Do not cross the private/professional border - there's none anymore !

The young spending more and more time on social networks; enterprises hiring (or at least screening profiles) on Facebook and urged to implement web 2.0 tools to leverage on their employees' knowledge and clients' feedback... it looks like the border line between private and professional lives is fading.

Is it still relevant to split our personality into 2 clearly separated parts? Is there really a 'private me' and a 'professional me'? Should we be afraid of being tagged on the picture of an animated party, because a potential employer might see it and suddenly realize we can also have fun? (of course, employers never have fun themselves...) In fact there is no contradiction between working seriously & efficiently, and making crazy things from time to time. That's human. That's normal. So, why hide anyway?

Technology is rapidly changing our dual world, and soon we'll no longer hear about this artificial border between 'private' and 'professional'. There's only one 'me'. For the worst maybe, and surely for the best.

World citizen

Do borders make any sense? (I mean, those on geographical maps?) How long will it be before they disappear?

Some have forgotten those lines long ago; others will regret them long after books or the Internet have stopped indicating them. But today one thing is for sure: E.T., coming close too earth in his space shuttle, could not see them through his window. Probably, after someone has told him about borders, those artificial lines drawn on the surface of this little blue globe, E.T. would shake his head and wonder "How come they invented those lines? What's the point?"

Here's where we should explain a few concepts, like People, Nation, Sovereignty, Taste for absolut power, etc. But we should also tell him that History is hopefully heading the right way. With 2 dynamics a priori contradictory: 1/ more regional initiatives (to address local issues), and 2/ globalization of all kinds of exchanges (all due in fine to the fact that a man is a man, wherever he is on this little blue sphere).

Of course, there is no contradiction between those 2 phenomenons. Regionalization is pretty natural, considering that we are beings with 2 legs of 1m each, even though with cars running at 50 mph. Internet makes things easier, faster; still, who can surely bet that it will erease all kinds of feelings of belonging to a local culture? Concerning the broadening and opening of borders and supra-national organizations, this phenomenon is obviously at work - and its only possible limit is the whole surface of Earth, where West becomes East and North becomes South.

Conclusion: national borders are a transient invention of mankind, and are doomed to disappear sooner or later. E.T. can be reassured.

Yes to Indian optimism!

We're so acustomed to it, we don't even notice it anymore: we keep complaining all the time.

(Well, at least in my country - but that's true on CNN as well). Unemployment, security, education, health... on all topics, we're always looking at new or old things that are negative, and lengthily discuss them again and again.

A lesson comes from India.

Again hit by terrorism at the Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay, we heard of this one more than usual because the scale is bigger and western tourists were hit. But on the day of the attack, a friend of us living "about 500 meters from the TAJ" sent us an email: "I have heard bomb blasts & gun shots and the most eerie thing has been bats swirling outside my window all through the night." But "we are resilient people, living through terror on a daily basis. We will not succumb to economic terrorism and I hear Tata has already said he will have a new signature hotel built in 6 months." [Rajat if you read this, I hope you don't mind me quoting you].

And yesterday night, the owner of a blasted restaurant reopened it as quickly as possible, saying too that they would not let the terrorists claim they have won; instead, "we [the peaceful and resilient guys] have won".

So please, western media: give the biggest slice of the publication pie to the optimistics.

Oh, by the way: Rajat was in New York on September 11, 2001.

NO to SPECULATION in the world of ARTS

Times are changing: some investors having paid obscene amounts of money for a piece of art can not sell it for a still higher price anymore; the market is shrinking!
(Well, even if that's only temporary, let's contemplate the situation.)

Good!

Art belongs to mankind, and should not be monetized. Art is not meant to be useful, but only to generate emotions to the public. There's no room for Money here.

Fine; now I can hear your criticism: "Then how does the artist make a living? Do you mean we should kill Art?" No! Of course not, this is not the point. There IS a solution to this dilemma: the artist should be paid the first time he sells his creation, so that s/he can indeed make a living out of it. At this stage, we can say that the buyer follows his emotions, rather than speculative goals, even if the action of buying does give a measure of those emotions on the big scale of Money (sic).

BUT THEN it should not be possible to sell this creation a second time following speculative goals.