Tag Archives: Culture

Happy Mind Happy Life Beauty Living

Westminster Abbey

In my experience I started to live in beauty only when I decided to turn off the nasty buzzers.

But what about beauty links it to happiness?

In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton weighs the feeling of walking into an “ugly” McDonalds in the Westminster area of London compared to the feeling of entering the “beautiful” Westminster Cathedral across the street. He says that because of the harsh lighting, the plastic furniture, and the cacophonous color scheme (all those bright yellows and reds), one tends to feel immediately “anxious” in the McDonalds.

What one feels in the Westminster Cathedral, however, is a calmness brought on by a series of architectural and artistic decisions: the muted colors (greys and bleak reds), the romantic yellow lighting that bursts out onto Victoria Street, the intricate mosaics, and the vaulted ceilings. Although the Westminster Cathedral has the same principle elements of architecture as the McDonald’s—windows, doors, floors, ceilings, and seats—the cathedral helps people to relax and reflect, where the fast food restaurant causes one to feel stressed and hurried.

It seems part of humans’ appreciation of beauty is because it is able to conjure the feelings we tend to associate with happiness: calmness, a connection to history or the divine, wealth, time for reflection and appreciation, and, perhaps surprisingly, hope.

“Beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it,” writes Princeton philosopher Alexander Nehamas in Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art.

wpnature.com-field-lavender-fragrance-sky-nice-summer-scent-nature-beautiful-lovely-purple-meadow-pretty-rows-phone-wallpapers-1024x640Nature is my inspiration, to love my perspiration, live in peacefulness is what we have in return, and it is up to us to decide whether it is worth.

surf be

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A tea with John Maynard Keynes

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The following conversation is based on the genuine point of view of John Maynard Keynes and about the ignorance about History that seems to pervade our leadership.

Good afternoon John, thanks for your kind invitation, truly appreciated, where’s Lydia?

Hi Emanuele, she has gone to see the backstage of a ballet , you know her old passion, but tell me what’s up in this century, I feel myself disoriented.

You remember your words John?

« The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll. »

Well profit and cash are the kings now, few are re-investing and we suffered a structural crisis of the system and unemployment rates, even worse than the Great Depression one.

Gosh Emanuele, I predicted it, was inevitable when you rely on a mass market economic system.

Correct, John but the problem is that USA and even Japan now are rallying on Miltontheory 1.

OMG, to think that I wanted to introduce again a monetary system based on gold!

:DDD John, sorry but it’s really hilarious, I remember again when you told,

«Unemployment develops […] because people want the moon; (or Mars now)—men cannot be employed when the object of desire (i.e. money) is something which cannot be produced and the demand for which cannot be readily choked off. There is no remedy but to persuade the public that green cheese is practically the same thing and to have a green cheese factory (i.e. a central bank) under public control.»

The Federal Banks are mainly or totally private now!

My dear, you’re well informed, but you’d know also in the case what I told to the people who criticize me on the applicability of my models in the long term, … « In the long run we are all dead. »2 … but taste your tea now or you’ll miss the fragrance of these leaves that a friend from the India Office sent me.

Really sweet-smelling and delicate John, send my compliments to him, also these biscuits are delicious, and can let me forgive for a while the bitter taste of a world without ideals and ideas, it’s a sort of frustration sometime.

Ideas shape the course of History Emanuele, don’t be discouraged and too much practical, remember:

«Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.»

Let fly the soul of the genius who’s in every human kind, learn how to inspire happiness and we’ll do rest, by the way we’re not lived for nothing.

You’re right John, at the end this crisis is simply caused to the fact that the Capitalism has reached his scope and goal, we are in the most of the case, or we could, when we would, in abundance of products, and this system need to be re-engineered; Many people of good will and sense is talking about the sharing economy, new models to intend the productivity, in a few words how to be happy, therefore we’re still on time to build a better world when we’ll win.

Emanuele, A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind, and never forget that nothing matter except states of mind, chiefly our own.

Thanks John, rest in peace, I’ll mind out, and forward my regards also to Cicerone as soon as you meet him, I’ve made one of his motto as mine,<<Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis>>(Cicerone, De Oratore, II, 9, 36)

OK Emanuele but we’ve another sort of intending the time and the economy here, but you’re not ready for that, never mind, I’ll do it, take care my friend!

Why did the Keynesian theory didn’t work?  Government spend too much money on post-WWII events. (Examples: Vietnam war, sending the first man to the moon)  The Keynesian solution stopped working  Unemployment became worst  It created Inflation 

In conclusion Keynesian theories work best on economics catastrophes like today’s events

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946)

The greatest economic thinker of the 20th century, Keynes (a Liberal incidentally) challenged fundamentally the idea that market economies will automatically adjust to create full employment. After working at the Treasury during World War I, he was its chief representative at the post-war Paris peace conference, but resigned in protest at the harshness of the planned reparations. In the Twenties he developed radical plans for dealing with unemployment through deficit financing and state intervention. His insistence on the central role that uncertainty plays in economic decisions foreshadows much of the current interest in behavioural economics. While his basic economic framework – in which short-term economic growth (and employment) depends on ‘aggregate demand’ (consumption, investment and net exports) is built into many of our forecasting models today. Later on, he participated in the Bretton Woods conference (which looked at how to establish a post-war monetary system that would avoid further economic crises) that led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Admittedly, he went out of fashion in recent decades when inflation was a bigger worry than unemployment. However, the present crisis has led to something of a revival in Keynesian thinking, and his insights into how international imbalances should be tackled remain highly relevant.

  1. Milton Friedman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
  2. A Tract on Monetary Reform, chapter 3, 1923

Images in this post are considered to be in the public domain since found on the web and media therefore supposed to be copyright-free images – it’s not intended from the author of the post to violate any copyright right infringement laws, or to offend anyone; in the case you advise a violation, would you advise me and I’ll promptly remove them. The post it’s also an expression of my personal opinion, and do not intend as well to have any commercial purpose.

The XXI Century Renaissance

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Knowledge has is origin in our perception used to say Leonardo da Vinci, and a new awareness is shyly facing into the developed world, where the conjunction of metaphysic with mathematic is opening the doors of a new Renaissance.

Kalos kagathos (Ancient Greek καλὸς κἀγαθός [kalos kaːɡatʰǒs]), of which kalokagathia (καλοκαγαθία) is the derived noun, is a phrase used by classical Greek writers to describe an ideal of personal conduct, especially in a military context. Its use is attested since Herodotus and the classical period.

The phrase is adjectival, composed of two adjectives, καλός (“beautiful”) and ἀγαθός (“good” or “virtuous”), the second of which is combined by crasis with καί “and” to form κἀγαθός. Werner Jaeger summarizes it as ”the chivalrous ideal of the complete human personality, harmonious in mind and body, foursquare in battle and speech, song and action”.

In my youth I remained dazzled the first time I saw the Botticelli’s Venus, maybe one of the reason why I’ve decided to make Beauty my center of gravity in the future years, and shells one of my business in life.

But the Renaissance has his origin in the genuine Chivalry , Chivalry refers to the lifestyle and moral code followed by medieval knights. It takes its name from chevalier, the French word for knight. Chivalry included the values of honor, valor, courtesy, and purity, as well as loyalty to a lord, a cause, or a noblewoman.

Its basis was a blend of military, social, and Christian ethics. Although chivalry began as a code of conduct for medieval warriors, it adapted to the changing social conditions of the Renaissance.

Handbooks from the 1200s laid out the rules of behavior for knights, and pageants and tournaments celebrated chivalric honor. Because knights were part of the culture of feudal courts, their behavior inspired terms such as courtly, courtship, and courtesy, a cool trend, powered from Women and remained popular in the late Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance. Wealthy Renaissance nobles continued to promote military traditions and to show off their strength in tournaments and in war. However, unlike knights of the Middle Ages, who often acted on their own, they tended to form knightly orders and brotherhoods supported by the ruling government. By 1469 such orders had formed in almost every major court in Europe.

As often happens in history and hopefully in the now to come New Renaissance Women are the key to change and capable to make the difference.

The first—and greatest—of the French romances was The Song of Roland (1098), which tells the story of Roland, a brave warrior who died protecting the French army. However, the most influential chivalric romance was the story of the Welsh king Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. This legend developed from the writings of the French author Chrétien de Troyes. It includes such familiar characters as Lancelot, Guinevere, Percival, and Sir Gawain.

The tales of Arthur’s knights provided a pattern of action that appears in most romances. First, a knight sets out on a quest: he must save a lady, right a wrong, complete a task, slay a dragon, break a spell, or find the way to heaven. Along the way he has adventures that test his strength, and he must behave according to a code of conduct. Sometimes he is strong enough, but his luck (or Fortune) may be bad. Good knights try to do the right thing, but they often find themselves in difficult situations. The plots of chivalric romances include many common elements, such as jousts, tournaments, strange customs, giants, enchantments, and flying horses. Some critics argue that readers can interpret these elements as symbols that have moral meanings.

During the 1300s and 1400s, medieval French romances were expanded, altered, and translated into English, Spanish, and Italian.

Italy was home to the most popular romances during the Renaissance. There, writers combined the romance of chivalry with the epic*. Italian poet Ludovico ARIOSTO’s Orlando Furioso (Mad Roland, 1516) is particularly notable because its narrator is both self-conscious and mocking. Orlando Furioso had enormous influence on Renaissance literature and literary criticism. The story was so popular that it touched off an explosion of romances based on its minor characters. Jerusalem Delivered (1580), by poet Torquato TASSO, is the other Italian masterpiece of the 1500s.

During the years of discovery and conquest in North America in the late 1500s, Spain saw a vast outpouring of chivalric romances. By 1575, more romances were translated from Spanish than from French. Spain’s Miguel de CERVANTES wrote one of the most enduring works inspired by the code of chivalry, Don Quixote (1605). It tells the story of a gentleman from La Mancha whose mind has been seriously affected by reading romances.

In England, chivalric romances were the most popular form of fiction after the introduction of printing. In 1485 William Caxton, the first English printer, printed Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (The Death of Arthur), a version of the King Arthur legend. English poets of the late 1500s, such as Philip SIDNEY and Edmund SPENSER, created works inspired by the romance tradition.

The tradition of chivalry did not survive the changing political climate of Europe following the Renaissance.

Materialism and self-interest soon replaced the knightly code of honor. The values of old nobility gave way to the democracies of France and America and to the Industrial Revolution that now is facing his limits and paradoxes.

That’s why I see in words as Sustainability an invigorating trend of a new reason of interpreting Virtue and Beauty that Women consciousness before all is claiming.

Phenomena like Madonna or Lady Gaga are outdated, and remain alive just in the style of ‘’villains’’.

On the contrary, still timidly but forcefully testimonials like Suzy Amis Cameron, Livia Firth, Charlotte Casiraghi, Laura Bailey, Samata Angel, Baroness Lola Young, Kirsten Dukes and many others are facing the Red and the Green Carpet of Fashion and Lifestyle, but also male trendsetters like Nik Thakkar, Oskar Metsavaht, and why not me 😉

A better world is coming up…stay tuned 😉

Images in this post are considered to be in the public domain since found on the web and media therefore supposed to be copyright-free images – it’s not intended from the author of the post to violate any copyright right infringement laws, or to offend anyone; in the case you advise a violation, would you advise me and I’ll promptly remove them. The post it’s also an expression of my personal opinion, and do not intend as well to have any commercial purpose.