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Re: Five Questions for June 2022

What do you think we owe each other as human beings?

I don't think we owe anything to each other, although we depend on each other as social beings and tenants of the same planet. Life is so much better when you're surrounded with good people that care for each other and don't mind "wasting" their time and energy on common goals and the common good (which eventually, benefits even the most short-sighted hedonists). If we owe each other anything, it must be:

Education; the willingness to share knowledge (i.e. Wikipedia) and ideas: both technology (from homeopathic remedies to PCB schematics) and philosophy (including life philosophy)
Enough respect for each other to foster healthy debate ang good decision making

Has your active daydreaming or reverie ever manifested a desire of yours?

Nope, I'm a very boring person :)

What is one thing people would never know about you just by looking at you?

I don't talk much about my emotions: most people who know me well think I'm a very resourceful and assertive (in a good way) person who dives into problems and infamiliar topics without fear and even enjoys it. The truth is, even if I'm "in the zone" and sound optimistic, sometimes I feel like a fraud and do have doubts about my abilities.

Also, most people who meet me nowadays (especially in the summer), see my super simple clothing style and automatically think I'm rich and spoiled. These days, housing costs are skyrocketing, and the only people who can afford a house are the high tech nouveau riche from the post-COVID exit/IPO season. I'm not one of those, but I'm still a programmer, and my salary is high (slightly above the average for a programmer with my experience). I'm often embarassed to admit I'm a programmer, because I know how privileged I am. People who don't know my life story don't know that I dress like an Israeli programmer not because I was born into this, but because that's the kind of clothes I had as a poor kid. I wear these clothes out of habit and because they're cheap, but not as a class marker: habitus is a very tricky thing, especially when certain behavior patterns are transferrable. Also, people don't know I'm a very frugal person who repairs his Casio MQ24-7B instead of buying a new watch and uses an 11-year old laptop outside of work: I'm still a poor person inside.

If you could un-invent one thing, what would it be?

WhatsApp. It's incredibly popular in Israel and pretty much anything happens inside WhatsApp. Families have WhatsApp groups, some businesses do all their customer service through WhatsApp, teachers and parents have WhatApp groups, and I'm currently working in a small company that uses WhatsApp for internal communication. Personal life and professional life are joined into one endless stream of notifications, and it's unhealthy to live so fast even when they're separated.

I really agree with the ideas in this opinion video by Kan (Israel's public broadcaster):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rLojddGaJQ

What is the most profound experience you have ever had with a stranger?

When I was 12 or 13 years old, I helped an old and dirty man in the bus. He had a huge and heavy shopping cart full of groceries, and it was a wild ride. I grabbed the cart while he struggled to reach the other end of the bus to pay. When he returned, he thanked me multiple times (I think it was in Russian) and asked my name.

I met this man in the bus again, weeks or months later. He greeted me, asked how I was doing and wished me luck.

Some time later, I started a Bar Mitzvah course at Chabad, and one kid in my group had the same (uncommon) skin color and the same hair as this man. One day, at the end of the class, this kid's father came in to see the place, and it was this man.

He instantly recognized me, kissed my forehead and said, in broken Hebrew, "you're like my child". (Later, during the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, he met my parents: he told them how generous I am and swore to help me if I'm in trouble.)

I think this person, a "transparent person" for most people around him, is amazing. It's easy to tell by his appearance, his smell and his accent that he had a very hard life, but he's very grateful for what he has, puts his son's future above all else, and treats the people around him like people. I wish I had his strength.