by The Wanderer, on March 23rd, 2009 Not that I am a fan of Beatles (never was, still am not) nor because I think their song “Let It Be” is that much great but only because I have decided today to talk about a social stereotype which I call the “let-it-be person”.
Each one of us, humans populating this blued ball, is always a little bit “let-it-be” person. Not all of us, but more than you probably can imagine, are pure “let-it-be” persons. The “laissez faire, laissez passer” attitude is the way this kind of people think it is the best way to survive in this stressy world which may look to them a pretty aggressive environment. On the other hand, this attitude is so usual that it is not unusual to be used by art creators in their creative wanderings. See for instance what Sir Paul McCartney said one day:
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be. For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see there will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Yeah, there will be an answer, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me. Shine on ’til tomorrow, let it be. I wake up to the sound of music Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Let it be, yeah let it be. Oh there will be an answer, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Let it be, yeah let it be. Oh there will be an answer, let it be. Let it be, let it be. Let it be, yeah let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
As you can see, this text here above has a very strong “let-it-be” personality and maybe because of that it got quite famous and it has survived throughout times.
The chest is, for some people, very well positioned in the ranking of the most important parts of our body. For those, mainly women, it is there where stuff like passion, love, friendship, anxiety, anguish, deception and fear reside. It is precisely where the heart lies, where feelings are controlled, processed, whatever… Let it be, let it be…. In the mind of these people there is no space for other things than the harmony of living harmoniously. Let it be, let it be… What would happen to the world if all of us were all the time claiming, reclaiming or complaining? Let it be, let it be…
If there are “let-it-be” persons, there are “clamp” persons. This life is a big predator/chase game and it could not exist “clamp” persons without “let-it-be” ones. Nevertheless, worse than to have our chest clamped by anyone else is to have it clamped by ourselves, isn’t it (I hate masochism)? Life is too short for big plans, but too long for big pains. Believe me…
Management of our integration in our own circle happens very often to be complex. Defining what branch of the big tree can be used to sit or, else, the right timing for changing our ass from branch to branch, no matter if up or down, it is not that much simple as well. The fact is that soon or later you may get identified with the little puny girl in the upper picture. If this is a situation which happens just a couple of times in your life, that is acceptable as we are just humans. You just need to work out a couple of solutions to reduce pain while releasing the cramp (left for loosening, right for tightening). If this is a situation you normally live in, don’t worry, you already don’t even notice you are like that and when you look at the picture above, you do nothing more than thinking, with an air of pity on your face, “poor girl, I wish I could help her”! If you are, instead, one of those lucky persons that when you look at the picture you see it blank, then congratulations because you never went through the situation of having a c-clamp (or similar) on your chest tightening it till crashing your ribs.
Let it be, let it be…
by The Wanderer, on March 20th, 2009 When I was already celebrating my victory over 20 years of “friendship” between me and tobacco, I had one of these last days the unfortunate surprise of being informed about a disease which impairs breathing functionality of approximately 80% of people who had the bad idea of start smoking, followed by the worse idea of not quitting on such a bad habit. Moral of this story: sometimes it is very healthy to be a quitter!
“Emphysema” is the name of my new acquaintance. Sounds like something complex but an emphysema is not more than lung tissues destroyed by years of pleasure coming from two cigarettes per hour, every day, every week, every month and for many years. If you are already worried then be my guest to feel even more because the emphysema is classified as a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and is something irreversible. Shortness of breath is the most common symptom of emphysema. Cough, high production of mucus and wheezing are others. The destruction of lung tissues is irreversible but there are many ways to treat this disease to weaken the torment caused by it. Moral of this story: death is the only disease with no treatment.
A couple of days after my appointment to the above mentioned doctor I got another vision of my problem by a different doctor. You know, we always want a second opinion when things are noxious to our side… Nevertheless, while I wait for results from a couple of check-ups, I have decided to think a little bit (not much) about my life as a cigarette addicted.
I started smoking like any other kid starts: one’s pulled into the circle by those already in the circle! When one starts smoking, cigarette tastes bad, it burns your throat, makes you getting dizzy, probably nauseous, smells and turns you dazed because you really can’t understand why people smoke! In the day after you are again pulled into the circle by those ones already there who enjoyed quite a lot to watch you, the day before, conducting yourself like a goofy dude… You feel then that this is the price to pay to be accepted in the circle, you pay it, you feel good. After that first time of contradictory feelings and emotions, with maybe a couple of vomits too, you finally see yourself converted to a smoking machine, just like an old Far West train crossing the immense prairies between sand, cactus and vultures…
There is no recommendable figure for how much you should smoke. Simple things don’t have necessarily to be turned to complex and, regarding tobacco, you just smoke it or not. Everything in between it’s nothing more than an exercise of some politicians’ or social worker’s mind. If you smoke, smoke as much as you can handle or as much that can contribute to your happiness. If you don’t smoke, good for you, no money wasted, no health jeopardized. Whether you smoke or not, do it with class, I mean, with total consciousness of what you’re doing. I feel no regrets at all about those gone 20 years of smoke converted to pleasure but I feel no desire at all to become a smoker again. You’ll see that, thinking this way, you’ll accept very well any news coming from your doctor pointing to a short term death (yours!) due to a cancer caused by years and years of hoops of pleasure in the air…
May the gods be with smokers, ex-smokers and the other too…
by The Wanderer, on March 18th, 2009 How I wish I knew something about it! My only contact with success regarding Economical and Financial environments was when I used to play Monopoly (game). I remember how happy I felt every time I finished the game with all those red and green small houses geometrically aligned along those colored streets which I had the pleasure, because I had the power, of selling and buying!
I no longer play Monopoly and I never tried the Stock Market Game (exclusive Majora, Portugal, in the 70′s). Because of that, I feel impotent to understand the actual crisis which, from my naive point of view for these financial things, is a consequence comparable to the consequence coming from wrong moves in the Monopoly. Today I go no further than what every average citizen all over the world goes, which is to keep some money at hand to be prepared for those little incidentals we always think may happen, at one time or other hereafter, somewhere at the corner X of street Y in our life.
Monopoly is a hyponym of domination. Domination is a value of the Stock Market since time began. Some dominators pursuit monopoly, other not. In one way or another we always seek domination over someone or something. We buy because we want to own. We own because we want to control. The more we control the more we need to own. The more we need to own the more we need to buy. For some people, the more they need to own the more they need to owe. There we are, consumerism, a very typical capitalist disease!
Popular analyses of economical situations are always very… popular! I wish not to repeat myself about this thematic (see my post Crisis? What Crisis?) but, frankly speaking, I fear for our fears, we the people, the plebs, the “arraia miúda”, the populace, the sons and daughters of parents or stepparents whose doom is to be sufficiently fed to be used as cannon fodder when required, as required. Is it the time coming? Where will this crisis drive us to? Little people never know the answer for these questions and always trust big people to find a way out. Paradoxically, big people have driven us to the situation of what we, little people, expect to be out with the help of big people. Linearly speaking, we are expecting that the right attitude to have regarding the actual crisis is to be… expecting!
Referring to social, political and personal values in the actual Stock Market of life, I sadly have to get into the conclusion that we are very much oriented to the container and very little to the contents. We have been very busy with creation of an image of success and we have exacerbated our own self-esteem just because we overvalued the need of owning some self-esteem. Theories about self-improvement and successful carriers that you could read in about half an hour in pocketbooks, or handbooks, which were a huge fashion in 70’s or 80’s, have defended the idea that a good grade of self-esteem would be fundamental for a successful carrier or for a happy life. That was the “The Era of the Self” during what the idea of adding the prefix or suffix “self” was half-way to perfection: self-made man, do-it-yourself, self-determination, self-serve, self-confidence, self-concept, self-development, self-satisfaction… Those books worked and people still believe nowadays that success and happiness are directly proportional to their self-esteem and will automatically follow.
I have for myself the singular thought that self-esteem is proportionally direct to stomach welfare, I mean, inhabitants of Ethiopia, for instance, might not even have time to think about this problematic of to have or not to have self-esteem. I do believe that one’s moral values have definitely a lot to do with one’s material values and it looks like we can’t do much about that or we just don’t want to do much about it. I do also believe that ambition and self-esteem are happily married and very often this marriage drives to arrogance. See the North-Americans, for instance, who are currently struggling quite a lot to survive to a crisis created by themselve. After decades of promotion of the “self I” and of the credit card as a “must have” tool to achieve success through self-realization, North-Americans have finally realized that something is wrong with their economical vision of life but, above all, something is wrong with their values. At least I really hope so because Europe, which is going through a similar crisis, is realizing now that it is not that much recommendable to follow or to support the economical model of USA and consequent social behavior. Au contraire, it is much recommendable in Europe a revision of social and political values as well in order to avoid any kind of dependency from US.
The “carpe diem” attitude of many people in this world and the total submission to image of many other (if not the same) are the most common values nowadays. Both attitudes cost a lot of money and drive you, most probably, to uncontrolled indebtedness. I don’t suffer from that! I do normally practice my theories which I normally work out very well by paying much attention to advices from experts. Logics drives my life (boring, isn’t it?). I am not an expert in Economy or Finances but I still do dare and I feel good if I pretend to be one. This makes me leave here some basic advices:
- Do not have more than two credit cards. It’s good to have two because you might get stuck somewhere just because a simple communication blockage with your bank or CC service provider happened and then you have an alternative. I never understood what advantages make people to carry a wallet full of credit cards but I have always seen a big disadvantage: probability of losing credit control is proportional to the number of accounts managed.
- Always pay monthly all expenses made on your CC
- Take the phrase “No Money, No Addictions” as a law and make yourself a law obedient. Exceptions go to house loan and car leasing which normally are amounts people don’t have for immediate spending (except rich people, of course, which I definitely am not).
- Never let your debt going above the very maximum 25% of your after-tax income (even so considered a high ratio by some analysts). This is crucial if you want to sleep peacefully. Don’t forget that loan rates may vary, economy oscillations and unexpected expenses may happen.
- assume a cognitive attitude, think and convince yourself that you will not be better or bigger if you show a lot of credit cards in your wallet, think and convince yourself that you may be happy without silicone, “liftings”, buttocks or any kind of enlargements (unless you’re a porno pro). Act accordingly.
Simple, isn’t it? Basic as well, isn’t it? Well, that’s precisely the core of the problem: people nowadays reject simplicity and really abhor to be considered basic! The new values point to the opposite direction: the more sophisticated the better, the more extravagant the better! The new values are the ones driving people to pure ostentation in a way that millions have forgotten how fragile is an economy built on foundations made of it. “The model is broken” it is what this crisis is telling us. Not that I’m defending any kind of Marxist-Leninist model but the capitalist one we’re living on is broken, isn’t it? For me, the solution goes not through a “repair & maintenance” action but through a “replacement” action instead. Time will tell us…
May the gods be with you!
by The Wanderer, on March 8th, 2009 I would say that many things on a social, political or intellectual point of view could cross my mind about Women or about the complexity involving this female side of mankind in this International Women’s Day 2009. It could, but it can’t. Not today, at least! It could be different in another day somewhere in the past or it will probably be juicy some where in the future but today I don’t feel that much inspired to talk about women, one of the topics which usually provokes me most curiosity and usually I like much to include in my wandering conversations and/or thoughts.
 The only thing it came up to my mind and down to my brain (this was supposed to be a female joke!!) is the picture I present here to celebrate women in this international day dedicated to… women! The rest, the social or politically correct, I leave it to the many posts I wrote and will hopefully write about many things that always have something to do with women or, in this or that particular case, with this or that specific woman.
Hard to live with them, impossible to live without.
by The Wanderer, on March 3rd, 2009 Easy things do not challenge, they say, but I rather take them easy, if I can. But marriage it is not an easy thing, never was, never will… Like I said before, people should not have to marry. In (almost) all existing social groups, whether we call them countries or cultures, marriage is not a free option. Very often it is not even an option. Marriage is taken as mandatory for the sake of societies (the so called socially organized groups) and it seems nobody wants to change that. Homosexuals not too! Damn it, in the name of who or what should we be receptive to this huge avalanche of actions taken by all gays and lesbians populating this world, ringing and belling on our ears their sexual orientation without even asking if we want or, at least, are keen on to hearing about them?
D. José Saraiva Martins, Portuguese cardinal resident in Rome, said one of these days that “homosexuality is not a normal thing”. He has then been severely criticized mainly by those who think that supporting homosexuality it is socially correct and turn them to be very “IN” people in the social groups where they usually sneak around. Homosexuality, nowadays, is not normal. “Normality” is always somewhat very discussable and is a point where very few people meet at. But let us be pragmatic (my best quality) and have a look at the famous Normal Distribution or Gaussian Distribution.
First of all, we have to believe that “Many measurements, ranging from psychological to physical phenomena (in particular, thermal noise) can be approximated, to varying degrees, by the normal distribution”. To believe in this is quite lot more important than to believe in God and, whether you like it or not, the respect to the concept of NORMAL has been driving our lives and social stability since time began. The normal, regarding sexual behaviors, hasn’t been the homosexuality and I hope it will be kept like that. Anyhow, between gays, lesbians, bi, undefined, eunuchs, inactive and straight, the values of percentage for the latter ones are the highest, as you can see where ever you go.
Gauss Curve for dudes!
If you look at the picture here below you will see that, for a specific study (no matter what about), something is considered NORMAL if you can place at least 68% of the population-target within limits -1 and +1, meaning, in the dark blue area. For your orientation, in S.Francisco, USA, proudly known as the world’s capital of gay & lesbian movements, only 16% of city’s population is homosexual.
 Normal or Standard.
I would dare to say that, in fact, homosexuality is not normal, like well said by D. José Saraiva Martins who has been very unfairly criticized for such a statement. But I am not targeting sexual orientations in this post but social behaviors in general, marriage in particular. If homosexuality is not normal, same-sex marriage is a non-sense. The world is full of non-senses since human race exists and people no longer cares if there is one more. But we should care! Marriage was born on a natural concern about continuation of human kind. It is, in fact, an organizational tool of societies through what people are kept under a state of abiding but is also a tool for self-protection of people who need this kind of mechanism to be away from being manipulated by other. Marriage was born to be used as boundary of a specific life style which is intended to be the right environment for the good birth and development of new members of human race. Marriage was born and has survived on commandments, beliefs or dogmas created and maintained by several religions in the world. Marriage was born to be the insurance and warranty to the union between MAN and WOMAN! No religious or civil laws have ever had into consideration the same-sex marriage…
A homosexual orientation is primarily environmental and not biological . Marriage is exclusively environmental. The NORMAL social environment has been, since mankind has started actions towards self-organization, based on man-woman-marriage-children links because that what used to make sense for humankind, on behalf of the animal side we cannot deny about ourselves. Same-sex marriage represents nothing more than the inability of homosexuals to run away from a system which was not created thinking of other sexual behaviors than the ones which make sense for a considerable majority of humans.
Homosexuality is not an issue here. Marriage is. The behavior of “homosexualists” in last decades is by itself a good reason for being against same-sex marriage. Gays and lesbians have offered us (nobody asked them!) shows which might be quite acceptable in the showbiz domain but not recommendable to children to whom the same-sex marriage may mean to force them to a NOT NORMAL social behavior, therefore deviated behaviors. Gays and lesbians are pretty much responsible for the idea of “circus of freaks” usually transmitted to everybody due to the style of their public manifestations. Nowadays you take contact very often, through actual media, with events where a salad of gays, lesbians, bis, queers, fagots, fairies, poofs, travesties, transgendered, third-sex representatives is served to you by means of grotesque parades, Carnival-style, Pasolini-style TV shows and many other ways they use to show you they exist and are fighting for their own civil rights.
“The Right To Difference” sounds good but is not by itself a reason to accept same-sex marriage. Incest is a sexual behavior. Pedophilia is a sexual behavior. Both of them are highly different yet highly reproved by many societies (but not by all its members). What if I’d classify them not as a sexual behavior but as a disease? What if I’d classify them not as a sexual behavior but just as… a sexual orientation? I’d turn to be a target for hate and rage, wouldn’t I? Disease sounds bad and there are hospitals for that. Sexual behavior is not as bad but there are sociologists, psychologists and psychiatrists for that. Sexual orientation seems to sound nice and bearable, doesn’t it, Mr. and Ms. defenders of gay rights? Who knows if some bright and sharp brain one day decides to create a good and strong lobby and also, through TV shows and burlesque parades, succeed to get pedophilia and incest to be socially acceptable and very “IN” as well!
Children always are very much considered in management of social issues like pedophilia or divorce. But they aren’t when we are talking about same-sex marriage. A child born from and raised by homosexuals will probably be a homosexual. The pattern he/she will follow or will try to copy will be for sure the only one they live with and, naturally, a son of mothers will be a womanish male, a daughter of fathers will be a mannish female. Like pedophilia, same-sex marriage can turn to be practice of selfish behaviors whose surface is carefully and conveniently painted of altruistic intentions.
In opposition to the US military policy regarding homosexuality, “don’t ask, don’t tell”, I rather say let’s ask and tell the world what we think and what we intend to do about important issues in our life. There’s space in this blue round planet for another slice where people don’t need to pretend to be straight… If we can live with slices where, for instance, a woman is worth much less than a camel, why not another slice where men marry men and women marry women? But let children away from it…
Heterosexual orientation is primarily biological and not environmental. A man and a woman are born with the genetic message orienting them to the opposite sex. It can be changed by external factors, it can be molded by environment, it can be refined by culture. Marriage has nothing to do with biology because we can naturally keep attracted to the opposite sex and perpetuate life without getting married. Obviously, mankind doesn’t exist just for perpetuation of respective race. Mankind has a role much beyond that because mankind is supposed to be formed by intelligent members. Is marriage a demonstration of intelligence? We are so sickly intelligent, aren’t we?
This post is dedicated to all smart guys, from left, center or right, who think that same-sex marriage is more important than be patiently dying while waiting months or years for a medical appointment in a public hospital or just waiting for rice or beans. It is also dedicated to all smartasses, new-intellectuals like top-models and “aunts” showing off in almost big cities, rock & movie stars, fashion creators and fashion manipulators for whom the most important goal of their lives is to tell everybody they are gay and, while presenting that expression of extreme courage on their faces, they say how happy they are because they are assuming it publicly, they feel free and they expect all people will be like them and will dare to issue a public declaration of their gay state! How well married these people have shown to be or to become…
At least, consciences are woken up, once on a while, by a couple of Portuguese pontiffs when, surprisingly, they publicly state things like “be aware, young ladies, of dangers connected to the marriage with Muslim men” or “homosexuality it’s not a normal thing”. Well done, boys, well done .
May the gods be with you.
by The Wanderer, on March 1st, 2009 … and the new look of this site it’s a good start. This blog is now being set up on a new theme got from France (click here) and it was found when I was surfing the net in a lost saturday after a silly night when, once again but not that often, I lost the number of times I moved a glass up and down and said some swear words against someone or something…
Before I reached this french artist, who really has a good relationship with web-design and aesthetics, I passed by an interesting blog, one of hundreds subscribing BlogCatalog like me, which caught my attention, time enough to read something in there, including the “about me” part of one of the authors. I liked it and I recommend it (click here) despite the obvious misalignment between my philosophy of life (wow… I have one too…) and the philosophy of life (if she has one too) of the college girl authoring the above mentioned blog.
I’m getting rid, little step after little step, of my classical submission to Microsoft and that is what it is: I’m no longer Microsoft addicted! Evidences of that is the fact of having now on my computer stuff like Firefox as my browser, Thunderbird as my mail client manager and, more recently, a theme for my WordPress blog created by a french from France! Yes, France and not USA as it was usual!
My big and frightening question now is: do I really feel like changing the huge values of my life and I am just starting with some cosmetics or is this just the effect of a night off during what, once again, I thought for 1 million times that “crime doesn’t pay”?
May the gods be with me…
by The Wanderer, on February 13th, 2009 Bad luck lately has hit me so bad that I barely can imagine how worse can things get by a simple fact of a Friday and a 13 meet in the same day. I am as little superstitious as religious nowadays but it wasn’t like that ever since. In fact, I went through a deep and severe religious education (catholic) like any other boy goes on, in general, in this little country dominated by a catholic majority, Portugal.
First of all, a religious man is a superstitious man. Fridays 13 or black cats are no more than folkloric props of kinky behaviors, liable enough to be listed in an official menu of minor mental disorders. Superstition goes much beyond the external signs created to increase profits in sales of supernatural or mystic objects, very much Halloween alike though. But even there, superstition and religion are very much alike, as well. All religions are full of signs, icons, symbols and inductive objects or images. Men and women can’t live without that. Our weakness forces us to cross the endless ways of mysticism, parapsychologycism, methaphysicism and, much more often, the ignorancism. You might be already offended with my point of view but I am glad to see, and I wish you could see too, that someone else it is pretty concordant to my thesis about parity between superstition and religion:
“Superstition is a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.
Superstition means one who overly stands, or not being progressive. As “new” religious beliefs and practices spread from one big city to another, people living in rural areas remained uninformed, continuing to practice as they had. Their beliefs were viewed as eccentric in the context of the cities. They were “superstitious” because they weren’t doing what was new. Eventually the English word “superstition” came to imply a religion-like belief that stands outside the bounds of clerical religion.”
Unfortunately there are many more against than for my thesis. Never mind… This is the way I think, the way I behave, the way I exhale life. I feel secure enough about my beliefs, therefore I will keep crossing the way of black cats, freely walking my way even if passing under a ladder and see Friday 13 like any other Friday.
Moral of this post: “thanks gods, it’s Friday!”…
by The Wanderer, on February 12th, 2009 From times to times I find myself thinking about God, gods & beliefs! Every single time of those times, fortunately not often, it is not a moment of pleasure, I must confess, but every one of us has quite often these moments of pure masochism for any reason I really don’t care much about.
Charles Darwin could be perfect if he was not born in Great Britain, land of hooligans and snob islanders, but the man was really someone. He was someone, yes he was, but someone not aiming perfection because probably he already knew that perfection, that unachievable ultimate state of life, it is only reserved for José Mourinho. Getting back to the man, Darwin, who was born two hundred years ago, I should say that his theory, (The Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory), it is pretty much interesting but frontally going on phase opposition to the beliefs of catholics, for instance, who do believe that God one day, one of those days when he (or she) was bored to death, decided to sculpt two puppets with weird shape, made of flesh and bones, to what he called man and woman and he named Adam and Eve, respectively. It is never, ever, a good idea to cross the way of any god or God but even so this guy, Darwin, whose the only defect I know was the fact of being an Englishman, is quite a lot respected here and there and deserves that I spend some minutes writing here a post about him.
Nevertheless, I have to admit how ignorant I am about him and his work except in what the core of the above mentioned theory is concerned. And that is my point: we, human beings, are evolving to what? We are different, yes we are, comparing to what mankind was some centuries ago, but are we happy with that? Are we better now that we realize how able we are to jeopardize our own existence as Earth, the blue planet, or as human kind?
This is just a question! If anyone knows the answer, please, send me a letter. A nice letter from other times, written on a stylish paper, with an antique ink pen on a table iluminated by a candle… This is not because I use to write letters but because I would love to receive one, an old fashion letter. And if it would be sent by a gorgeous lady, blue eyed and with long blonde hair, that would be gold over blue…
May the gods be with you…
by The Wanderer, on February 11th, 2009 … because we’re getting sunk in galloping “chômage”. I really wonder where and when all these corporations, currently laying off thousands of people, got this technique of creating and managing sandcastle-like companies!
What are we going to do with all these unemployed people? What are we going to do with this daily fear of waking up in the morning and find out that the company we work for is another sandcastle? How can we understand the ease shown by many companies to just fire people in the name of a worldwide crisis? Could you imagine names like General Motors, Chrysler, Citigroup, Blockbuster, Ford, Nissan, Qimonda, Nike and Philips (among many others) in the top of a list of companies asking their governments for help? Wow! What a picture…
There should be a 112 for these emergencies too. Unfortunately, there is not. Anyhow, this post is a humble mark to remark the European 112 Day and just to remind you that there is a thing called European Union and sometimes there is some signs that we are somewhat united…
May the gods be with us, case they haven’t been laid off meanwhile…
by The Wanderer, on January 30th, 2009 Hi-Fi stands for High-Fidelity and it’s only applied to a set of electronic devices destinated to play music under certain requirements of quality which music experts decided, many years ago, to classify like so.
The classification speaks for itself: there’s something highly faithful to something! The goal then is to build electronic devices which can reproduce sounds totally equal to the real ones. Being so, the closer those electronic sounds are to reality, the higher is their fidelity level. However there’s one little detail here which must be taken into consideration: how does a “real sound” sound like?
A human ear is able to hear sounds in the following ranges
- frequency between 20Hz and 20,000Hz (bass to treble sounds)
- peak response between 2,500 and 3,000Hz (middle sounds)
- intensity between 0dB and 130dB (SPL, hearing to pain threshold)
Take notice that I said “a human ear” and I didn’t say yours or mine! The values here above presented are the limits known for a good listener which means that every human being listens music differently from other, degrading with age, which finally means that fidelity has to measured in a more scientific way than just trusting our own ears. But any scientific measurement aims only scientific purposes or, if you prefer not going that far, they are intended to be shown on wrapping (box) of any musical electronic device as “information for the consumer”.
Referring to scientific measurements, let me make some concepts clear for you, as a former Hi-Fi hobbyist, cause otherwise you’ll not be able to properly choose your Hi-Fi in case you are one of those still interested about it. First of all there’s nothing vague about frequency. Any hi-fi set operates between the range mentioned here with no effort at all. Generally any sound box contains an electronic circuit which is able to split the total range of frequency by three loudspeakers (classic method):
- woofer (for lower frequencies, 20 to 800Hz)
- midrange (for middle frequencies, 800Hz to 3,000Hz)
- tweeter (for higher frequencies, 3KHz to 20KHz)
 My loudspeakers are TDL make (United Kingdom) and unfortunately I will not be able to repair them cause TDL no longer exists since its creator and main technical brain passed away. These boxes are pretty good, technically speaking, but I must confess what first called my attention to them was really… their beauty! This criteria it is not much scientific but, considering the fact that a human being is able to distinguish two sounds separated only by 1Hz, I’m once again talking relatively cause hearing sensitivity varies from person to person. Therefore, in the middle of that much relativism there is some space for how technical stuff looks like. Besides, the response in frequency of a Hi-Fi system is about nothing if you don’t care about the amplifier and the music source as well. I still remember the expression of total surprise on the face of the salesman, from the Hi-Fi shop where I was buying my sets, when I told him I wanted to buy a pair of TDL sound speakers to work together with an SU-A900DM2 Technics amplifier. He then kindly explained me, after dressing up his face with that expression that doctors use when talking to morons, yet trying not to show me how stupid I was regarding this Hi-Fi stuff, that a Japanese sound technology (like Technics) should not be mixed with a British one (like TDL). Well, the guy didn’t know I have a degree in Engineering and then I felt quite comfortable to let him know I used to buy electronics by… feeling!
Amplifier and loudspeakers bring you power and here it is where “dB SPL” it’s not really important because what you gotta look for in your devices’ labels is “WATT”. When people choose any of these devices have always in mind “the higher the better” which for audiophiles is really a kick in the grammar’s ass. As a matter of fact, they’re right but that is just because they are the ones with amazing ears. In fact, a music doesn’t turn better if you play it louder but can become worse if you, for intensity limitations of your ears, cannot listen it properly. As a rule, frequency and intensity are really pretty independent one from the other but they are very often confused by less concentrated or phisically limited listeners who, for that reason, need some more Sound Pressure Level (SPL) to get more sensitive to lower frequencies and to have a better perception of the sound they are listening. You see, much of this Hi-Fi stuff goes over perceptions…
My TDL loudspeakers can eat up to 100W, musical power. What are all those Watts for if I would be expelled from home and stoned to death by the neighbors if I would increase the volume of my amplifier to its maximum capabilities? Well, power it is not the main concern of Hi-Fi manufacturers but fidelity is easier to achieve for a wider range of musical volume if the maximum power of the amplifier is higher. It means the intention it’s not to use the power but to avoid the risk of distortion if you increase a little bit more the volume of your stereo. At this point, you should know that RMS (Root Mean Square) and PMPO (Peak Music Power Output) are units used by commercial entities for classifying amplifiers and loudspeakers but both of them are wrongly applied if the intention is to have an idea of the music power of such devices. Much worse than the first one, PMPO it’s very much used to fool consumers with little or no knowledge of music devices who base their choices on the idea “bigger is better”. Finally, there’s one “pro” for the selection of powerful amplifier and loudspeakers: music at high dB level makes music penetrating your flesh and bones, provoking some kind of brain stimulation through vibration which is something additional to the wellfare already created by the beauty of tones tunefully penetrating your mind.
Finally, I am still that kind of man who has time to power on my old stereo, insert a CD in my SL-PG570A Technics cd player, adjust the volume up to the level which may dig up my upmost deep feelings, seat on my couch as much comfortable as possible and let the LASER head and all the other hi-tech stuff do the rest for me, in order to achieve, I wish, the ecstasy… For some reason, I started my matrimonial life with my wife (of course) and a house void of everything but a bed and… my hi-fi.
May the gods be with me and my old, faithful and persistent Technics & TDL couple of friends…
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Revamping This Due to integration of a photo-blog and a net-radio, this website is being revamped, mainly its audio/video content. For this reason, some of the links to video-clips and audio songs might result on message errors pointing to missing media. We apologize for this. We're trying to be as fast as devil steals good people's souls...
2011-Dec
The Webmaster |
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