“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”

Blaise Pascal

p.s. that is - great minds are there looking for a different perspective to look at an ordinary thing.

It's PoliTo

I love the university I study at - PoliTo. But just like in any other institution, my university has some organizational inconsistencies which lead to some funny absurdities. Here are some you may enjoy.

Because of scheduling issues, some professors rush through the course like mad while others are chill like a cube of ice:
One wizards away a behemoth integral equation and - “Students, I am not solving it. It doesn’t make sense to waste our time with such integrations.”
The other writes a simple x,y equation and - “I am doing you the ARITHMETICS, because you tend to make mistakes there.” and the guy goes on adding and multiplying.

Due to the courseload, some professors take us for Einstein-level geniuses, while others treat us as kindergarteners:
One - “The divergence of a field over an object’s volume gives the flux of the field over the surface of that object. I am not drawing it - it’s quite easy to imagine”.
The other - “Refreshing cycle is like janitors cleaning public toilets” and literally draws a public toilet with 3 stick janitors cleaning it.

And the general rule on number of course credits: You take an 8-credit course with barely 20-page notes and you have no exercises. You just do the exam straightaway.
At the same time you take a 4-credit course and take 40-page notes, and still - many days of exercise solving is waiting for you in ambush. Crazy.

Looking back, they have become funny memories for me, but at the time it was so painful to digest it all.

I don’t know how a person intentionally changes to a better version. However, if you pretend to be a person, deep inside, you are not - it backfires. Your shadow self that you try so hard to suppress grows ever stronger. Then - it finally breaks your jails. Then - it may be late.

Better be genuine - better acknowledge yourself.

G’azoliklardan o’rganganlarim!

Bir necha oy oldin shu maqolani o'qib qolgan edim. Unda Falastinlik bir qiz urush vaqtida akasidan ayrilgani haqida yozgan. O'qib ancha ta'sirlangan edim. Chunki yangiliklarda 20 ming, 30 ming, 40 mingta odam o'ldirildi deb eshitsak biz uchun bu raqamlar hech narsani anglatmaydi, lekin o'sha 40 mingta inson orasidan 1 donasi ichidan o'tgan kechinmalari haqida chuqurroq o'rgansak u qattiq ta'sir qiladi. Lekin bari bir, bu maqolani o'qiganmida bu bo'layotgan hodisalar mendan minglab kilometrlar uzoqda ekanligini his qilar edim. Lekin ishonasizlarmi yo'qmi, bir necha kun avval shu maqolani yozgan Falastinlik qiz bilan uchrashib qoldim!

To’liq o’qish.

In Uzbekistan, the fundamental unit of a society is meant to be the family. But it really bothers me how scarce is the rigorous science and research on this unit. Looking at the science behind relationships (like this TedTalk), you can see how deep our wounds…

"Because we are morally superior to them."

Have you ever thought of these questions?
- Why don't we have frequent wars the way people used to have in the past? Why did people regard those wars as more normal than the way we do now?
or
- Why have we completely eliminated slavery and see it as absolutely unacceptable, while, factually, nobody really did the same in the past?

The easiest and the most alluring thought to come to our minds is - because we are morally superior to them. But - this is utterly naive way of looking at the things. Just consider these facts:
- It was in the 18th century onwards that Industrial Revolution took off and people started making profits without going to war and having slaves.
- Average modern person - thanks to technology - has the power that could be obtained in the old times only by the means of 5 to 50 slaves.
- Loosely, for creativity and commitment reasons, it became more profitable to make free people work in factories rather than constantly coerce slaves to do the same.
- Waging a war was a source of revenue for people who had nothing but physical strength. That was basically every living person in the past considering that the physically weak used to die early due to medical conditions.
- Due to advancements in military technology, it became astronomically expensive to wage a war without suffering devastating economic backfire. (Remember the pictures of post-WWII Germany and the overall brain-drain in Europe)

Summing up all these facts, you start wondering - didn't we become so "morally upright" just because it was an economically better option? How would we act if this was not the case?

*p.s. I personally fear the days when we will have burnt down all the oil and we cannot enjoy the same technology we do now. Especially, if we will have the feelings of moral superiority, it is gonna look much more scary.

- You are telling me that God who controls all these universes cares about whether I do the right thing, while I am in a tiny corner of a small galaxy - on top of a tiiiny planet?
- Yes I am telling you that God - who controls 1000...[27 times]...00 orders of atoms and all protons, electrons, photons inside you - cares about whether you act accordingly. And while all these particles don't dare to violate His wills to the smallest degree, your arrogance is letting you know no borders.