- Travelled to 9 countries: Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, Turkey, Hong-Kong, Macau, Sri-Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan
- Sports: doing crossfit , occasional wake-boarding, went to mountains for snowboarding, cycled 50 KM on a desert cycle track
- Paraglided twice: in snowy mountains and in a green summer mountains
- Purchased my first car
- Spent night in Liwa desert
- Lived on a sailboat for 9 days
- Wrestled with human-sized ocean waves
- Fractured a thumb and healed it back
- Learned to drive a motorboat and steer a 50ft sailboat while sailing (not on motor)
- Saw black and red pandas
- Re-certified in Cisco, failed to certify in PMP, let Juniper certification expire
- Survived my 4th year in the desert and 7th year abroad
- Swam 600m to a remote private island, invaded it, retreated back by the sea
- Walked up to the top of Victoria peak
- Drove on the German speed-limitless autobahn. I did 180KM/h which is so far my record.
- Celebrated my 31st birthday in Hong Kong while listening to Tatu
- Visited 4 tallest skyscrapers observation decks
Diary (EN)
My 2018
Tiamat’s cultural postulate #1
There is a saying by Arthur Clarke: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Contrary to that, I postulate
Any sufficiently advanced culture is indistinguishable from madness
The idea behind is that a common person perceives other person’s social behaviour as normal only if it resembles his behaviour. and deviation is perceived as weirdness. Moreover, and significantly advanced deviation, caused by complex cultural behaviour is upgraded from weird to crazy.
Cultural trait of accepting any deviation from observer’s culture is very rare, it exists in a few cultures and few personalities. Moreover, acceptance seems to be forced in a human mind each time weirdness is encountered, because social acceptance is part of animalistic social habits of human mind we can control only with will. Naturally, human mind evaluates every person’s behaviour on account of belonging or not belonging to the observer’s group. When deviation is noticed, a mind labels the deviant as outsider or potential enemy.
With no having acceptance hardcoded in our brains, default reaction for deviant behaviour is mostly labeled as stupid, inferior, hostile depending on actual cultural differences. Only culturally matured, intelligent and will-powered minority possess the ability to accept deviant habits of others.