On holidays April 30, 2009

Hi everybody,

I am on holidays abroad and will not be posting for 5 days. Hope to bring you fresh photos and impressions from…one beautiful country 🙂

In case you will miss me a bit, there is one photo of me which I never posted before (from my last holidays):

LOVE, axinia

Personality tests April 28, 2009

 (image by me)

My two favorite personality tests are Mayers-Briggs -Typindicator and Multiple Intelligence Test. Based on my expeirence, these two are able to give a realtively clear and information-rich personality snap, especially what the social life /work is concerned.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. These preferences were extrapolated from the typological theories originated by Carl Gustav Jung, as published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (1923). The original developers of the personality inventory were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. They began creating the indicator during World War II, believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be “most comfortable and effective”. The initial questionnaire grew into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was first published in 1962. The MBTI focuses on normal populations and emphasizes the value of naturally occurring differences.

I first heard of this test from the INSEAD  Business School Professor who told me that the test is being widely used in the USA especially in work-related matters. Interstingly, I have found some evidence that despite being one of the favorite test in American business schools, the test has been mistrusted by scholars. Skeptics criticize the terminology of the MBTI as being so “vague and general” as to allow any kind of behavior to fit any personality type. They claim that this results in the Forer effect, where individuals give a high rating to a positive description that supposedly applies specifically to them. On the other hand, some theorists, such as David Keirsey, have expanded on the MBTI descriptions, providing even greater detail. For instance, Keirsey’s descriptions of his four temperaments, which he derived from the sixteen MBTI personality types, show how the temperaments differ in terms of language use, intellectual orientation, educational and vocational interests, social orientation, self image, personal values, social roles, and characteristic hand gestures.

Whatever it is, I was using this test at my work for the staff assessment and found it very helpful. For those who know me in person or for a longer time throught my blogging: you can see about the correctness of this test by my results below or by testing your personality here. NOTE: I did some similar tests and got the same result everywhere!

The downside of having many friends around the world April 27, 2009

 (image by me)

I love friends. Friends are fabulous, great, gorgeous and absolutely necessary.

I make frieds pretty fast and for me tt is often sufficient to have a sincere talk once to become friends forever.

However there is a small unpleasant problem in having friends in many different places – the physical separation. When I meet a good friend, the time flies so fast and it feels like there are millions of thing we want to do, to discuss, to experience together… And then for some obvious reason (leaving for another country, end of holidays, moving homes) we have to part…that feels horrible!

A walk in the Vienna Zoo April 25, 2009

The Vienna Zoo is said to be the oldest one in the world (opened in 1752) and, probably the most beautiful.

We thought you might enjoy the snaps from our walk in the zoo today – animals are beautiful, innocent and so joy-giving!

LOVE; axinia&vladimir

The “Sixth Sense” is easily available for everyone – use your hands and get fascinating access to information April 23, 2009

My friend Sahaja posted an amazing TED video on some technology that acts like the “sixth sense” here;  I would like to repost it but with a bit different comment.

The video introduces the sixth sense wearable device and explains that it’s been cobbled together from easily sourced tech that totals $350. It combines a camera, projector and mirror. You also need to wear colour markers on your fingers for that full “Minority Report” effect. In the demonstration, PranavMisty wears the device and demonstrates how the coloured markers on his fingers are seen and interpreted by the device in different ways, depending on which application was running. He demonstrates navigating a map projected into a wall using hand gestures, or making the classic “picture frame” gesture takes a picture, he can draw a watch onto his wrist or scan an airline ticket to see if the flight is on time or check out the quality of a paper in a shop. Just see for yourself:

This seems to be great for those who wish to consciously access information from our physical world. And the number of such people is huge, I guess – the resonance in the world blogosphere is tremendous and everyone is delighted…

However I was not fascinated as such, because it is something I successfully “posess” since years and  for me it has become a regular day-to-day experience:

Human faces April 20, 2009

People’s faces… it is one of the most fascinating things in the world – one nose, two yes, one mouth and such unlimited variations of them!…

When I am in a crowd I love to watch people’s faces and enjoy the beauty of diversity. Turly amazing, how much they differ and how endlessly human they are…

Here are some faces I have photographed over last year:

  

  

   

   

 

I wonder if you feel the same about it?

 

LOVE, axinia

The vision of beauty and the purpose of life April 17, 2009

 

Man in his innermost is seeking for happiness, for beauty, for harmony; and yet, by not responding to the beauty and harmony which is before him, he wastes his life, which is an opportunity for him to experience and to enjoy. What self-denial is it to deny the divine beauty which is before us? If we deny ourselves the divine  beauty  which  surrounds us, then the beauty which is within will not unfold itself. Because the condition is that the soul is born with its eyes open outwardly; it does not see the life within. The only way of wakening to the life within, which is most beautiful, is first to respond to the beauty outside. This world with all its unlimited beauty, nature with its sublimity, personalities with divine immanence, if we ignore all this then why have we come, and what have we accomplished here? The person who ignores it turns his back on something which he is continually seeking for. He is his own enemy. By this way he cannot be spiritual, he cannot be religious; by denying himself all that is beautiful around him he cannot be exalted. For if beauty within was the only purpose of life, God would not have created man and sent him on earth.

Besides this, it is the vision of the beauty on the earth which awakens the vision of the beauty which is in the spirit. Some say that it is sensuous and that it deprives one of spiritual illumination. It would, if a person were to be wholly absorbed in it and were to live only in it, and did not think that there was something else besides. Because the beauty which is outside no doubt has a transitory character; it is passing and therefore it is not dependable. For the one who depends upon this beauty and has become absorbed in it and by doing so has turned his back on that beauty which is everlasting, for that person this is certainly wrong. But at the same time, no soul has ever arrived at beholding the vision of the spiritual beauty which is to be found within, without being awakened to the beauty which is external.

One might think that a child who dies very young cannot come to that spirituality through the beauty of life. I will say that the child is sometimes more responsive to beauty than a grown-up person, because a grown-up person has developed in himself a pessimistic attitude, a prejudice; and by that prejudice he is incapable of seeing that beauty which a little child can see and appreciate. For instance, when we look at a person we make a barrier of our preconceived idea before we look at him. A child, an angel on earth, looks at him as it would look at its best friend. It has no enmity, no preconceived idea about anyone, and therefore the child is open to beauty. A child does not know that the fire burns; the child only knows that the fire is beautiful. And therefore the child is so blessed that every moment of its life it lives in a complete vision of beauty.

The illusion of projects April 15, 2009

(image by me)

Project is one of the main form of today’s collaboration. I guess almost everyone has been participating at least in one project, at work or as a volunteer. Projects are fascinating because they have a powerful creative element as well as a great team feeling. Generally people like to be involved in projects, although there might be  1000 underwater stones and problems.

I have been working on projects of all kinds  since 10 years, and I turned to be a good project manager mainly because I knew whom and how to involve. Over these years I have experienced and realised quite a number of things regarding working in projects and I thought of sharing some thoughts with you here.

The biggest secret about a project is that it is NOT about achieving a result, although people totally fall into the trap of this illusion. Obviously any project starts in order to bring some change into life, to improve something or just to create a joyful happening… Whatever it is, try to keep in mind that it is not the aim of the whole thing. But that is really the biggest trick about it all: project participants concentrate on “doing” and often start “hating” each other because obviously everyone has a different working style and when the deadline burns, the nervousness grows… So if achieving the project goal is not the real aim, then what is the goal you may ask me?

Yes, the real aim (again, this is my personal experience based conclusion) – is to learn how to lovingly collaborate with each other, to grow together in overcoming difficulties, to develop the collective body and simply – to evolve in it. When the project is over, people are of cause happy about the results (which are mostly successful), but they are even more happy about having worked and learned with each other!! That is a big surprise at the end, but unfortunately it is something that becomes easily forgotten when a new project starts and again the pressure of achieving some goal makes everyone angry.

The taste of affection April 14, 2009

 (image by me)

I wonder if our favorite food represents in a way our character? – It would be logical, as everything we prefer somehow represents us 🙂

I suddenly  realised that most of the food I like has the same kind of structure -it is very soft and oft puree-like: potato puree, mango-lassie, zefir, fruit-puree, sponge-cake, souffle, etc.

All these products remind me of tenderness and affection, which I value the most in myself and in relationships…

 

Can you find a correlations with your favorite foods and character features?

LOVE, axinia

Learning from flowers April 11, 2009

 (image by axinia)

I met a florist lady who told me the one interesting observation of hers.

Flowers for sale are being picked up at their baby-stage, as buds.

They they are being treated with chemicals for the transportation.

Then they fly over the ocean from Latin America to Europe, being pressed in boxes.

Then they have to wait till the best price will be given for them at the auction – to be again several times transported to their final destination.

The whole time form the pick up till the final sale they are not allowed to bloom, and have to be kept in a hard condition.

And finally, when the flowers land at our warm homes, they open up and give and give and give their fragrance, beauty and joy to everyone! How much power of life and love they posses that after all that treatments they still make people happy!..

I just thought this might be a nice story to tell, because of the obvious comaprission with human being: people with beautiful souls are often compered to flowers – even if they suffer a lot, their power of love is still there to spread beauty and joy around!

And I strongly believe that everyone is such a flower.

LOVE,

axinia