Small town or big city?

I would definitely choose a big city! Probably many people would disagree with me, but I don’t see anything why should be a small town better than a big city.

I adore the atmosphere and energy in big cities. It’s something what you can’t find anywhere else. I like people hastening in the morning and also the nightlife. I am not a type of person who goes to clubs and discos, but if you live in a metropolis there is always a great place to go and something to do. For example some historical places, parks, theatres, cinemas, parties and so forth.

Many people are persuaded that the life in a big city is very exhausting and stressful. In my case it’s absolutely different. It’s as though the city gives me energy and I feel more joyful and positive. Probably it’s because of the atmosphere and the city life at all, because I like it so much; and when you do what you like and live a life you want you always feel happy.

About Cicero it’s said that he drew energy from city – its courts, senate, squares… And because of that he didn’t like to leave Rome. His secretary, Tiro, said about him, he never saw such a city man as Cicero was. And so I absolutely understand him.

Of course, it depends on a person, however, I wouldn’t feel good in a small aloof town, because I would always have a feeling and desire to go to a bigger town to find something what I would missed in a small town. When I am in a large city I feel wonderful and don’t have a need to go somewhere else at that moment.

To sum up, I adore big cities as New York and also big cities with an amazing history as Paris. And I am absolutely sure that I want to live, whole my live, in such a world metropolis.

Has televison destroyed communication among friends and family?

My answer to this question is “no”. This statement would be more suitable for the internet and social networks.

To my mind television didn’t destroy our communication as it’s not another way of communication like the internet or telecommunication. We watch TV for fun, when we are bored or for some people is a habit to switch their TV on in the evening. I know, that some people spend whole days watching movies and series and reality shows and so on, but we can noticed that the internet caused that television is not so popular anymore. It’s more comfortable to watch a film whenever we want and without adverts.

We can even say that sometimes TV even enhances communication among people. For example, two people have obviously nothing in common, but they can watch the same program. Suddenly there is a topic to talk about.

Reading of books was much greater affected by the invention of TV than our communicating habits. Before that time people hadn’t had many other options to see a good movie or story, so they had read it in a book. In my opinion, we almost can’t compare book with TV, but for lazier ones is watching a movie much more comfortable than reading it. However, books are still very popular and hopefully TV and books will be two separated ways of entertainment forever and won’t threat each other.

Anyway, back to communication and TV. Maybe there are some cases when somebody sits all days watching TV and doesn’t realize the world around him. So we can say that the television caused it. However, I don’t think so. Probably this person even doesn’t know what he is watching and if we ask him he can merely answer. It’s not about TV, but about the person, who maybe has some problems and runs away from them for example by watching TV.

Frankly, while you are watching the TV, aren’t you usually talking with other persons in a room? Or if nobody but you is in a room you often do also something else. So TV isn’t something on what we must concentrate and can’t do anything else.

Finally, as I said at the beginning, my answer is “no”, TV didn’t destroy communication among people.

 

How do movies and televison influence our behavior?

Movies and television have a great influence on people’s behavior and life at all. There is a question “Why?” To my mind it is not a case only of this age, people have always had tendency to have their idols and there have been always something that had enormous influence on masses. Nowadays it is television and the internet.

However we would find many other influential things, I think that entertainment at all has a great effect on people and their behavior and style of life. As I said, people have been always supposed to follow someone or something; for someone it is only an example and for others it is even an obsession and adulation. Nowadays, we follow mainly sportsmen, actors, singers, etc. In the past people usually followed politicians, kings, writers, etc.

But let’s talk about television and movies. They play a big role in our lives, especially in lives of young people, who almost can’t pretend their lives without TV, movies, the internet and other technologies, because they are inevitable part of their everyday life since their childhood.

There are many examples, when a teenager was inspired by a movie or series. Maybe if he had never seen the film, he would have never chosen the life as he had. I don’t say it’s bad. Why should it be? Basically it’s not about the way how we get to our resolution – what is important is that if we were right and if this decision is the best.

To my mind, in the 21^st century it’s impossible to circumvent the influence of media. Even toddlers are in contact with TV, computer and other modern technologies, every day. We could say that during this era it’s like have a home, car and work – it’s something inevitable.

One of the reasons why some people are persuaded that media and all modern technologies are more bad than helpful is maybe the fact that it is something new for them, as usually older people have these opinions. Anyway, this modern stuff is here and will be if we like or not. We should accept it and use them as good as we can. Of course media, television and movies influence us, but it is up to us how much we let them. Especially for young people it is part of their lives and they hardly can imagine living without it; and I think they are aware of everything what it brings.

One change in my hometown

If I have a chance to change whatever I want in my city or if Aladdin flew out of the lamp, I would probably change the square of the city and historical center.

The name of my hometown is Nitra and it’s probably the oldest city in Slovakia, country where I live, and also one of the oldest towns in central Europe. When someone says “hoary city” I imagine a place with grand ancient buildings and castle where you can feel the power and atmosphere of history. Nitra really has this type of architecture, beautiful parks and nature, but what makes me annoyed is tendency of mixing modern and old pieces of architecture together.

You know, sometimes it’s tasteful and stylish to include a modern building into historical area, but usually very good and talented architect is needed for it and it has to be done really carefully. And this is not the case of my hometown. In the beautiful historical center of the town there are many buildings which are at a sight just ugly. What’s more, there are some shopping banners, too, and sometimes they even glow and have different bright colors, what is very disrupting.

When I see that and realize that there is an amazing view of theatre, castle, fountain, historical buildings and statues, and that all evoke a feeling of long history of the town, but then you look few meters away and see absolutely different type of buildings which don’t fit there in any case and suddenly the stories of people who lived in Nitra before thousands years, which came to your mind, disappear; I feel sad.

Other reason of my decision to choose this thing to change is the fact that Nitra would be even more attractive for tourists, because usually they know that this city has great history. It would also be good for people who live here when such historical places in the town remind them that Nitra is a wonderful city, not only in the present, but she was also in the past. Fortunately we have here some areas where you really feel as if you traveled back in time; a castle is one of the best examples.

History is my passion and probably it also influenced my decision, but I think my arguments were good enough to support this idea. Who knows, maybe in few years it won’t be only an idea, but reality.

Large factory near my house

If anybody said to me that a company would build a new large factory somewhere near my house I would be probably against this idea. Of course, it’s different when you just imagine such a possibility and tell your probable reaction from the situation when it is really happening.

Frankly, I don’t know if there are some advantages, I mean real advantages which would persuade me to say “yes” to a factory near my home. Naturally, there would be more opportunities for unemployed people. Then because of taxes, which the factory would pay, our region would be probably richer.

On the other hand, we almost can’t compare the number of advantages with the number of disadvantages. Probably the first disadvantage that comes to your mind is pollution – everyone knows that smoke and other rubbish produced by factories is nothing salubrious. After few years since a factory has become a part of architecture in your town, you would have to probably forget fishing in the local river, swimming would become even more impossible, and because everything in the nature is connected, I am not afraid to say that you would see much fewer animals in parks, forests or places where they used to be before a factory violated their homes. As I said before, air pollution is also nothing pleasant, as nobody wants to live somewhere where smoke is typical local aroma. What’s more we must remember that things manufactured in factories must be somehow transported to other places where they will be sold. In this case many large cars, trucks, trains, ships and other ways of transport are needed. And as a result there would be noise and hasten because of more frequent traffic-jams.

There are much more disadvantages and maybe few more advantages, but these are the main that I see most important. And that would be also my arguments when I have a chance to discuss such a thing with competent people. To sum up, I am definitely against factories in towns or near places where communities of people have their homes as home should be a place where we feel always good.

Knowledge from books vs. knowledge from experience

We can’t definitely say which knowledge - if that from books or that one gained from experience – is more important. Both are important. We can’t live only with one type of knowledge. One type of knowledge can’t exist without the other. The academic knowledge needs the practical knowledge to be complete and more complex and as well the practical knowledge needs the academic knowledge.

The best to try to solve this dilemma is to use concrete situations. First situation is school or our academic and professional life. In this case, knowledge gained from books and studying is usually more important, especially when we have an intellectual profession in office. Our practical skills are important, too, but usually we need to be knowledgeable about the stuff in theoretical way.

The second situation is everyday life; out of work, school and our professional career. In cases of this type is knowledge gained from experience more important and useful. It’s quite impossible to learn how to catch a taxi or bus from books, as well as how to shop, clean your house, etc. Practical knowledge is inevitable also for the people whose job is more practical – as carpenter, builder, driver, and so forth. But also for sportsmen and artists, where the talent is needed but sometimes practice is even more important. It’s crazy to learn singing, dancing or cycling from the book or other similar source.

I am not sure, if there is someone who can answer this question clearly. However, it’s not so important to have one opinion about the stuff as it’s impossible to circumvent one type of knowledge as we live in the society of 21^st century and attend schools and meet different people -  so we automatically learn from books and other sources of academic information as well as practical skills. And that’s the best way.

Has easier preparation of food improved the way people live?

It’s quite hard to answer this question as many aspects of the world, as we know it nowadays, have changed our lives. So it’s difficult to aim at only one of these aspects and be objective.

My opinion about this topic is that the way we prepare food these days is absolutely different from the way people prepared food hundred years ago and maybe even decades ago.

We can’t almost compare the preparation of food now with the preparation of food for example in Ancient Rome or Egypt. Someone could think that goods are the main stuff that has changed so far and are still changing. However I don’t think so. When we think about it more deeply, we found out that basic goods are almost the same goods as there were before thousand years. We are just doing from them different dishes, we have different recipes, we have modern technologies for preparing food, we also have genetically modified plants and so on.

Not only taste of food has changed. To my mind, the time we need to prepare a dish has changed the most. We don’t have to spend a whole time, or at least half of a day in a kitchen and pay attention the whole time we are cooking. We can buy ingredients in a shop that are really easy to prepare, gadgets in our kitchen help us, too, so as a result we need just a fraction of the time that needed our ancestors to prepare a good lunch.

So yes, easier preparation of food really improved the way we live – at least we have more time for other things. And people whose passion is cooking can use saved time for preparing another dish. If food of these days is more salubrious than before is another question and the answer would be probably absolutely different from the answer to previous question.  

Are parents the best teachers?

It’s quite popular to think that our parents are the best teachers in the world and they exactly know what we need and what is best for us? However, when we start to think about it more deeply, usually question “Is it true” arises. Frankly, my respond would be no.

I am aware of the fact, that parents are one of the most important people in our lives. Without them we even wouldn’t be here, but because of their fear that something bad could affect us, they see things not so objective. Of course, they teach us many things – first words, first steps, how to behave in a society and much more. They can tell us about their own experiences or mistakes, so we won’t do them like they did. But maybe these experiences and mistakes and errors in their lives are the reasons why they are so fearful when we want to try something new. They often think that they know better than us what we really want, what our dreams are and what we really need.  When we want to risk they try to do anything to persuade us that this decision is wrong.

To my mind, it’s absolutely great how they care about us, but maybe we need to make our own mistakes, risk something – it can bring us the absolute happiness, or maybe we will be disappointed but at all costs we try it and we will be satisfied that we could manage it. We can lose something but every-time, even when the result is different, as we had expected, we have some new experiences and new people in our lives.

It’s a life – try, fall, rise and believe in our dreams and fulfill them – but first of all, we must try and begin and know that our parents will be there for us and be supportive. But who knows… That’s the opinion of my generation and maybe our children will say the same things about us as we say about our parents. The future is going to show the truth.

Reasons why people attend a university

There are many reasons why people decide to go to study on a university or college. In the past was the main reason that students wanted to know more about the subject, often without any more concrete purpose – they just wanted to know about the stuff as much as possible. However it was before decades or even hundred years and the situation was the same, when we look back to ancient Rome and times when for example Cicero lived – the people studied much more years than now and they traveled far away as they wanted to visit classes of a famous teacher. The fact is that that time or before hundred years, far less people attended a university.

Nowadays it is totally different. Every clever and ambitious person attends a university or college and there are great opportunities for almost everyone. We can choose from wide range of subjects to study, places, institutions, countries, way of studying, teachers, books… And because of that, and many other things, so many people are studying on universities nowadays.

Anyway, what are the reasons of this trend? Probably the main reason is no longer to know everything about subject that we have chosen to study. To my mind, in the majority of countries, the main reason to go study on a university is the fact that if you are graduated, you are something more in the society. You can find a job much easier, you can earn more money, you will be considered as clever and successful person… Everything what I mentioned in the previous sentence is fine, but unfortunately the quality of education is threatened because of this reasons, or not directly by them but by students who see only these things – money and luxuries they could buy if they had good education, then work and they earn lot of money. As a result they often chose a subject to study which they actually don’t like, but the profession is really profitable so why not? In my opinion, it’s bad resolution as far as I am persuaded you just can’t be good at something what you don’t like. And if you want to earn a great amount of money you can’t wake up every morning and think about going to work that you abhor. But if your work is your passion, the profession doesn’t have to be so much profitable by and large, but if you will be successful, because you really care about the result of your work as you like your job, you can become richer than somebody who hates his job but his profession is considered as a profession of the rich.

To sum up, it’s good if the reason of attending a university is also the fact you really like the subject you had decided to study and the purpose is not only money. Because one of the most important things in our lives is to be happy and do what we really like.