Michael Jordan

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Nation's Strength

What makes a nation's pillars high
And it's foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?

It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.

Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.

And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.

Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

Neil Pasricha: The 3 A's of awesome

Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.” 

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” 

Ernest Hemingway

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

We Were Evergreen

HBO's NEWSROOM Opening scene "Why America's Not the Greatest Country"

I have been watching this show religiously ever since I saw this little segment several weeks ago. I could not help but agree wholeheartedly with his argument.  As I have attempted to inform myself better about my country and about where I stand politically, over the past several years, I have mostly become frustrated and saddened by how selfish and petty we have become.  Then, being the son of a historiaholic, who dragged me around the country almost deifying all the great men that established our laws and who fought to make this country great, I was often reminded of the days when this county truly was great. 
I love this country and I feel so blessed to have been born a citizen of it, however we each have a responsibility as such.  As he states in the clip, we need to inform ourselves and realize we can do better.  Our government was established to be "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people".  If we, as the people will inform ourselves and then act in accordence with our beliefs, instead of just stand back, then "change" can truly come.

Scilla Elworthy: Fighting with non-violence

Of Monsters and Men - Love Love Love (Live on KEXP)

Beautiful song.  When I play it I like to change the lyrics at the end of the first verse though.   I think it should be "Well maybe, I know" instead of "Well baby, I know "

Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world

Jim Carrey

"It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?"

Derek Paravicini - British Musical Savant

Is it not amazing to realize how little we know of how the brain actually works.  We know about the chemical and electrical signaling that is taking place, and we try to map out how the connections correlate to one another, but really we know so very little.  How do all these signals and such turn into the complex and beautiful thoughts and memories that we have in our minds all the time, while still keeping our bodies functioning and alive?  And how does a premature, supposedly damaged, brain like Derek's here, store and create such mindbogglingly beautiful music?  We may have mapped out the human genome, and we may know everything about the evolution and maturation of the brain, but with all we have learned the brain is still mystifying us.

Eyes are a Window to the Soul

Link to National Geographic Article

The original picture of this girl was taken the year I was born.  Because of my love of National Geographic and because of the popularity of the picture, I have seen it many many times and have speculated, more than once, on the story behind those magnificent eyes.  The true story, however, and the more current photograph shake me.  I find myself being haunted by those eyes, especially when I see the pictures side by side.   The stunning young girl looking fiercely at life and into the future, and then . . . . the future.  I don't even know how to put into words all that I can see in those eyes, all that I feel when I try to imagine the lives that people actually live.  What will life make of me and of my eyes and what am I to take and do with stories such as this?  

Frank Lloyd Wright

“Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself with out it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”

http://imgs.abduzeedo.com/files/articles/NatGeo/national_geographic_photography_contest_5.jpg

Underwater

Between the air and the water a steel wave quivers.  What people call the surface is also a ceiling.  A looking glass above, watered silk below.  Nothing is torn on the way through.  Only a few bubbles mark the diver's channel and behind him the frontier soon closes.  But once the threshold is crossed you can turn back slowly and look up: that dazzling screen is the border between two worlds, as clear to the one as to the other.  Behind the looking glass the sky is made of water.
Philippe Diole. The Undersea Adventure. 1951

Yes, I love it. The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe.
Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where man is never alone for he feels life, quivering around him on every side.  There is supreme tranquility. The sea does not belong to despots. On its surface iniquitous rights can still be exercised, men can fight there, devour each other there, and transport all terrestrial horrors there. But at thirty feet below its level their power ceases,  their influence dies out, their might disappears.
Ah, sir, live in the bosom of the waters! There alone is independence.
There I recognise no masters! There I am free.
Jules Verne. 2000 Leagues Under The Sea.

 

"Water - the ocean - is our most natural environment. 
We are born naked from the miniature ocean of the mother's womb." 
Jacques Mayol, 1927-2001

"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it."  Lao Tzu

Man Man

Amazing what kind of great stuff can come from a group of uninhibited musical drunks.  Enjoy!

Who is me?

I watched the vow tonight.  I enjoy chick flicks.  I heard someone explain once, "cheesy chick flicks are like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket."  I like that, and kind of agree with it.  I also love sappy love songs and sunsets, maybe I hung out with my mother a little too much as a child or something.  Anyways, the movie really got me thinking.  Who am I . . . really?  If I were the girl who suffered the brain trauma in the movie, would there be a common space I would move into?  In searching for that answer, I have been looking through this blog and seeing what things have stuck out to me and inspired me.  One thing I found was this quote; “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” What is my originalNESS?  The root of that word is origin.  So, when I was a kid I was a crazy friendly cowboy with lots of energy.  I wanted to be just like John Wayne, but is that origin the real me?   I don't know if I honestly have any originality in me.  The person I am today or the person I feel that I am today seems to be just a hoarders warehouse of stolen ideas, beliefs, manor isms, clothing, etc. . .  I look at people I admire and to ideas that I agree with and let those things mold me, but what is the medium being molded.  What is the true me?  I don't know if I know. 

(old pics of me playing on photo booth)
 

Life

Radiolab: Moments

Going to a show Radiolab is putting on this thursday and I am super excited.  Should be awesome.