Kaleidoscope

The search engine capabilities of google continue to astonish me.

Today I wanted to find out what the world's oldest business would be; well I googled and came across an interesting article from Business Week from where I learnt about a 1400 year old family operated  business that recently came to an end.

How did the company sustain for so long?  this can be read from Business Week. (http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2007/sb20070416_589621.htm)

Interesting...Isn't it? 

I never knew that Kahlil Gibran, has written about Jesus until I came across http://leb.net/gibran/

When browsing his work on Jesus "Jesus, the son of man" , a verse - a poetic prose on Cyborea, mother of Judas caught my attention.

She says

I loved him and I shall love him forevermore.
If love were in the flesh I would burn it out with hot irons and be at peace. But it is in the soul, unreachable.
And now I would speak no more. Go question another woman more honored than the mother of Judas.
Go to the mother of Jesus. The sword is in her heart also; she will tell you of me, and you will understand.  

The whole work is viewable at the website above mentioned. Thanks to them.

I wanted to write a 'serious' poem and send it for a contest sometime ago. I did, the poem was selected and published in a journal also.

Though now I think there is an error in thought behind this poem, I am happy about this work. A friend of mine, Dana helped correct some of the grammatical and logical errors in this poem. Thanks to her.

Here it goes....

Each day ends with endless load,

On my mind and makes it tired!

The mountain's might and the loverly bird's flight,

The scorching sun and the soothing moon,

The smile of the flowers and the guile of men,

The snake that crawled on a dark night earth,

The people that I have known since my birth,

The warmth of my mother when I was young,

The day I thought I had my wings,

Everything adds and adds to my brain,

Leaving no way and time for me to drain,

The air that I breath might be fresh,

But my memories make me no longer fresh,

My memories gather and form a thick screen,

which blocks me from seeing clearly a scene,

My eyes love to see every little thing,

With my mind ever silent and still like nothing, 

My heart loves to feel every little thing,

With my brain alive and always free.

In a few words by people passing by and who engaged with me in a casual conversation, I learnt about Martin Luther King Junior when I started my work in USA.

I do not exactly remember how I came across, but I did hear his famous speech, "I have a dream" at www.americanrhetoric.com. I was mesmerized just on hearing the voice. Then I had an opportunity to watch that video - Wow! It was thought provoking, energizing and inspiring. 

Then I purchased a copy of his biography and learnt the ordeals that he faced at such an early age of his political life. The unshakeable conviction that he demonstrated towards the non-violent way of fighting for freedom for his people is a fitting tribute to people like Gandhi, Jesus and Buddha alike.

His 'I have a dream' speech is rated as the #1 rhetoric in the Top 100 speeches in www.americanrhetoric.com. The whole speech is available for listening at this site. If you have not heard this before, I strongly urge you to do so. You will just love it!

Thanks to americanrhetoric.com for having this information, speech and the picture attached.

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-tones that, passing by,
In distance die away;

These are a few lines from a poem by one of the finest presidents America and the world have seen. I was surprised to find that it was by Lincoln. The simplistic style with fantastic metaphors decorate the whole poem.

The title of the poem is 'My Childhood Home I see again'. This poem can be viewed at http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/poetry.htm

Thanks to the site for the online version of the poem and to the site http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/lincoln-abraham.jpg for the picture of Lincoln.

Lincoln amazes me in many ways and now I have added yet another way by which he amazed me today to my database - my brain.

Intrigued by the dutch story of recovering land from the sea, I further surfed the net and came across this beautiful site

http://www.rug.nl/wewi/dewetenschapswinkels/natuurkunde/photo

There is an interesting paragraph on how dikes were built and water pumped to recover land from sea with a beautiful picture.

There are several other pictures with interesting information about Netherlands. You may want to take a peak!

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,

"Your seeds shall live in my body,And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,And your fragrance shall be my breath,

And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

   I read this interesting verse of Kahlil Gibran's  on 'Eating and Drinking'. Thanks to www.leb.net for the online version. His perspective  of looking at what has now become a routine thoughtless activity  - 'eating' is refreshing and it does spur a thought.

What do you think? 

On a sunday night at 22:00, I was browsing the internet on 'Learning' and came across this very interesting quote.

Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival

                                                             - W. Edwards Deming

I laughed aloud and meanwhile was curious to learn about the man who said this. Where else but wikipedia these days.....?

And to my surprise I learnt that Edwards Deming, being an American, contributed immensely for his work in Japan and that his contribution was vital in Japan producing innovative high-quality products.

He was an American Statistician, College professor and Consultant. He is also credited with improving production in United States during World War II.

 There is a good amount of information on him, his philosophy (14 points) and Seven Deadly Diseases!! in Wikipedia - you may want to read! I could not agree with all of it - but it is an interesting read!

In my opinion, this is one of the best poems ever written. It is by Rabindranath Tagore. I feel the passion of Tagore for his countrymen.

Anytime I feel dull, I read this poem. Instantly, Tagore's words rejuvenate my thinking and feelings. Tribute to him and thanks to http://www.kahlil.org/gitanjali.html for the online version of this timeless jewel.

 MIND WITHOUT FEAR

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action- 

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

It always surprise me whenever I hear people say, "So and So much of this country's land is recovered from sea". I begin to wonder

1) First of all, how is that possible?

2) What happens to the fish and other living beings in that area during the recovery process? Do they migrate to other distant parts of the sea or Do they just die / get killed?

 3)And will the land remain solid? Will it be hard? How are the waves stopped or controlled from extending or rather flowing towards their usual distance?

 The first time I heard such a thing when I was in Netherlands. Curiously I browed Wikepedia to see how the dutch managed to do this. I was surprised to learn that in the 13th century itself, they used windmills to pump water out of the land below sea level. In addition to recovering the land from sea, the dutch needed to protect against the floods.

To put an end to the threat from the sea once for all, the dutch launched a project called "Delta" in 1958 which was largely completed in 2002. The goal of this project is to reduce the risk of flooding in the Zeeland ( a key region in Netherlands ) to once per 10,000 years.

I still would like to explore on the details of the process of how these amazing people achieved this and will keep myself and others who view this blog posted.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the news and picture. Tribute to the those people of Netherlands who architected, those who orchestrated and those who labored in this interesting project which stretched the human possibilities.

Rumi is well known for his mystic poems. For a change, I peeked into his poems on love.

The below lines from one of his verse caught my attention. What a lovely metaphor?

The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The stars and the moon are envious of each other.
Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, "How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?"

This reminds of a heated argument that one of the poets that I have come across put forth. He stringly criticized how un-scientific the poets are even after knowing the surface of the moon to compare it with the face of the beloved lover ( mostly girls ).

But I think, still moon is the best metaphor when it comes to Love and Romance, there is no need to be very analytical in poetry I guess.

Thanks to www.khamush.com for the verse.

Walking casually in the platform, I came across this quote which was displayed in the LCD monitors of the railway station.

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

                                                                                  - Carlos Castenada

This was the first time I heard of Carlos Castenada. The truth in the statement struck me and I started looking for his quotes in internet.
I find the below ones to be thought provoking...

“I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while,
in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

“We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.”

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last
moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves
into one or the other.”

”“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge,and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

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