times but the only one continued well and regularly - the one I did for myself. Actually this one. I don't care about what readers may think of it. And it is what makes it good for me, and for others, too. If anyone is really interested in my personality - he (she) will appreciate my sincerity.

Do not overload yourself

Since about a year I started to live quite a balanced life. Work, family, relaxing in more or less harmony. At least I didn't feel really bad since. Headache became an odd phenomenon.

Few days ago I went to our recently rented country house - place where we do a lot of repairs and other sort of developments. Some of the taking really a lot of time, concentration and energy. I became a good plumber, electrician and gardener within jest two months. I went there in the morning and spent a whole day doing little and big things -plumbing, cutting wires and washing windows. At about 7pm I felt I was really tired and exhausted. I though I would go to a clean room with my yoga mat to do some stretching and relaxation. But suddenly a mysterious force picked me up and put in the bathroom to replace the tap. I felt a second breath and went replacing the tap. This was a bad idea. By 11pm I was more than tired. I couldn't think of anything but taps, pipes and drain. I went to a "clean room" but couldn't relax. I was overloaded. I slept badly. I couldn't go into deep sleep. It was too warm or too cold, too quite and too loud. I woke up with a headache. That day I met my wife and friends and we continued together.. pipes, electricity, windows, carpets.. By lunchtime my headache made me really slow. By 7 pm I felt I can not really work and concentrate anymore. By 9pm I was nearly dead. I could just sit and pray that headache goes away. With difficulty I drove back to the city, unable to support conversation with my friend. After 20 min of warm shower I felt better. By the way I didn't have any food since a lunch time - headache wiped away the appetite. I went to sleep. And this time it was good. Woke up today feeling much better. But the energy I conserved during the night was only enough until lunch time. Then I began to feel week again. I had to sit and relax for some time to continue going. By end of the day I feel myself better and now I'm trying to formulate the outcome out of this interesting experience.

1. The new house absorbs your energy. Strongly. Be careful to spend a lot of your time in new house without a pause.
2. If you feel you are tired, not only physically, but emotionally first of all (when your eyes are tired, when you can't concentrate) - this means you should stop and go relaxing. Ideally you should leave the place where you worked hard to emotionally cut yourself from it. Occupy your thinking with something else, something positive. Or clear your thinking if you can meditate.
3. Don't eat if you feel your body does not want to eat. Digestion takes a great deal of energy and before you take the energy out of what you eat - you will loose the last reserve. Let your body recuperate.
   

Why I'm not taking pictures anymore

I was shooting a lot since 1997. I made dozens of thousands of photos since then. On film, then on digital. People liked them, loved them envied them. I printed them, exposed them on numerous websites, stored them on CDs, then DVDs. I spent hours and days rearranging, improving. I read magazines, books. I learnt Photoshop. I had many many different cameras. One is always more expensive and more advanced than the previous. Now my camera bag weights at least 5 kilos, holding big expensive digital camera, 3 big and 1 small lens, big flash and other little stuff.

And so what? Am I happy with all this? I don't think so. Because I'm not shooting anymore.

And since this hobby occupied a big part of my life - and now it's not part of it anymore - I seek to understand why.

I always thought that good equipment is necessary to make good shots. Yes and no. There are things good equipment gives you:

1. The freedom for your creativity - better camera normally has less limitations.

2. The feeling of superiotiry over the mainstream - "I have a camera that costs a fortune. I'm cool"

3. If you know how to avoid 2, then good camera just gives you more self assurance, more stability.

Now when I posess almost all the equipment I wanted - I have all 3 points above. Becoming elder, I tend to feel 3 more than 2. But I honestly recall feeling only 2 some time ago.

I'm not really taking pictures though. What is the problem?

There is something else that I need to take pictures. It is this inner drive. The force that empowers you to go, look for new, unopen.

Why I don't have this drive anymore? I guess it's not anymore important to me.

I made some progress over last few months undestanding my place in life, my role, my mission. But I didn't yet succeded in interating photography into these concepts. Subconsiously I know photography IS part of my life. But I didn't find reason for it.

So if I feel photography shoud be there - I need to find a way to integrate it into my life concept.

Where does the spiritual energy go when we watch TV or play computer game?

Some of us believe that there is a thin energy, the one we can hardly measure but can very well feel. It is called Chi in Chinese culture. it is called Prana in Hindu culture and is the base element in yoga.

I feel I loose a lot of Energy when I'm watching a very action-based movie, when I'm desperate to find something in the internet but I can't find it. Although I don't watch TV since many years I recall being very tired after spending few hours in front of TV set.

So, if I loose Energy - someone or something acquires it. My pivotal question is who?


My thinking leads me to the world described by Russian writer Daniil Andreev in his tremendous work - Roza Mira ("The Rose of the World" or "The Rose of Peace", mir has two meanings in Russian).

He depicts worlds, layers that lie in different dimensions around us. They, for example, have 4 physical dimensions and 3 time dimension, so they actually have 3 times at once. They are exciting, and they are often referred to as Heaven, we normally point up when we refer to them. Those with 2 or less physical dimensions are full of suffering. And are often referred to as Hell. We normally point at them below us. Those lieing inside or around Planet Earth are particularly interesting.

There is a layer (below us) that consumes energy that is emitted by fress blood when it spills away from the body. Andreev says this layer affects the events in our layer to spill more and more fresh blood to feed the demonic creatures that populate this demonic layer. So they provoke wars. They also consume the energy emitted by suffer of living creature so they provoke fight between all leaving creatures and even such basinc concepts as natural selection on Earth.

Ok with suffer and blood, but where does my Energy go when I watch TV or I sit in front of computer game? I guess there is a layer that consumes it. If we project the thinking of Daniil Andreev (who wrote his book in late 50s of XX century) on the world of XXI century we might see that someone/something outside of our physical world manipulates technologies to steal or redirect the stream of life energy. LCD panel may be a perfect transmitter of human energy when you sit in front of Windows that installs slowly on your computer. You are impatient to get this thing running, you loose the Energy to push it and the enrgy goes to someone out there. In this sence Mac computer is really less demonic as it hardly makes me worry about the speed or reliability. TV is the same thing with higher coverage. Even in buddhist monasteries you have TV now.


My outcome is - don't let someone steel your energy - don't waste it on computer or in front of TV. Don't let the think distress you - turn around when it hungs up - don't watch the blue screen, get yourself a tea or water, think about you children, about the chirch next block.. whatever. Just don't give it away

I'm Russian

I'm Russian. But most people who surround me are post-soviets.

Sometimes I feel myself like duke Myshkin from Dostoevsky's Idiot. And I'm actually looking for other Russians around me.. Not easy thing though.