Kaleidoscope

"An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind."

"Worry is a waste of emotional reserve."

"Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential."

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The first airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won."

Thanks to Ayn Rand 

If we do what we did, we will get what we always got.

This simple message, yet so profound hit me in the back of my head. This message was hand written on a communication board in the office floor where I work.

This also reminded me of Einstein's  "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I never thought that Moscow would be the most costliest place in the world to live until I googled and found the information.

http://www.finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm gives an extensive summary of the cost of living by ranking cities from several countries.

The strengthening of Euro and other currencies against the US dollar has moved several cities in countries other than from USA, up in their ranking and it is surprising to find that Beijing in China, ranked at 20th place.

The website also gives information on how long a person need to work to earn a Big Mac Burger. It is interesting to see the variance in different countries.

With the developed countries continue to move their production facilities to several Asian countries such as Malaysia, India, China, we can anticipate movements in these rankings every year I think!

Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Moscow for the picture. 

Yesterday morning, in the gym, I was viewing a picture of the human body with so many names of the muscles. I started to wonder about the discovery of man, about all these and how it would have commenced.

My wonder galloped to  the creativity of the Nature. All attempts of learning about the body, the so many developed products and methods to keep the body well, including medical science are great! Even great is the body itself and the work of nature in building it! Isn't it?

Thanks to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Skeletal_muscle.jpg for the image.

Today morning, my friend and I were talking about the sub prime crisis. Ever since I came to understand what it actually meant, I wondered on how all major banks bought into this 'idea' of money making. You can read about in wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_financial_crisis 

My friend explained to me that in certain countries, the situation is even bad where some of the salesmen who are so focused on selling the products of the bank, lie about very high interest loans in the name of 'personal loans'. Half of the loans given go 'default', but the rest half are obtained at the expense of the 'gullible' people who signed the loans without paying attention to the terribly high 'interest' rates that they accepted!

My friend went on adding his wonder about the financial industry. He said that he started reading about one financial product in wikipedia, followed the related link in the page that led to information about other financial product, then followed another link in the new page...Thus, he ended up reading about 50 products when he stopped. The related links did not stop; still many were left unread by him.

I started to wonder about the necessity to create that many variations in financial industry. It is true that man's creativity can and certainly has added variety to any field. When I thought about several products and the motive behind them, I started to suspect that  'greed' could also promote creativity in addition to 'need'!

I think Rumi says that the caller and called are one and the same. Atleast, that is my interpretation.

Okay; who is the caller? who is called? what is the call?

This beautiful poem by Rumi Be lost in the call is fully viewable at http://www.armory.com/~thrace/sufi/poems.html#BeLostintheCall

Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?

Yesterday in the Metro Transit displays, I witnessed this deeply thoughtful quote from George Bernard Shaw. It hooked on to my mind for a long time.

Life is not a "brief candle". It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing on to future generations.

I googled for his quotes on life; Here below is what I found; Every quote is priceless. 

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Kabir is known for his work and life even now. His simplistic poetry - called Dohas - are two liners that convey an indepth meaning, like the below one.

Tomorrows work do today, today's work now!
if the moment is lost, the work be done how?

Thanks to www.boloji.com for the translation and the online presentation of Kabir's works. Thanks to http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/kabir.html for the picture.

It was after my viewing most of the episodes in Star Trek Voyager, that this phrase "quest for perfection" took a firm place in my mind.

Today I visited a photo frame shop. The lady at work was very swift in switching machinery, sticking the photo on to a pvc board, artistically hammering the frame and it was a treat to watch a speedy and well coordinated job.

There was some rubber glue on the photo that she finally fixed. At this time, another customer came and mentioned that the cab was waiting for him and he needed an update on his order immediately.

Satisfied, I was about to take the frame from the table. She set her motion to get in the shop and give an update on his order. But her eyes never failed to notice what I was about to do. She immediately turned and asked me to wait and that she would return and clean the glue and deliver the product to me.

I was impressed by her attention to detail. Thanking her work, I left the shop wondering on the topic "Quest for Perfection".

Thanks to wikipedia for the image of  Jeri Ryan  who played the role of Seven of Nine, a character whose passion is perfection.

More to follow in my next blogs.....

Today I googled for Kaleidoscope. When I was a kid, I was presented a cheap version of what was sold for thousands of dollars elsewhere. I loved watching the changing colors and patterns through this foot long tube. I did not know what its name was then. I think, after a few years of my acquaintance with it, I knew the name.

I came across an interesting historical information that Kaleidoscope was known to the ancient Greeks ( kalos, eidos, and skopos are Greek words meaning beautiful, form, and view ) and it was patented by Sir David Brewster from Scotland in 1817.

I started to wonder,

1) If it was known to ancient Greeks, then why was it not for their descendants? Why would it take a Sir David to discover it in 1817?

2)Are modern inventions - really inventions from the scratch? or improvisations over discoveries of what was done at early times?

Thanks to Wikipedia for the information and the images. 

Fleas

Adam
Had 'em.

When I googled , I found the above to be the shortest poem written so far. There are different claims on who the author of the poem is. An interesting couplet it is, it triggers a wonder, what does 'Had'em' represent?

I was looking at the world clock web site to fix up a time to conference with my friend. While doing so, I came across an interesting information. It was interesting, because I thought Australia would be sitting at the tip of the time race. I learnt that it is not and that Newzealand is ahead of Australia by 2 hours ( certain cities ). Then I searched for any other country which is ahead in the time race. There is one and it is Republic of Kiribati and the name of the place is Kiritimati, Christmas Islands, Kiribati.

I have never heard of either the place or the country. I searched in wikipedia to learn about this republic. You may want to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati

 Thanks to wikipedia for the image and information about Kiribati and to http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock for the time.

 
Humanity!

I looked up in the dictionary for the meaning of the word "Humanity". One of the definitions is "Quality of being human". Another definition said "Benevolence".

My thought jumped to Humanities in Education field. We have department of "Humanities" in colleges and universities. And interestingly, artistic studies are grouped under this topic and this department is the one that is poorly funded.

Come to think of it, Engineering, Medicine also are an art in their own respect. But the reason for the rich funding of those departments is that ultimately these studies promote consumption and generate money. While Humanities is ignored as a branch of study fit for people who want to teach!

This may not be the case in many countries  - but it is so in the countries I visited.

Anyway back to the word - Humanity!

I think "Humanity" -  the word came to existence because of people who lived the live purposefully and demonstrated the value of life by adhering to the values they practiced till the end of their lives and therefore defined the best qualities of human race. It may be that the collective term of these best qualities is what is humanity. 

I read an interesting article in BBC - " Life from Mars theory put to test "

The theory tested was if meteorites could have carried life forms to earth from Mars. Feel free to read the article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7056686.stm

I started thinking about the possibilities of such an event and what would that mean if it were true?

Will people start to call themselves Marsians? If they do how many references need to be corrected? And if not , and if there life forms in Mars, would they have any similarity to us, humans? Language, technology, Culture - What if they are replica of us?

In some of the parts of the world, I am witnessing the focus to retain the old names to cities, despite the new name being in use for a few centuries. People who are familiar with this can identify with my wonder on "Marsians".

In some of the ancient yogic literature, I found some references for life forms similar to we, people in other planets, world and recently as fancy as in Star Trek.

While these explorations are within the territory of my imagination, I need to admit that it is still fascinating. One day, I think, we humans will unwrap or fully discover who we are and where we are from. It may become so simple as watching a natural scenery!

Thanks to BBC for the information. Thanks to www.calacademy.org for the beautiful picture of 'Mars' land.
 

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