Avoid ambiguous signals and lack of attention; or be ready to dynamite your only chance

“There is only one perfect chance to do something right”.

This thought came to my mind yesterday, as I observed someone who was very anxious to start a conversation with another individual. Body language told me that person A was trying desperately to talk to person B on his right. Nevertheless person A was listening to some radio show and was not paying attention to the surroundings. It was a 20 minute fight between person B’s shyness and person A’s lack of interest in even making eye contact with person B.

At one specific moment, person A stopped listening to the radio show. So this was the perfect timing for person B to break the ice. Instead, person B gave up on his attempts to pass his message. Obviously we might think that it was not important for person B to talk to person A, but who knows. What if person B desperately needed the help of person A to succeed?

Person A gave an opportunity to person B, when he ignored the context of the situation and understood that B needed to communicate in spite of unclear signals. But B was not alert so he missed the chance. Those were valuable seconds who were wasted because of a lack of attention.

This can happen at a political level too. A politician is not alone in the arena. Some of them only count on their power and resources, but history has taught us that it is better to have allies than to collect a bunch of enemies just because you were not able to reach out to others.

And if we start thinking about countries, it can get really complicated. Countries sign agreements to cooperate in various areas. I know one specific country which needs to negotiate a trade agreement with a block, started sending confusing messages when he had the chance to return to the negotiation tables and now… we don’t know.

The negotiation power rests on the block, and not on the isolated country. It is possible that the other party does not give a new chance to negotiate the agreement, because of the country’s mistakes. Ambiguous signals can result on failure to comply with objectives. This means, that the country needs a B-plan while it expects not to have negative consequences from this impasse.

The airplane corridor, and the cultural wings

How i saw the Alps, from an airplane

When you get into a plane, on which side do you sit: right, left or is it unimportant? Of course, this applies when you have not been assigned one seat before. Let’s say, you have to travel on one of those low-cost airlines where they make you choose your place as you enter the aircraft. At the end of this article, you might be tempted to figure out where do you actually place yourself regarding culture.

Two weeks ago, I was living in one European country. It is not necessary to specify which country I was living in, but I spent four months of my life discovering the truth about the old continent and its people.

Have you ever heard of a cultural shock? I guess some people have experimented at least once this bizarre moment, where you are actually realizing that you were raised within some parameters that are not especially “global”.

It is pretty interesting to compare your reactions with the reactions of someone else with a different cultural background. But if I have to confess something, being conscious of the components of your own culture, doesn’t always mean that you are ready to adapt to a new reality, nor that you should not understand that you might have to modify your habits or thoughts for a while.

For a foreigner, it can be harsh to do anything that it takes to be considered a local and after all being asked about your cultural background. But it can also be difficult to isolate yourself because you simply decided to stay as “the outsider” who does not want to get involved with the locals.

When it comes to cultures, there are people who are proud of what they are and others who are willing to change their beliefs, just to fit in someplace else. And it is, this crucial moment after you know that you think different, when you need to decide to which group you belong.

I do not think that someone has evaluated this aspect before experimenting living in a foreign country. It is not necessary if you are planning to stay forever in the land that saw your first steps. I think some authors may consider me a bit radical, on the existence of these two groups of people. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it can function as well as the right or left sides of an airplane.

Either you decide to go defend your culture, or you start modifying your inner self because you found out something new, that appears to work better in your political view. And the people, who are in the corridor, are the ones who have not yet identify their culture because they have not been able to compare it with others. They are in this sort of limbo, which I think can be considered paradise since they believe the concept “my own culture” is non-existent.

Climate change: it may start affecting your life as well

We don’t have much time to react and I’m not trying to be pessimistic through this post

I have just been conducting a research on the relationship of climate change and international trade and the possible measures to be taken in order to stop global warming, which could affect international transactions of goods.

As a result of this study, I have found some interesting facts about climate change that I would like to share with you. The reason: they have made some impact on how I conceived the effects on global warming. At first I thought they were not that tangible.

It is expected that during the 21^st century, temperature will rise between 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius. Scientists believe that right-now, the earth is nearly 0.8ºC hotter.

If we look at the consequences of this one-degree change at the Bay of Bengal, we will find islets which have actually disappeared. This was the case of New Moore islet, at archipelago of Sunderbans. This small piece of land (about 3.5 km length and 3 km width) was completely covered by the sea on March 2010.

At a political context, this territory is still in dispute between India and Bangladesh, because of sea boundaries and control over the land. Now it doesn’t even exist. It is rather comical to observe that nature has dismissed a problem that couldn´t be solved by two countries at a diplomatic level.

The archipelago of Tuvalu is affected by continuous floods, and people are migrating to New Zealand with the state of “climate change refugees”. A diplomat will have to start worrying about those processes which shall be created at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to evaluate when to give someone this particular condition of refugee.

In my opinion, it is important to pay more attention to those places which are now being affected by global warming. People at the Bay of Bengal or at Tuvalu are not guilty for all the carbon emissions which have led to the rise of the sea level.

I have found two examples, but I’m sure the list can get really longer by now.

This video is just to be aware that climate change is not a myth. It is happening and we can’t be sure when it may start affecting your life as well.

What would a politician do?

I haven´t been really close to politics, but I’ve noticed that it can be so enriching that it can even turn into one’s passion. Although we must be clear that not everyone should be a politician, win elections or hold public office, it’s interesting for me if you start seeing the world as if you were one.

Everything in life has an aspect related to politics, and I’d like to discover that political or diplomatic view. With some help from you, dear reader, we could both create knowledge on the issue.

I guess I want to specialize myself on observing. It’s an interesting hobby to write about the things you find while walking down the street. If you like to see it otherwise -which is completely acceptable- i’m a frustrated journalist.

I have realized that in my country, people don’t pay that much attention to what happens around them in terms of politics.

They seem to think that news are told only from the house of government or ministry, or just when some government employee’s activities become an scandal…

That’s the kind of political scenario we’ve been used to enjoy. Mainly because we are still evolving on that social science.

Today, i got the urge of filling this space with visions of a city that has its own personality, but can express the reality of a world it has been inserted in.

It has streets where you find the most unforeseen situations, yet lives at its own pace not expecting anything from anyone.