Social Masks

This is a term which is following me through the last days. Why do we all wear them? What is it that stops us from being authentic? We don't even see them as masks anymore. It's something completely normal. I was thinking a lot about this in the last time. My personal conclusion was that being authentic is the source of personal beauty and the source of beautiful relationships. Still we are playing roles. At least the bigger part of us. We are a certain person in one situation and in another we are totally different. We see those masks everywhere. Imagine a person passes you by. A person that you know from somewhere. Let's say from a lecture. Or you have written a paper for university together for example. Still. Sometimes (very often) it happens that this person doesn't greet you. Doesn't even smile at you. Heck doesn't even look at you. Pretending not to be seeing you. This seems to be something completely normal at least where I live right now. Pretending to be something else is a social mask. I have done it as well. You surely too. Why do we do it?
For myself I had the feeling that I'm not wearing a mask for quite some time now. To be honest I feel good about myself. I don't care what people think about me. I know who I am, what I'm good at and what I'm not so good at. Today something weird happened though. I had a short presentation in front of my class to invite the people to a project of my LC. It was surely not my first attempt in public speaking. Done it a lot. So I should know how to do it by now. Today I wasn't prepared at all (I should know better...) and then I looked at the faces. And I had a complete blackout. I totally forgot what I wanted to say. So I started talking without any structure, repeating myself constantly, missing all the key points and making every stupid mistake one could possibly do. It felt embarrassing. I asked myself if maybe I hadn't done more harm than good with this presentation. After the presentation I felt this terrible insecurity. Like I'm in the middle of my puberty again. I had forgotten this feeling. What happened afterwards? I immediately put on my social mask. During the brake I was smoking my cigarette in a really "cool" manner. Alone. Didn't want to see anybody. Pretended that I don't need to see anybody because I'm so damn cool. WTF? Apparantly I put on a social mask when I feel insecurity.
But why did this pattern show? Could I avoid this by preparing better? What about the people wearing masks all the time? Are they feeling insecure? What is the source of this insecurity? Is it biological, personal, social? Is it possible that my mask was that I'm not wearing a mask? Ok this is getting way to much...
Learning point: Authenticity is not something you find at some point and can keep forever. Authenticity needs to be taken care of. Let's forget all those irrelevant questions from above then. My only question would be: How can we nurture and cultivate our own Authenticity?

Labels: questions

posted by Yavor @ 4:14 PM
8 comments

All Is One

Ok some days since I'm back home. I keep on asking myself questions...

I was driving on the highway. Speed limit 80Km/h. So I drive with only 80Km/h. This guy behind me gets really angry. He starts to push and push and then he snakes me making a sign with his hand giving me to understand that he thinks that I'm crazy... At this very moment I was his own personal enemy. Frankly I don't really care what people think about me but this made me a bit sad. I asked myself "why". What is his problem and why does he waste energy on making signs with his hands and cursing around. As this would change the world and make it a better place...
Consider that I just spend a whole week with 130 people from over 60 countries. I worked in a team of 13 people from over 14 nationalities. We performed pretty good I might say. No hatred whatsoever. Just understanding. Even without words. Why aren't we able to understand each other and to share in the real world. This common understanding that I'm talking about at the conference was not a product of the environment. I believe that we have this beauty inside of us. We exist because of it. But it showed because of the environment. Why does it show only in certain environments then? How can we create such environments for everybody? Not just for 130 people? What does it take? What has to be done?

Why is this wombat cleverer than us?

Labels: questions, random, updates

posted by Yavor @ 2:08 PM
2 comments

„A breath of fresh air“ – ITC 2007

And that is really what it was. A breath of fresh air. Last week I spent in Rumania in Bucharest and Mamaia on the International Trainers Congress 2007. I'm back now in my own reality physically. Mentally not quite yet. I will never forget this thanks to all the beautiful people I met. Thank you all. You know who you are. Now it's bring-back-time…

Unfortunately I didn't meet any nomad bloggers there. At least I don't know. So: Nomads from ITC 2007 show yourselves here if you exist.

Here are some pics and movies.

You can find more of my pics here.

Bebot

Labels: travel, updates

posted by Yavor @ 7:27 PM
8 comments

End of Chapter VI

What will happen in the next episode:
Yavor will finish his studies at last. Then he will have some important decisions to take: should he start work in a big multinational company, should he build up something by himself or will he just leave everything behind and open his own bar at some beautiful beach? Will he start family planning? And where is his future going to take him? To a nice and cozy chalet in the swiss Alps or to other exotic places and people? Will he succeed in his ambition to make the world just a little bit better? And will he kick-start his musical career?

Stay tuned to find out more.

posted by Yavor @ 9:23 AM
4 comments

Role Model

As I quickly mentioned in the previous post last Friday I went to the graduation of my brother. He's one year older than me and finished his studies in history. In the same time he's studying law in Bulgaria and will receive his degree there this autumn… His thesis received the best possible grade.

Now he is "Lic. Phil. Hist. Vassil Vassilev". Sounds impressive, doesn't it? If he continues his academic career like this he will soon be "Dr. Vassil Vassilev".

I'm still far from graduating (1 year I hope…) but I can't imagine receiving the best possible grade for my thesis. I don't even know yet what I want to write about. Time will tell. This year there are important decisions to be made and some interesting developments in the pipe-line for me. Anyway this post is not about me. It's about my brother. Did I mention that he's writing a science-fiction novel as well? You can visit the "Atmo-teaser-blog" about his book here.

Tada

posted by Yavor @ 12:25 PM
2 comments

My Humps

I'm not a huge fan of Alanis Morisette. I mean I quite like some of her tracks and I totally appreciate her musicality. I'm just no fan. But this "cover" of Fergie's "My humps" is fabulous. Something like this was needed for a long time.

posted by Yavor @ 12:14 PM
6 comments

NUM3ERS

Last Week:

- Worked 20 hours
- Visited aprox. 12 hours of lectures
- Spend more than 10 hours in 5 meetings
- Drowe more than 300km
- Moved and fixed 1 PC
- Moved over 20m of cable
- Diagnosed 1 dead Hard Disc
- Visited 4 Workshops
- Moved and installed 1 TV, 1 DVD-player, 10 boxes and 2 Subwoofer
- Finnished one paper about civil war in Africa
- Written a 12 Page paper about labour unions in France and Sweden.
- Went to the graduation of my brother
- Shot 34 Pictures
- Ate chinese 1 time
- Party - 1
- Played 5 hours Test Drive Unlimited (bought 5 cars)
- Written 26 E-Mails
- Neglected 1 girlfriend

posted by Yavor @ 10:49 AM
2 comments