Reading in silence

I would like to ask why I am able to concentrate reading a book when there is complete silence, or as well when it is the complete loud chaos - but not in situations inbetween. I managed to isolate my self from the outside world in a constipated train where crying babies and discussing students were evaporating. I managed as well to ignore what was happening in the striking airport sitting on the floor or a busy waiting spot. Or, I was reading listening to the silence of the living room in a winter evening, when no cars drive on the iced road and no birds fly.

Move approaching

I would like to ask why this time it is so hard to move. Since 10 year, I am moving within the same town, or the same country, or somewhere else more often than every two years. So, it is not that I am not used to it. I can't see what is different, this time.

Stinky passenger

I would like to ask what would I be supposed to do when the person sitting in my proximity on the tram stinks. It is one of those occasions in which I wish that my nose would not work as well as it does, although I admit that I am sorry for the people who can not sniff the freshly baken pizza of the neighbor or the different aromas in a chocolate almond cinnamon cake with a drop of rum. Anyway, today morning I was envy of the ones who do not smell anything.

Deep point times

I would like to ask what are the things that on average most people would use to improve their mood or simply feel better. Of course, some people want to teach us truths like "life is a gift and you should be happy also just for that", or "Life is so short that you should not lose your time complaining and feeling bad", or again that "You can only find real happiness within yourself and when you are in peace with your consciousness, after you behaved properly". And so on. But for me, and also for most people I know, there are always moments in which I feel like I could never do anything right in my life and I never will, or I have just messed up on something important and feel terrible, or I simply do not know what I want, what to do, which decision to take.

Meeting new people

I would like to ask whether it does not seem strange that people have difficulties to meet new people in our time. I have talked in these days to two unrelated friends, both moved a couple of years ago to a new town in different countries because of work opportunities.

Four people reading

I would like to ask what those four people on the tram were reading. They looked like an extract from a movie, wearing similar mantels, the two men also a cap in style, the women also a scarf in color with the jacket. All singularly, sitting on the single seats near the entrance of the tram, aware only of their books and maybe the actual tram stop behind the window near them.

Speak out!

I would like to ask why, in many occasions, people do not say clearly what they think. And, if it is about someone, they do not say it to that person.
There are some cultural causes. When no opinions about people are involved, it can be that we do not want to contradict our boss, or our parents, or our best friends. Or that we do not want to hurt them. Or to be impolite interrupting them. Or because you are younger and not allowed to talk, because elders are always right. Or because you are a woman and not allowed to talk, because woman can not have opinions. Or because you are not an expert, you don't know what happened. Or because.

Stupid spoiled sadness

I would like to ask what is this stupid spoiled sadness that comes on the Sunday evening, thinking that tomorrow is Monday, that I have to put an alarm clock, stand up, go to work, meet people I do not want to see and discuss about things I do not care. I should at least appreciate I could put the alarm within a time window of 2 hours, but no, I force myself to go as early as possible, in order to be able to leave as early as possible.

Home smell

I would like to ask where does that smell come from. The smell of the sweatshirt I took out clean from the cabinet, that one I did not wear in a while. Putting it on, a rare but familiar smell reached my nose. The washing powder that my mum uses, 800 km away and in another country.

Bells

I would like to ask why there are not so many bells in the American churches.
Few weekends ago it was the "monument day" and I lined up by chance for visiting the upper part of the town cathedral, which I discovered hosts one of the oldest and biggest swinging medioeval bells of the world.

A different tram stop

I would like to ask whether people try sometimes to just take another way to go to an usual place. Let say that you go to work every day by car. Do you follow always the same path, or sometimes you change, just to have different views? Or, if you take the tram, do you take it always at the same stop or sometimes you walk to the next or previous one?

Software use

I would like to ask how it came to this new type of workshops where people learn how to use a software without having any idea of what actually the software does. And this not because the participants do not have any background on the topic, the rules, or the theory behind the program, but rather because these classes are normally organized by experts employed by the software company itself. In this case, the interest of the workshop organizer is not to let people understand what they do, but how to do it with the software of the organizing company - possibly in such a way that it becomes extremely challenging doing it with eventual competitor's products.
Well, I do not agree.

Making ideas real

I would like to ask why some people (including myself) thinks about beginning a new hobby or activity, but then they get stuck in some thoughts of enormous difficulties about what it means to start something new, or just get disappointed after a first shy trial.
It does not have to be a new work activity, nor moving to another town, where I could share some apprehension and worry, as well as a deep pondering about pros and cons. I refer more to the little things that make our lives richer, happier, or simply more interesting: a new hobby, a new class, a new sport activity.

Chinese lady

I would like to ask how long does a tradition last in a folk. A way of behaving that has been characteristic of a population for millenniums and now can be found also in the people belonging to it but no more living in their country.

Love for work

I would like to ask why I do not have his enthusiasm, his passion in what he is doing. I would be happy to have one tenth of it.

Oh wonder!

I would like to ask whether they really learnt new traditions, food and ways of living after we said "Goodbye", as I did when I visited them. I had suggested these colleagues to go for a coffee and piece of cake in one of the oldest and tasty German pastry shops of town. It is a quite fancy old-fashion café, where classical music is played, they have 15 types of coffee and tea, and the cakes are on average about 10 cm tall and very beautifully decorated. I imagined they had never seen anything like that, although they traveled a lot; or at least, nobody ever went with them to the ritual of having coffee and cake as Germans do.

Organisation

I would like to ask why people have to decide spontaneously all the time what and when they are going to do something, and can not just plan it. Not that I really care what and when they do it: I care only when I am directly involved and I have to participate to the event.

Disagreement on a movie

I would like to ask how is it possible that people get so upset for a movie. I just can not find any explanation or any logical flow of thoughts, why people should burn down an embassy as a reaction to a movie which contains a message or some sentences they do not agree with.

Tattoo

I would like to ask whether you have ever seen an elder or middle-aged person with a tattoo. I realized today that I had never seen one until this morning. The lady was probably around 50 years old. Not fat, actually with a very skinny rectangular face, made more angular by the straight dark blond hair around it. Even her glasses were square. She was wearing a black gilet and a sleeveless white shirt, so that I could notice a blue flower on the upper part of her right arm.
When I think about a tattoo, I always imagine it on the muscles of a super tanned man, or on the lower part of a delicate woman's back. But never on the flabby arm of a pale middle-aged person.

The hot dog stand

How would like to ask how many and how different the customers of a hot dog stand during a normal day can be. I always associated a hot dog stand to very few occasions for having a meal: an employee during a quick lunch break, few tourists hungry near a station, or standing eaters during a volk fair.

Watching the news or not?

I would like to ask how many people watch the news in TV because they want to be informed, or because it is a habit, or even just they like to have a familiar noise while eating dinner at the kitchen table. How many people still watch the news in TV although they think that the best way to be informed is another one, as the news are incomplete or biased.

Books and e-Books

I would like to ask the readers of electronic books whether you miss the dusty heavy hardcover books in the living room near the sofa. Or the cheap light books with recycled paper that fitted everywhere in any bag and could be opened like bananas to read the words near the binding. And the feeling of the paper frame under the finger tips, so dry, so rough sometime. And also so dirty, sometime, making your fingers black if the book was printed on cheap not really ink-absorbing paper - but wonder, coffee and tea got absorbed so well as soon as one drop dropped on the most important sentence of the page.
I do see the advantages of an electronic book, whichever company you would like to consider.

Green pullover

I would like to ask how the colors that people were in normal days get decided. They must get decided somewhere, somehow, by someone, because the other morning, while waiting for the tram, I was observing the people and I could count many black pullovers, some brown ones, two red ones and two light blue ones, but no other color. Interesting enough, the two red ones were exactly the same red, which is not that easy to find. And the same can be said for the light blue ones. It seems that all people can choose the color of their clothes from a dozen of given ones, and any other color, for a while, disappears.

Sitting

I would like to ask how many people sometimes just sit on their favorite spot on a chair, sofa, bench, stone, and just... sit. No computer, book or knitting in their hands, no pets, no kids. You might hold in your hands just a cup of hot chocolate, or tea or coffee. That's it. Well, I also allow you to have a pillow if you are more confortable, or you need something to squeeze. And a cover, if you are cold. But that's it. Nothing else.

Facebook status

I would like to ask why we write in our status message of the social networks. It is so often subject of debate or warning articles on important newspapers, because it could be dangerous. I think it is quite obvious that we should not put there our bank account number. You can also go a bit further than that and admit that even locating yourself very far from your apartment is not incredibly safe if someone is just waiting for that to break in - there have been some cases for instance with Twitter users and their status messages, intercepted by thieves.
But why do people actually post anything might pass through their heads in a status message?

Working day

I would like to ask all those pedestrians walking around downtown, what do they do, why are they there in the mid morning hours of a working tuesday.
I always wondered why are shops open during standard working hours. If most people are working, they will not go shopping, so that there is no point to keep the shops open. Let's better say, it is less worth to keep the shops open when people usually work, than when they usually don't: late afternoons or weekends. But today I was going to the doctor, so I was around town when I am normally not. And I was astonished to see a lot of people walking around.

Sickness

I would like to ask people with a long work experience whether their colleagues ever called them when they have been sick. Does this depend on the work environment? Or does it depend on the type of job you do?