impulse to soar

The World

2007-08-27T16:12:00.000-05:00

"the world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms..."

- George Santayana
American philosopher and poet

Human Element

2007-08-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

An excellent commercial from Dow Chemicals about the importance of the human element in life.

Excellence

2007-08-17T10:55:00.000-05:00

"Risk more than others think is safe.
Care more than others think is wise.
Dream more than others think is practical.
Expect more than others think is possible."

— Claude T. Bissell

Vande Mataram

2007-08-15T11:05:00.000-05:00

In commemoration of India's independence from Britain 60 years ago. This tribute was produced and arranged by A.R. Rahman in 1997 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of India's independence. Vande Mataram is India's national song.

Jana Gana Mana

2007-08-15T10:53:00.000-05:00

In commemoration of India's independence from Britain 60 years ago. This tribute was produced and arranged by A.R. Rahman in 2000 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of India becoming a republic.

Lincoln Inaugural Address

2007-08-14T16:48:00.000-05:00

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

- Abraham Lincoln
16th US President
1st Inaugural Address

The Fray - How to Save a Life

2007-08-06T13:33:00.000-05:00

How to Save a Life
The Fray
How to Save a Life

List of steps in the music video
1. Love
2. Listen
3. Breathe
4. Imagine
5. Let it go
6. Believe
7. Forgive
8. Hold still
9. Hold close
10. Amaze yourself
11. Remember
12. Make yourself secure
13. Make everyone secure
14. Take it back
15. Let it go
16. Dream
17. Fear
18. Talk to someone
19. Don't lie
20. Don't pretend
21. Trust yourself
22. Cry
23. Accept
24. Don't hurt yourself
25. Don't hurt anyone
26. Keep moving
27. Regret
28. Forget
29. Make peace
30. Make love
31. Banish wars
32. Banish hate
33. Be free
34. Feel free
35. Stand still
36. Don't be scared of death
37. Have faith
38. Admire
39. Stand strong
40. Surrender
41. Dance
42. Smile
43. Laugh
44. Break
45. Touch
46. Have secrets
47. Share secrets
48. Know secrets
49. Relieve
50. Don’t lie to yourself
51. Release
52. Run
53. Learn
54. Leave
55. Trust others
56. Question
57. Be kind
58. Keep your memories
59. Don’t forget
60. Kiss
61. Hug
62. Scream out
63. Be true
64. Admit
65. Live
66. Release the fear
67. Secure
86. Open up
99. Say goodbye

Death is Nothing at All

2007-08-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.

- Henry Scott Holland
Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

Frank Sinatra - My Way

2007-08-03T15:10:00.000-05:00

My Way
Frank Sinatra

Lyrics
And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

Yes, it was my way

To Be Misunderstood

2007-08-01T11:52:00.000-05:00

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalist

Attitude

2007-07-30T17:19:00.000-05:00

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."

- Tom Wilson
'Ziggy' Comic Strip

Common ft. will.i.am - A Dream (Freedom Writers)

2007-07-16T04:14:00.000-05:00

Song from the Freedom Writers soundtrack by Common and will.i.am using audio clips from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Perseverence and Fortitude

2007-07-11T03:47:00.000-05:00

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he. ...

By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils -- a ravaged country -- a depopulated city -- habitations without safety, and slavery without hope -- our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

- Thomas Paine
The American Crisis (1776)

Success of Liberty

2007-07-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge -- and more.

- John F. Kennedy
35th US President

Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

2007-07-01T13:28:00.000-05:00

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
you may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise

I rise
I rise

- Maya Angelou
American Poet

Satyameva Jayate

2007-06-24T22:08:00.000-05:00

'Satyameva Jayate'
Truth Alone Triumphs

'Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood. By truth the path is laid out, the Way of the Gods, on which the seers, whose every desire is satisfied, proceed to the Highest Abode of the True.'

- Mundaka Upanishad (3.1.6)

Believe

2007-06-23T12:13:00.000-05:00

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

- Buddha

"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true."

- Buddha

Gayatri Mantra

2007-06-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

Transliteration:
om bhur bhuva suvaha
tat savitur vareNyam
bhargo devasya dheemahi
dhiyo yo nah prachodayaat

Translation:
We meditate on the glory of the Creator;
Who has created the Universe;
Who is worthy of Worship;
Who is the embodiment of Knowledge and Light;
Who is the remover of all Sin and Ignorance;
May He enlighten our Intellect.

The Gayatri Mantra is a central prayer in Hinduism. It is derived from the Vedas and is seen as a divine awakening of the mind and soul.

Liberty

2007-06-21T22:42:00.000-05:00

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security will deserve neither and lose both."

- Benjamin Franklin
American Statesman

The Self - Swami Vivekananda

2007-06-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

The following excerpt was taken from: "Swami Vivekananda, Inspired Talks". Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York: Second edition, 1987.

After every happiness comes misery; they may be far apart or near. The more advanced the soul, the more quickly does the one follow the other. What we want is neither happiness nor misery. Both make us forget our true nature; both are chains—one iron, one gold. Behind both is the Atman, who knows neither happiness nor misery. These are states, and states must ever change; but the nature of the Soul is bliss, peace—unchanging. We have not to get it; we have it. Only wash away the dross and see it.

Stand upon the Self; then only can you truly love the world. Take a very, very high stand. Knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world. It is but baby's play, and we know that, so cannot be disturbed by it. If the mind is pleased with praise it will be displeased with blame. All pleasures of the senses or even of the mind are evanescent; but within ourselves is the one true unrelated pleasure, dependent upon nothing. It is perfectly free. It is bliss. The more we enjoy inner bliss, the more spiritual we are. The pleasure of the Self is what is called religion.

The internal universe, the real, is infinitely greater than the external, which is only a shadowy projection of the true one. This world is neither true nor untrue; it is the shadow of truth. It is imagination—the gilded shadow of truth—says the poet.

We enter into creation, and then for us it becomes living. Things are dead in themselves; only we give them life and then, like fools, we turn around and are afraid of them or run after them. But be not like certain fishwives who, caught in a storm on their way home from market, took refuge in the house of a florist. They were lodged for the night in a room next to the garden, where the air was full of the fragrance of flowers. In vain did they try to rest, until one of their number suggested that they wet their fish-baskets and place them near their heads. As soon as they got the smell of fish, they all fell into a sound sleep.

The world is our fish-basket. We must not depend upon it for enjoyment. Those who do are the tamasikas, the bound. Then there are the rajasikas, the egotistical, who talk always about "I," "I." They do good work sometimes and may become spiritual. But the highest are the sattvikas, the introspective, those who live only in the Self. These three qualities—tamas, rajas, and sattva—are in everyone, and different ones predominate at different times.

Creation is not a "making" of something; it is the struggle to regain equilibrium—as when bits of cork, thrown to the bottom of a pail of water, rush to the top, singly or in clusters. Life is and must be accompanied by evil. A little evil is the source of life. The little wickedness that is in the world is very good; for when the balance is regained, the world will end, because sameness and destruction are one. As long as this world exists, good and evil exist with it; but when we can transcend this world, we get rid of both good and evil and have bliss.

There is no possibility of ever having pleasure without pain, good without evil; for life itself is just lost equilibrium. What we want is freedom—not life, nor pleasure, nor good. Creation is infinite, without beginning and without end, the ever moving ripples on an infinite lake. There are, however, unreached depths in this lake, where equilibrium has been regained; but the ripples on the surface are always there; the struggle to regain the balance is eternal. Life and death are only different names for the same fact, the two sides of the one coin. Both are maya, the inexplicable state of striving at one time to live, and a moment later having to die. Beyond this is our true nature, the Atman. What we call God is really only the Self, from which we have separated ourselves and which we worship as outside us; but it is our true Self, all the time, the one and only God.

To regain the balance we must counteract tamas by rajas, then conquer rajas by sattva, the calm, beautiful state that will grow and grow until all else is gone. Give up bondage, become a son of God; be free, and then you can "see the Father" as did Jesus. Infinite strength is religion and God. Avoid weakness and slavery. You are the Soul only if you are free; there is immortality for you only if you are free; there is a God only if He is free.

- Swami Vivekananda

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

2007-06-16T12:59:00.000-05:00

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

- Dylan Thomas
Welsh Poet

Great Personalities - Che Guevara

2007-06-14T12:50:00.001-05:00

Commemorating the 79th anniversary of the birth of Che Guevara. This article appeared on the June 14, 1999 issue of TIME Magazine, as part of the 'Time 100: Most Important People of the Century' series. Guevara was chosen as one of the twenty greatest heroes and icons of the 20th century.

By the time Ernesto Guevara, known to us as Che, was murdered in the jungles of Bolivia in October 1967, he was already a legend to my generation, not only in Latin America but also around the world.

Like so many epics, the story of the obscure Argentine doctor who abandoned his profession and his native land to pursue the emancipation of the poor of the earth began with a voyage. In 1956, along with Fidel Castro and a handful of others, he had crossed the Caribbean in the rickety yacht Granma on the mad mission of invading Cuba and overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Landing in a hostile swamp, losing most of their contingent, the survivors fought their way to the Sierra Maestra. A bit over two years later, after a guerrilla campaign in which Guevara displayed such outrageous bravery and skill that he was named comandante, the insurgents entered Havana and launched what was to become the first and only victorious socialist revolution in the Americas. The images were thereafter invariably gigantic. Che the titan standing up to the Yanquis, the world's dominant power. Che the moral guru proclaiming that a New Man, no ego and all ferocious love for the other, had to be forcibly created out of the ruins of the old one. Che the romantic mysteriously leaving the revolution to continue, sick though he might be with asthma, the struggle against oppression and tyranny.

His execution in Vallegrande at the age of 39 only enhanced Guevara's mythical stature. That Christ-like figure laid out on a bed of death with his uncanny eyes almost about to open; those fearless last words ("Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man") that somebody invented or reported; the anonymous burial and the hacked-off hands, as if his killers feared him more after he was dead than when he had been alive: all of it is scalded into the mind and memory of those defiant times. He would resurrect, young people shouted in the late '60s; I can remember fervently proclaiming it in the streets of Santiago, Chile, while similar vows exploded across Latin America. !No lo vamos a olvidar! We won't let him be forgotten.

More than 30 years have passed, and the dead hero has indeed persisted in collective memory, but not exactly in the way the majority of us would have anticipated. Che has become ubiquitous: his figure stares out at us from coffee mugs and posters, jingles at the end of key rings and jewelry, pops up in rock songs and operas and art shows. This apotheosis of his image has been accompanied by a parallel disappearance of the real man, swallowed by the myth. Most of those who idolize the incendiary guerrilla with the star on his beret were born long after his demise and have only the sketchiest knowledge of his goals or his life. Gone is the generous Che who tended wounded enemy soldiers, gone is the vulnerable warrior who wanted to curtail his love of life lest it make him less effective in combat and gone also is the darker, more turbulent Che who signed orders to execute prisoners in Cuban jails without a fair trial.

This erasure of complexity is the normal fate of any icon. More paradoxical is that the humanity that worships Che has by and large turned away from just about everything he believed in. The future he predicted has not been kind to his ideals or his ideas. Back in the '60s, we presumed that his self-immolation would be commemorated by social action, the downtrodden rising against the system and creating — to use Che's own words — two, three, many Vietnams. Thousands of luminous young men, particularly in Latin America, followed his example into the hills and were slaughtered there or tortured to death in sad city cellars, never knowing that their dreams of total liberation, like those of Che, would not come true. If Vietnam is being imitated today, it is primarily as a model for how a society forged in insurrection now seeks to be actively integrated into the global market. Nor has Guevara's uncompromising, unrealistic style of struggle, or his ethical absolutism, prevailed. The major revolutions of the past quarter-century (South Africa, Iran, the Philippines, Nicaragua), not to mention the peaceful transitions to democracy in Latin America, East Asia and the communist world, have all entailed negotiations with former adversaries, a give and take that could not be farther from Che's unyielding demand for confrontation to the death. Even someone like Subcomandante Marcos, the spokesman for the Chiapas Maya revolt, whose charisma and moral stance remind us of Che's, does not espouse his hero's economic or military theories.

How to understand, then, Che Guevara's pervasive popularity, especially among the affluent young?

Perhaps in these orphaned times of incessantly shifting identities and alliances, the fantasy of an adventurer who changed countries and crossed borders and broke down limits without once betraying his basic loyalties provides the restless youth of our era with an optimal combination, grounding them in a fierce center of moral gravity while simultaneously appealing to their contemporary nomadic impulse. To those who will never follow in his footsteps, submerged as they are in a world of cynicism, self-interest and frantic consumption, nothing could be more vicariously gratifying than Che's disdain for material comfort and everyday desires. One might suggest that it is Che's distance, the apparent impossibility of duplicating his life anymore, that makes him so attractive. And is not Che, with his hippie hair and wispy revolutionary beard, the perfect postmodern conduit to the nonconformist, seditious '60s, that disruptive past confined to gesture and fashion? Is it conceivable that one of the only two Latin Americans to make it onto TIME's 100 most important figures of the century can be comfortably transmogrified into a symbol of rebellion precisely because he is no longer dangerous?

I wouldn't be too sure. I suspect that the young of the world grasp that the man whose poster beckons from their walls cannot be that irrelevant, this secular saint ready to die because he could not tolerate a world where los pobres de la tierra, the displaced and dislocated of history, would be eternally relegated to its vast margins.

Even though I have come to be wary of dead heroes and the overwhelming burden their martyrdom imposes on the living, I will allow myself a prophecy. Or maybe it is a warning. More than 3 billion human beings on this planet right now live on less than $2 a day. And every day that breaks, 40,000 children — more than one every second! — succumb to diseases linked to chronic hunger. They are there, always there, the terrifying conditions of injustice and inequality that led Che many decades ago to start his journey toward that bullet and that photo awaiting him in Bolivia.

The powerful of the earth should take heed: deep inside that T shirt where we have tried to trap him, the eyes of Che Guevara are still burning with impatience.

- Ariel Dorfman
Text Copyright TIME Magazine

Dared to Believe

2007-06-14T11:27:00.000-05:00

"All things splendid have been achieved by those who dared to believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance."

- Bruce Barton

Great Personalities - Ayrton Senna

2007-06-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

He streaked through the sport like a comet, an other-worldly superstar whose brilliance as a driver was matched by a dazzling intellect and coruscating charisma that illuminated Formula One racing as never before. No one tried harder or pushed himself further, nor did anyone shed so much light on the extremes to which only the greatest drivers go. Intensely introspective and passionate in the extreme, Ayrton Senna endlessly sought to extend his limits, to go faster than himself, a quest that ultimately made him a martyr but did not diminish his mystique.

Ayrton Senna da Silva was born on March 21, 1960, into a wealthy Brazilian family where, with his brother and sister, he enjoyed a privileged upbringing. He never needed to race for money but his deep need for racing began with an infatuation for a miniature go-kart his father gave him when he was four years old. As a boy the highlights of Ayrton's life were Grand Prix mornings when he awoke trembling with anticipation at the prospect of watching his Formula One heroes in action on television. At 13 he raced a kart for the first time and immediately won. Eight years later he went single-seater racing in Britain, where in three years he won five championships, by which time he had divorced his young wife and forsaken a future in his father's businesses in favour of pursuing success in Formula One racing, where he made his debut with Toleman in 1984. At Monaco (a race he would win six times), his sensational second to Alain Prost's McLaren - in torrential rain - was confirmation of the phenomenal talent that would take the sport by storm.

Deciding Toleman's limited resources were inadequate for his towering ambition, Senna bought out his contract and in 1985 moved to Lotus, where in three seasons he started from pole 16 times (he eventually won a record 65) and won six races. Having reached the limits of Lotus he decided the fastest way forward would be with McLaren, where he went in 1988 and stayed for six seasons, winning 35 races and three world championships.

In 1988, when McLaren-Honda won 15 of the 16 races, Senna beat his team mate Alain Prost eight wins to seven to take his first driving title. Thereafter two of the greatest drivers became protagonists in one of the most infamous feuds. In 1989 Prost took the title by taking Senna out at the Suzuka chicane. In 1990 Senna extracted revenge at Suzuka's first corner, winning his second championship by taking out Prost's Ferrari at Suzuka's first corner. Senna's third title, in 1991, was straightforward as his domination as a driver became even more pronounced, as did his obsession with becoming better still. Some of his greatest performances came in his final year with McLaren, following which he moved to Williams for the ill-fated 1994 season.

Beyond his driving genius Senna was one of the sport's most compelling personalities. Though slight in stature he possessed a powerful physical presence, and when he spoke, with his warm brown eyes sparkling and his voice quavering with intensity, his eloquence was spellbinding. Even the most jaded members of the Formula One fraternity were mesmerised by his passionate soliloquies and in his press conferences you could hear a pin drop as he spoke with such hypnotic effect. His command performances were captured by the media and the world at large became aware of Senna's magnetic appeal.

Everyone marvelled at how he put so much of himself, his very soul, into everything he did, not just his driving but into life itself. Behind the wheel the depth of his commitment was there for all to see and the thrilling spectacle of Senna on an all-out qualifying lap or a relentless charge through the field evoked an uneasy combination of both admiration for his superlative skill and fear for his future.

He drove like a man possessed - some thought by demons. His ruthless ambition provoked condemnation from critics, among them Prost who accused him of caring more about winning than living. When Senna revealed he had discovered religion Prost and others suggested he was a dangerous madman who thought God was his co-pilot. "Senna is a genius," Martin Brundle said. "I define genius as just the right side of imbalance. He is so highly developed to the point that he's almost over the edge. It's a close call."

Even Senna confessed he occasionally went too far, as was the case in qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix, where he became a passenger on a surreal ride into the unknown. Already on pole, he went faster and faster and was eventually over two seconds quicker than Prost in an identical McLaren. "Suddenly, it frightened me," Ayrton said, "because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding. I drove back slowly to the pits and did not go out anymore that day."

He said he was acutely aware of his own mortality and used fear to control the extent of the boundaries he felt compelled to explore. Indeed, he regarded racing as a metaphor for life and he used driving as a means of self-discovery. "For me, this research is fascinating. Every time I push, I find something more, again and again. But there is a contradiction. The same moment that you become the fastest, you are enormously fragile. Because in a split-second, it can be gone. All of it. These two extremes contribute to knowing yourself, deeper and deeper."

His self-absorption did not preclude deep feelings for humanity and he despaired over the world's ills. He loved children and gave millions of his personal fortune (estimated at $400 million when he died) to help provide a better future for the underprivileged in Brazil. Early in 1994 he spoke about his own future. "I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant."

And so it did, on May 1, 1994, in the San Marino Grand Prix, where his race-leading Williams inexplicably speared off the Imola track and hit the concrete wall at Tamburello corner. Millions saw it happen on television, the world mourned his passing and his state funeral in Sao Paulo was attended by many members of the shocked Formula One community. Among the several drivers escorting the coffin was Alain Prost. Among the sad mourners was Frank Williams, who said: "Ayrton was no ordinary person. He was actually a greater man out of the car than in it."

- Gerald Donaldson
Text Copyright Formula 1

This entry is part of a series on great personalities throughout history who served to inspire and push the human race forward.

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

2007-06-12T11:44:00.000-05:00

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us its different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

- Carl Sagan
from Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Visa - Life Takes Ad

2007-06-11T13:24:00.001-05:00

A nice little ad from Visa about what life takes. The theme music is adopted from the song 'Better of You' by Joey Ryan.

Prayer of St Francis

2007-06-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

- St Francis of Assisi
Roman Catholic Friar

Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics Ad

2007-06-09T13:24:00.000-05:00

Ad campaign for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City with quotes from Jung, Thoreau and Hildebrand.

"The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

- Carl Jung

"The most glowing successes are but reflections of an inner fire."

- Kenneth Hildebrand

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us."

- Henry David Thoreau

Forbearance

2007-06-08T12:38:00.000-05:00

Gently I took that which ungently came,
And without scorn forgave :--Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that--the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,
Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it ;--thine the gains--
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
English Poet and Philosopher

The World As I See It

2007-06-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

An essay by Albert Einstein, 1931

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Footprints in the Sand

2007-06-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

One night I dreamed I was walking
Along the beach with the Lord.

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed that
During the low periods of my life when I was

Suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord, “You promised me
Lord, that if I followed You,
You would walk with me always.

But I have noticed that during the most trying periods
Of my life there have only been
One set of footprints in the sand.

Why, when I have needed You most,
You have not been there for me?”

The Lord replied,
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”
.

Liberty Mutual - Good Deeds Series

2007-06-03T15:24:00.000-05:00

These two advertisements are part of the Good Deeds series by Liberty Mutual which illustrates the way good deeds tend to inspire others to perform such deeds.

Ik Onkar

2007-05-31T16:22:00.000-05:00

Ik Onkar, meaning 'One Universal God,' is the first phrase of the Mul Mantra - the prayer containing the basis of the Sikh faith. Its importance is emphasized by virtue of it being the first composition of Guru Nanak in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of Sikhism. The Mul Mantra expounds the central concepts of Sikh theology and forms the foundation of the faith. The version here is sung by Harshdeep Kaur in the movie Rang De Basanti, with music by A.R. Rahman.

Ik Onkar Sat Naam Karta Purakh Nirbhau Nirvair Akal Murat Ajuni Saibham Gurprasad

Aad Sach Jugad Sach Hai Bhi Sach Nanak Hosi Bhi Sach

Soche Soch Na Hovai Je Sochi Lakh Var
Chupe Chup Na Hovai Je Lai Raha Liv Tar
Bhukhia Bhukh Na Utari Je Banna Puria Bhar
Sahas Sianpa Lakh Hohi Ta Ik Na Chale Nal
Kiv Sachiara Hoiai Kiv Kurai Tute Pal
Hukam Razai Chalna Nanak Likhiya Nal

Explanation
The True One and only Omnipresent Immortal Essence of Reality. The Creator, the Omniscient and Omnipotent, the Incomprehensible (the fearless). Before all Beginnings and after all Endings. Beyond Time, Space and Form (and enmity). Free from the cycle of Births and Deaths, the Self-manifested. The Loving Merciful Enlightener (Realised with His Grace through total Submission to His Will).

True before creation. True through all ages. True also today. Says Nanak, True He shall eternally be.

Thinking does not reach belief, if one thinks a million times
Prolonged silence and meditation does not quieten the mind
Hunger (Greed) cannot be satisfied even with loads of food (wealth)
At the time of death intellectual smartness also stays behind
How can then we realize the Truth and destroy fibs
Says Nanak live with His Divine Will

Buddhism

2007-05-30T12:32:00.003-05:00

The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.

- Atisha
11th century Tibetan Buddhist scholar

Taj Mahal

2007-05-29T20:02:00.001-05:00

"a teardrop glistening on the cheeks of time..."

- Rabindranath Tagore
Indian Poet

Memorial Day

2007-05-28T10:23:00.000-05:00

In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces

Fall of the Berlin Wall

2007-05-27T09:53:00.001-05:00

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

- Margaret Mead
American Anthropologist

Celebrate Humanity - 2004 Olympics

2007-05-26T09:19:00.000-05:00

Ads from the Celebrate Humanity campaign in conjunction with the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics.

Celebrate Humanity - Heart - Andrea Bocelli

If you could have the arms of Hercules.
Legs as swift as the wind.
If you could leap shoulder-high above the rim.
Have the kick of a dolphin.
The reflexes of a cat.
If you could have all this, you would have the body,
you would have the tools.
But you will not have greatness.
Until you understand that
the strongest muscle is the heart.
To me, that's the soul of the Olympic Games.

Celebrate Humanity - Strength - Christopher Reeve

Funny, isn't it.
An athlete aspires to be the best
his or her country has to offer.
And ends up representing the best
humanity has to offer.
That's the strength I find in the Olympic Games.

Celebrate Humanity - Play - Avril Lavigne

It doesn’t matter where you come from.
Who your family is.
What you wear.
Or how good you are at math.
All that matters is that you give it
everything you’ve got.
To me, that’s why the Olympic Games rock.

Celebrate Humanity - Adversaries & Equals - Nelson Mandela

For seventeen days, they are roommates.
For seventeen days, they are soulmates.
And for twenty-two seconds, they are competitors.
Seventeen days as equals. Twenty-two seconds as adversaries.
What a wonderful world that would be.
That's the hope I see in the Olympic Games.

.

Fortune Favors the Bold

2007-05-25T10:04:00.001-05:00

"Fortune Favors the Bold"

-Virgil
Roman Epic Poet

Greatness

2007-05-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

"Greatness is only achieved in the absence of fear"

Serenity Prayer

2007-05-23T09:56:00.000-05:00

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

The Paradoxical Commandments

2007-05-22T09:52:00.000-05:00

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

- Dr. Kent M. Keith

Adaped by Mother Teresa as 'The Final Judgement.'

Live with Intention

2007-05-20T09:55:00.001-05:00

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”

- Mary Anne Radmacher

Earth by Night

2007-05-19T10:46:00.001-05:00

An image of Earth at night made by NASA. Developed and populated areas of the planet show up as points of light on the map, while large areas of Africa, Australia, Asia and South America are relatively dark.

Walden

2007-05-17T13:01:00.000-05:00

"Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

- Henry David Thoreau
from Walden

Lose Yourself

2007-05-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

Eminem
Lose Yourself
8 Mile Soundtrack

No Fear

2007-05-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

"Look fear in the eyes and laugh in its face"

- Tall Tale

Ode on Solitude

2007-05-14T10:46:00.000-05:00

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.

- Alexander Pope
English Poet

Matthew 16:26

2007-05-13T14:51:00.000-05:00

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?

Matthew 16:26

Why Not?

2007-05-11T11:38:00.000-05:00

"There are those who look at what is and ask why. I dream of what has never been and ask why not?"

- Robert F Kennedy

“Each time a man stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

- Robert F Kennedy

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

- Robert F Kennedy

What Lies Within Us...

2007-05-09T09:13:00.000-05:00

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Desiderata

2007-05-08T09:44:00.000-05:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive God to be; and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

- Max Ehrmann

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew

2007-05-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Inspiration of Saint Matthew
Caravaggio, 1602

Geetasharam

2007-05-06T13:00:00.000-05:00

What ever happened happened well.
What is happening happens well.
All that is supposed to happen will happen well as well.
What have you lost to cry?
What have you brought to lose?
What have you created to waste?
What ever that’s taken is taken from here.
What ever that’s given is given from here.
All that is yours today will be others’ tomorrow.
On another day it will be someone else’s.
This change is the law of nature.

- Bhagavad Gita

Geetasharam is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita, a central text in the Hindu fath. It is a summary of the teachings contained in the sacred text. The Bhagavad Gita itself contains the lessons taught to Arjuna by Lord Krishna on the battlefields of Kurukshetra during the final battle in the great Indian epic, the 'Mahabharata.'

The Road not Taken

2007-05-05T13:28:00.000-05:00

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost
American Poet

Chariots of Fire

2007-05-04T11:04:00.000-05:00

Theme music from the 1981 Best Picture Oscar Award winner Chariots of Fire, based on the true story of British athletes preparing for and competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics. The music was composed by Vangelis

Reach...

2007-04-25T09:32:00.000-05:00

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”

- Robert Browning
English Poet and Playwright

World Cup Ad

2007-04-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

ESPN ad for the 2006 World Cup featuring the song 'City of Blinding Light' by U2. Narrated by Bono.

Gladiator Quotes

2007-04-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

"What we do in life, echoes in eternity."

- Gladiator

"Death smiles at us all; all a man can do is smile back."

- Gladiator

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

2007-04-19T10:45:00.000-05:00

I Wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth
English Poet

7 Deadly Sins

2007-04-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice

- Mahatma Gandhi
Indian Political and Spiritual Leader

The Sound of Silence

2007-04-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence"

Dedicated to those who died in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007.

Sonnet 18

2007-04-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

- William Shakespeare
English Poet and Playwright

Jackie Robinson

2007-04-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson
January 31,1919 – October 24, 1972

60 years ago, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American Major League Baseball player, making his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. In doing so, he broke through the color barrier in professional sports in a society that was not completely prepared for it. Overcoming the trials and tribulations that came with it, Robinson became an icon and an inspiration to all who followed.

“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me...all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”

- Jackie Robinson

High Flight

2007-04-14T21:55:00.000-05:00

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- John Gillespie Magee, Jr
Royal Canadian Air Force
Killed December 11, 1941

Celebrate Humanity - Olympics

2007-04-12T10:41:00.000-05:00

Ads from the Olympics Celebrate Humanity campaign.

Winter Olympics - Hermann Maier

2000 Summer Olympics - Robin Williams

James Dean

2007-04-10T11:04:00.000-05:00

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

- James Dean
American Actor

James Dean died in a high speed car crash while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder to take part in a car race. He was 24.

Our Deepest Fear

2007-04-09T11:45:00.000-05:00

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love

Quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 Inauguration Speech.
The clip above is from the movie 'Coach Carter.'

To Have Succeded...

2007-04-08T14:53:00.000-05:00

Ithaca

2007-04-07T18:27:00.000-05:00

Ithaca is a poem by Greek poet C. Kavafis about the voyage of Odysseus after the Trojan War to his home island of Ithaca, a journey that was depicted in Homer's Odyssey. Its main theme is that as you travel to enjoy the journey and not just the destination and that maturity of the soul is all one can ask for. Recited here by Sir Sean Connery and with music by Vangelis.

As you set out for Ithaca
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them;
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare sensasion
touches your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope that your journey is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors you're seeing for the first time.

May you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and learn again from those who know.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would have not set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

- C. Kavafis

Far better...

2007-04-07T10:51:00.000-05:00

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt
26th US President

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt
26th US President

Invictus

2007-04-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

Invictus means Unconquered

Live - Alfred Souza

2007-04-03T17:59:00.000-05:00

Courage

2007-03-30T15:52:00.000-05:00

On June 5, 1989, an anonymous man stood in the way of a line of tanks during the height of pro-democracy protests at Tiannanmen Square. The photo of unknown rebel reached international audiences almost immediately, and still remains one of the most poignant expressions of human courage.

Auguries of Innocence

2007-03-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell through all its regions.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipped and armed for fight
Does the rising sun affright.
Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.
The wild deer wandering here and there
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misused breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.
The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them, and thou wilt grow fat.
The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of Envy's foot.
The poison of the honey-bee
Is the artist's jealousy.
The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
The babe is more than swaddling bands,
Throughout all these human lands;
Tools were made and born were hands,
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;
This is caught by females bright
And returned to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.
The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes Revenge! in realms of death.
The beggar's rags fluttering in air
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The soldier armed with sword and gun
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands,
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole nation sell and buy.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.
The questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.
When gold and gems adorn the plough
To peaceful arts shall Envy bow.
A riddle or the cricket's cry
Is to doubt a fit reply.
The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding sheet.
The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.
Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.
We are led to believe a lie
When we see not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.
God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.

- William Blake
English Poet

Helen Keller Quotes

2007-03-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

One cannot consent to creep when one has an impulse to soar.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

To keep our faces toward change, and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

- Helen Adams Keller
Deafblind American author, activist and lecturer

Think Different

2007-03-25T13:30:00.000-05:00

Think Different was an advertising campaign for Apple Computers in the late 1990's. This is the most famous version of the advertisement, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, quote them, disagree with them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing that you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

I Have A Dream

2007-03-24T13:05:00.000-05:00

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.
American civil rights leader

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

2007-03-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97
Wear Sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now...

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh never mind, you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now, how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked; you are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy, sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind,
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults, if you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life, the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, aybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.

What ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can, don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings, they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard, Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen

If

2007-03-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling
British Author and Poet