About me

Hi, I am Jiri Kote or if you like more an English version of my name, George Kitten, and that´s one of the reasons why I have named my blog Tomcat´s Commentaries. Smart? I know. Ha, ha.

The fact is that the nickname Tomcat has stuck to my surname for as long as I can remember, actually a long time before I could even imagine that I could speak and write in English, so I am used to it, and it has become my most common nickname.

But a name however cute it might be is just a name. It doesn´t tell you anything about me.

Let´s be honest here. I don´t like labels or typecasting. On the other hand, I understand that labels help us to understand this world better or perhaps be better oriented.

So, if it helps you to get to know me better then I would like to say that I see myself as an open-minded adventurer, aspiring entrepreneur, or more likely currently self-employed with a crazy analytical mind, a creative dreamer with a strong ecological and moral opinion that loves nature, travelling, literature or any other kind of art, loves writing, cats, etc. I am a diplomatic, neat, practical perfectionist with an eye for detail who always tries to be authentic, caring, empathetic, friendly, a good listener, honest and reliable.

That´s it! Gosh! So many labels!

But if you still feel that you would like to know more about me, you are more than welcome to read the section below 😉.

More about me

Although, after a few years of travelling I have settled in Scotland near the so-called Athens of North, I was born towards the end of the Cold War in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1960-1990) at a time when we could not freely choose what to study, where to live, we could not travel to western countries, we were forced by communist party what and how to think.

I don´t want you to feel sorry for me. As a child, you don´t care about politics. And, I had a wonderful childhood. I lived in a big house surrounded by steep hills full of trees, deep valleys with broad rivers and swift streams, green meadows full of colourful flowers during springs and summers, and covered by deep snow in winters that we could use for skiing and sledging, deep forests that were taking all possible shades of red and orange in autumns, and rocks here and there that you could climb if you would be skilful enough… Simply, I grew up in an environment that was the best for an introverted dreamer like I have been whose fantasy had been stimulated from the very early stage of my life by my father who always read me a good night story before I fell asleep.

I am from the generation of millennials that reached adulthood at a time when all modern technologies were still in their infancy when the most advanced PC operation system was DOS, and later on WINDOWS 95, so we had to learn a lot of things the old way, by reading books, magazines, listening radio or records on LPs, and later on cassettes and CDs, etc., and I must say that I have loved it. My brain has become a sponge that absorbs all sorts of different information from all sorts of different fields of human activities.

Especially reading has become my island of castaways for the times when I was sick. And you can trust me that I was sick very often as a child.

And, because from reading it is just a small step for creative introverts as I have been to start expressing thoughts through writing I started to write quite often.

I was just in first grade at prime school when I started to write my first diary, although back then I called it chronicle because it seemed to me cooler.

Despite my introverted creative soul, I took a different path and under the influence of my parents, teachers and perhaps even friends decided to study electrotechnology because it was supposed to be more likely the way how I could make my living at the times when technologies were becoming more and more important part of our daily life.

Long story short, it was an interesting five-year-long study, but it made me desperate. It didn´t have anything in common with who I have ever been or wanted to be.

But who at least once in our life wasn´t in a similar position when we do something that we don´t enjoy just to please others? In many cases, we think that we must please our parents to express our gratitude that they raised us.

Or very often happens that there is always something in our life more important, more serious than our life call.

For example, myself. It took me another 9 years after finishing high school which I hated and never worked in the electrotechnology anyway to find the courage and take a different path. So, I started to study the media and communication study at university. But before that, I tried to work in local newspapers as a journalist naive enough to think that I could change the World to only find out that nowadays newspapers leave more space for adverts than for solid journalism, and so on.

Do you see the pattern? My only intention, the only thing I have always known that I have wanted to do because it is my life call, has been writing. But I felt that I needed to give my life call first some serious purpose through university education, through career, you name it.  I tried to get permission from others to do something that I have always wanted to do.

Does it seem to you familiar?

At the beginning of my working path, approximately at age 20, I fell in love with very specific types of magazines that could be called social magazines. They have covered every aspect of human life, such as politics, culture, economy, history, travelling, and much, much more.

I always read the whole edition of those magazines from the first to the last page on my way to work.

Those magazines have always provided me with a reflection of the whole society at a specific time, they have made me think, they have made me ask myself questions, they have brought doubts, and they have brought a desire to learn more about specific topics.

Nowadays, most of those magazines are published online, although I have no doubts that printed versions still exist, same as most other communication happens online, and I am very aware of that. And, even though I am from the generation of millennials that didn´t groove up surrounded by smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc., so it is not my nature, I have decided to give it a try, and after many years of pleasing others or waiting for their permission to do what I want to do I have started my kind of online social magazine Tomcat´s Commentaries through which I would like to present you my own genuine experience from all sorts of fields of human activities and of my interest, such as finances, health, literature, personal development, recreational sports, relationships, sustainable eco-friendly lifestyle, travelling, veganism, and much, much more.

I hope that through my blog posts, I will be able to make you ask questions, bring doubts, make you want to learn more about the topic, cause a discussion, etc. Shortly, I intend to bring you through Tomcat´s Commentaries similar values like those social magazines that I used to read brought to me.

I know. I know. Don´t worry. I have read all different sorts of articles and books and taken all different sorts of courses about blog writing, online marketing, entrepreneurship, and so on. I know that I should choose my subject or so-called niche wisely and as narrowly focused as possible. But do you know what? That´s not me. As I have mentioned before, my brain is like a sponge and as such absorbs all different kinds of information from all different kinds of fields of human activities because I am interested in human society in general.

So, perhaps for the first time in my life I have decided to do what I feel is the right thing for me, and if you have managed to read until here then allow me to congratulate you. You are as crazy as I am!

No. Sorry! I am only joking, of course! I would like really to thank you that you have got through those lines above of one graphomaniac, and if you think that Tomcat´s Commentaries would be something interesting for you to follow then let me take you to the latest post section.