I want to write a post, I promised
myself to do it today and I can not find a subject that would interest me and
consequently my potential readers. If I do not find a subject that I am
interested in, I will write about whatever it may be in a wooden type of a
manner. This would not be good at all. At the same time my self-respect and
self-esteem rest on six pillars according to Nathaniel Branden. One of the
pillars is the practice of living purposefully. In my case it is to be aligned
with my goal of passing knowledge and experience through writing and coaching.
Writing systematically in this blog is a part of it. It is my exercises in
writing. Since today is Monday and this is a small New Beginning, I want to
keep promises I gave to myself this morning.
So, here it goes…
The last few days were very
interesting and full of new thoughts and experiences. I had a young visitor, my
nephew, who stayed with me few days. It is interesting and stimulating to
observe and talk to someone who is at such a different stage of life. He has great
plans for life and is passionate about chemistry. His studies revolve around
developing a substance that may be helpful for people suffering from
Alzheimer’s. It seems that chemistry may be fascinating. It was not a subject
that made me excited when I was at school or at uni. I now realized that the
science of chemistry can have many interesting applications if put in service
of humanity. I also have realized that good young chemists may use the science
in not too much scientific ways and have a lot of fun with it.
So we talked a lot, walked, watched
movies, cooked, tried new beer and wine, exchanged experiences regarding heart
palpitations… It was quite a bag of different subjects and activities and it
was fun.
Times and ways of young people
obviously changed since I was 22, the age my nephew is now. I like the young
people of today a lot. Their way of thinking is so different to that I can
recall from the past. They live in a different world, of course. The internet
and other technologies shrank the distances, things are instantaneous, one can
organize the whole summer holiday sitting in the kitchen and drinking tea with
an aunt. And the aunt may even not be aware of what is happening in the background
during a seemingly uninterrupted conversation.
Interest in cooking spread across
the world. Australia has its My Kitchen Rules and Master Chef cooking competition programs,
I promise myself not too watch them any more but so far unsuccessfully. The
competitors are mainly young people and they have very good cooking knowledge. Their techniques improve with the program
duration and are quite sophisticated. My young nephew and his even younger
brother are very interested in cooking and quite often cook family meals. The
roles have reversed. I love it! I had an opportunity to savor a great salmon cooked
by Piotr. It was marinated and then cooked in a pesto made of basil, mint, limes, pine
nuts, peanuts and honey. Fantastic!
That is what this perfect dish looked like. It was accompanied by Hasselback potatoes a Swedish way of preparing spads. |
During my sojourn in Poland , I will have some more opportunities to meet young people.
I am looking forward to it.
Your time with your nephew sounds fun. Ditto the pesto.
ReplyDeleteOne of the difficulties of getting older is that you can lose touch with the young.That can freeze you in time. You don't necessarily want to join in, I really cannot get strongly involved in the latest computer games!, but its still nice to span.
I agree that you do not want to join 100%, but you do not want to follow anyone 100%. I realised that I have been locked in my own ways for too long.
ReplyDeleteThe pesto was really nice, I will reproduce it in my own cooking.
With busy lives, it does get increasingly difficult fot the young to give as much time to the old as the latter would like and the experience that you had and which sounds so much fun, is something that I long for with my nephews and nieces for being too short lived whenever they do happen. I however make up for that by spending time with the older members of the family whenever I can.
ReplyDeleteReading your blog, I get an impression that you have wonderful and frequent contacts with young people. I was actually taking a leaf from your book.
ReplyDelete