I like the concept of mindfulness (you may see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness). Mindfulness is a great thing to practice for the personal growth and spiritual development. Another term for mindfulness is Vipassana meditation (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassanā). Anybody could practice Vipassana meditation or mindfulness while walking, talking, doing any physical exercise or mental activity. The important thing is to be aware of what is going on in your mind and body, to become conscious of what you are doing.

I’ve just returned from a small walk around my house. That was a nice experience indeed. But I felt some pain in my back and that is why I was little upset. On the other hand I realized that pain is a powerful tool of mindfulness. So due to the pain I have experienced mindfulness, and I did one more step in understanding myself, realizing my essence. And I said to myself: “Oh, pain, thank you for helping me in reaching mindfulness. I don’t like you, I hate you, but because of you I really felt myself and reached more closeness to my own nature”.  

Most people admire prosperous and democratic countries and want to live in such places. We will differentiate big prosperous and democratic countries (BPDC) and small prosperous and democratic countries (SPDC). Let us name just 5 BPDCs and SPDCs: the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK, on the one hand, and Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Slovenia, on the other. In here, we will refer to BPDCs as big countries and about SPDCs as small ones. So what are the differences in living in such big and small countries that are prosperous and democratic?

A big country gives big opportunities to its citizens, where they do many big things which will affect the rest of the world. Evidently, a big or great country is a place of many great individuals. There are hundreds of bright individuals from the USA, Japan, Germany, France and the UK who contributed to the world history and civilisation. JFK was a great man not because he was a great individual but also because he was a leader of the great nation. Any successful American politician is visible worldwide.

But how about the people of the small and happy countries, like Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Slovenia? These and similar countries don’t provide great opportunities for their citizens in terms of political arena, educational institutions, business organizations or mass media. They don’t have Paramount Pictures or Hollywood, Harvard or Oxford, CNN or BBC, Toyota or Siemens, New York Times or Paris Match, Louvre or British Museum. They have fewer Olympic champions, famous writers, Nobel laureates and other celebrities than big countries. The rest of the world knows something about them and their most noticeable individuals but there are too many activities in the big countries to follow. The world prefers to read The Times or Newsweek, to watch CNN or BBC than to follow the local news or political event in a small and prosperous country. But that doesn’t bother the people of the small countries because they are quite happy even without this world attention. Just some of them, I guess, would have preferred to live in a big country.

Small, prosperous and democratic countries are not great in their size but they are great in their everyday life. According to the World Economic Forum’s report many small countries are better in economic competitiveness than the big ones. They better protect their citizens, give care to their children and provide a unique cultural environment for people. So there is no simple correlation between the greatness of the country and the greatness of the individual’s life. The most important thing is that a happy country helps its people in achieving happiness, and the happy individuals make a happy country. The size of the country does matter for the most people but not for the most individuals.

Interesting, does God watch TV? If yes, which channels or programmes does He prefer?

Since I am involved in studies and trainings on negotiations I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. There are cultures and countries where people negotiate everywhere, where negotiation is an essence of social life and where negotiation is not just an art but the Art. I call these cultures as bargaining cultures. Bazaar is the centre of the bargaining culture. People respect masters of bargaining and these masters have a high social status. We can think about many Eastern countries as bargaining cultures.

There are other cultures where people do not tend to bargain everywhere. Of course people do a lot of negotiations in their everyday and business life even in such non-bargaining cultures. However, there the bazaar is not a centre of social life, and in large shopping malls buyers and sellers do not bargain. We may say that many Western countries have non-bargaining cultures.

Paradoxically, most current negotiation studies (including studies of bargaining) are done in non-bargaining cultures. Interestingly, some people like to bargain but others prefer to study bargaining.

Language gives us some mental structure. Our thoughts are structured by the language that we use. That means that what we think depends on how we think. But there is another side of the coin: how we think depends on what we think. The culture, our environment provides natural materials for our thinking: in certain cultures people may think, for example, about cars and computers but in others this may not be a custom. Therefore any language, on the one hand, forms people’s mind and perception, but on the other hand, it is shaped by their mind and perception. That is why any language is a unique cognitive tool and there are always some limitations for translating from one language to another. We may say that people with different languages live in different worlds. In English one differentiates “translation” and “interpretation”. Obviously, not all interpretation is translation but all translation is interpretation.

English, in my opinion, is the most democratic language. It constantly and readily absorbs an enormous number of foreign terms (like “Sputnik”), it adapts itself to many places and nations (for example, “Singlish” in Singapore), and it could be used in different formats, structures and styles (n the news headlines it might be used even without basic grammar rules). English is really a flexible and an adaptive language. Of course it has many rules, including grammar, orthography, etc. But all these rules coexist with its democratic and liberal spirit.

Some time ago – in fact a few years after I was born – I started to speak and write in my native Uzbek. I am happy that I have this language as my mother tongue because it is beautiful, rich, colourful and highly contextual. Following that I learnt Russian – another great language, a very powerful one. Russian is like an ocean, great and immense. I am happy that I created most my literary and scholarly work in this wonderful  language. My third language was English. I see enormous potential in English: it is eloquent, functional, operational, businesslike and very pragmatic. It has the largest number of words, expressions, idioms, etc. It is widely spoken everywhere, and it allows you to express almost every thought and emotion. I knew a little French and was very passionate about it but unfortunately I am not good enough to express myself in this beautiful and lovely language.

Yesterday I suddenly realised that now I need to write more in English. I do not know why, but I would like to try. I think I am quite good in expressing myself in Uzbek and Russian and now I feel like meeting a challenge to write more in English. I started to learn English seriously only when I was 32 (Karl Marx started to learn Arabic when he was 50). I still have many problems, especially in using definite and indefinite articles (Uzbek language has no articles so I don’t really feel the English articles). I speak this language quite freely, and I have no problems with public speaking and lecturing in this language (of course with some accent). I also wrote and published a few articles in English and regularly read English books. Nevertheless, I am not good enough in English grammar – that is undeniable. I have some way to go to reach a good style in English. But I would like to master the English grammar and style. To do so,  to achieve it, I need to work hard, to practice everyday, if possible.

So I decided to continue my blog in English. Let’s see what happens. Maybe I will enjoy it, or perhaps I will come back to Russian or even Uzbek once again. I am sorry if somebody who read this blog will feel some discomfort from this language change. But who knows maybe he or she will also progress in English with me. So let’s try, i don’t see why not.