Tag: thoughts

Passions?=Obsessions?

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“Be passionate,” people say. Live your passions. Make your passions your job and you will never work a day. All common things you hear, and perhaps all have some ring of truth to them.

Sometimes our passions are simply our interests, our hobbies, and that is all they have to be. When I develop a passion for something I go all in, rabbit holes seem to appear left right and centre. My latest passion has become cigars. I am still somewhat surprised as to how this even happened. As a reformed cigarette smoker I became quite anti-tobacco, and I still abhor the smell of cigarettes. But approximately one year ago something happened, something changed. I discovered some YouTube channels discussing the world of premium cigars and I was smitten. So, down into that hole I went but, unknowingly, entered a warren.

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Community

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Daily writing prompt
What would you change about modern society?
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It would be easy to target any period of history and imagine what you would change. Society has never been perfect and my version of perfection would probably not match up with others anyway. It also depends on which culture you are from, each country has its unique values.

I am a Welshman who now lives in Czechia. So what would I change about Czech society? I would like to see it behave as a closer society, a community. I find Czechs, although not exactly selfish, are sometimes too insular and unwilling to step outside of their own bubble. It is rare to see someone caring for the local environment, but their garden looks beautiful. I guess that is the perfect analogy.

Come on people, say hello to strangers. The looks you get if you do this are ones of confusion, you can see them thinking, “Do I know you?” Talk to each other, pick up that piece of rubbish, and give that person a helping hand. Oh, and take care when you are riding your bike on the footpath, it isn’t a bike lane let alone a racetrack!

Double-Guessing a Madman

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Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

I still can’t quite believe that it is really happening. Every now and again I think that it is only a nightmare. Then, I watch the news and reality strikes. War in Europe. It seems that the old saying really could be true, only one generation can ever see peace. Then we seem to forget our previous lessons and repeat the same mistakes again.

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Post Lockdown: Summer Ends, Back to School

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These have been strange times for everyone, and it’s going to be hard to get back to normal life. As a teacher it has been some time since life was completely normal. Teaching from home from March until June, then the summer holidays began. Now I am not complaining about that, believe me. But now it is back to work, and who knows how things will be, and what systems we will have to follow. One thing is for certain, it won’t quite be the return to normal that many people would have been hoping for.

Here, in the Czech Republic, things are fairly normal, but that is only when compared to other countries. Restrictions were lifted quite some time ago, but now there is uncertainty in the air. Children will return to school, as will face masks to our lives. So some rules will come back into force, but which ones? Seemingly, our government can’t decide. They say one thing one day, a few days later they seem to be having second thoughts. Perhaps they should have those second thoughts before they announce anything, at least if they don’t wish to appear foolish.

Luckily us teachers have a week in school before the students return, so there should be time to get everything ironed out. There will also be some time to get used to being back in an office again. Working from, and being at, home more often has become the norm and it may take some time to readjust. I know that returning to a normal life is important, both for me and my family, and I know that it will be a healthy thing for our lives. But, still, I can’t help but feel slightly nervous. We are, after all, entering the unknown.

Words © Neil Hayes and neilhayeswrites

Points of View

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The world is full of myriad opinions at the moment. Everything from Covid to Black Lives Matter elicit different points of view. Some of which are articulated in an extremely hostile manner. Nobody seems to be considering the fact that both sides of any argument could be correct, at least about something.

Alas, we seem to be living in a world where if a person says something you disagree with, then they must be full of shit about everything else too. Sorry about the language, but only that truly expresses the rage which you often see. The problem is that when we take sides we seem to assume that there are only two. But this is not a war between countries, or a sport, and this is not a two-dimensional world. Would you want it to be?

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