Among the Clouds

Recently  I had the chance to fly in executive class for the very first time. Best of all, I didn't even have to pay for it: there were vacant seats in 1st class and, for some reason, TAP (a Portuguese flight operator) kindly upgraded me.

At first I thought I would regret accepting the offer, since it meant travelling alone (I had two friends in regular seats) and my seat, while having a lot of space, did not have a table. Things started to look brighter when the happy-to-help (or at least looking like it) flight attendant explained me how to unfold the table hidden in my armchair. But the good stuff was yet to come. I was asked to pick some readings from a considerable stock of newspapers and magazines (I was almost ashamed to choose a sports newspaper) and soon after whether I'd like an apperitive. Martini seemed fine. Then came the menu, along with the wine list. Since I don't really appreciate octopus, the choice was obvious: white fish mousse as appetizer, roast veal with gnocchi for the main course and, wrapping-up the meal, lemon pudding. As it should always be, coffee came next. When asked for my (red) wine preference, I (cleverly I'd say) escaped the embarassment of answering "I don't have any" by stating my confidence in the house's choice. The whole meal was utterly delicious, and having proper napkins and silverware (the knife was not sharp, but proved itself quite a match for the extremely tender meat) also helps. The trailers are collected individually, so you are not face with the messy and slow cart rolling down the tiny corridor.

My only (but severe!) complaint goes for the coffee. I truly cannot understand how a Portuguese company can serve anything other than expresso under the label of coffee. Even if most of the passengers are not Portuguese I believe their countrymen deserve better treatment.

My long-time readers might be finding this post a little odd, due to its strongly personal nature. Not wanting to disappoint their predictions I'll finish it with a small reflection.

Although the executive class seats were mostly vacant (I counted at least 15), the staff did not bring people from the other aisle to fill it. While this could indeed lead to small savings (in drinks mostly) I don't think that was the determinant factor for the decision. It could be argued that executive class passengers, having payed extra, would not find it funny see people who bought cheaper tickets being given the same privileges. This is probably true, but still I believe the real reason lies elsewhere. I'm convinced that the main reason to be the feeling of unfairness that regular class passengers would experience when their neighbour is (randomly) upgraded, but not themselves. This leads to an extremingly interesting phenomena: given a group of people, the overall happiness is higher when they are all given average conditions, compared to the situations where only some are given better than average treatment. This is highly irrational: nobody is actually any worse, but you feel worse because you know there are others who are better, for no plausible reason. This also justifies why happiness seems to be much more correlated to discrepancies in income rather than the average. Does that mean that we'll never feel great unless others feel miserable? That certainly does not seem a flattering trait, but it might well be close to the truth.

Intellectual Art

It is quite interesting, even funny, to notice the evolution of modern art. In my opinion, art nowadays stands where science stood a few hundred years ago: an intellectual "island" that few can access. And proudly so.

This intentional separation of art from the mass public can be seen in painting, music, literature, architecture, etc... I guess at this point some of you might be thinking I'm far off from reality; a simple check on the number of youtube views or Itunes downloads of one of Bieber's songs seems to prove me wrong. But what would you see if you were to check the comments' section? Lots of heavy criticism, arguing that it is not so much "real" art but rather comercial crap for the mass market. Which I could agree with by the way.

If you ask a so called expert he'll tell you the same: Justin Bieber makes terrible music; Goldberg variations are the ones to look out for. And that painting you've seen at the museum (the horrible one which seemed that the painter tried to drink all of the paint and ended up throwing up on the canvas) is just too complex for you. It is interesting and beautiful, we're just too dumb to realise it. But there's no need to feel bad about it since the whole word falls under the simpletons' bind, except for a few enlightened minds.

But how then can you distinguish junk art from the real thing? Seemingly useful features, such as the number of people who actually enjoy it, do not seem to be fit taking the stated above into account. In previous times a work of art was often classified according to the skill required to perform it. This is also not the case with the modern art, since skillwise complicated art forms are considered arrogant and ostentacious and minimalism is the word of order. So where does that lead us? To highly random and unpredictable domain, I'm afraid.

I believe this behaviour is mostly related to the need of differentiation and feeling superior. It is not rare to listen to someone saying, in a snobbish manner, something like 'It's a shame they don't know how to appreciate this wonderful painting' or ' I recognise it's a type of art that is difficult to enjoy'. You can even extend its scope to other areas which might not be uncontroversially classified as art, such as wine making or cooking.


Filipe Baptista de Morais

Inconsequent complaints

These days it is common to find references to the advantages of optimism and the undesirable consequences of negativism. I recently came across this article which states that, besides being contagious and harmful, listening to complaints can actually make you dumb.

The article cleverly outlines the distinction between relevant complaints (that call attention for issued that need to be solved) from inconsequent complaints. These, which are the nasty dumbening elements, do not call for a solution for the problem. In fact they don’t even pretend to, they simply aim to share the reasons why the person feels miserable or outraged.

This type of emotional craving is quite commonm particularly in women. But it is not entirely negative since it is also known that restraining our feelings (that is, not sharing them) can have an important and negative impact in one’s happiness. Even in social terms sharing problems, even unsolvable ones, is a powerful connectivity tool, as well as a proof and foundation of friendship. The ‘shields’ mentioned by the authoer might be more costly than it could seem.

As a final note I’d just like to say that the evidence presented to support the negativism’s dumbening properties theory does not seem that conclusive. It appears to me to be a huge leap of faith towards unknown territory, trying to prove some (previously concepted) point.


Filipe Morais