Longing and eternity

The following passage is from Smilla's sense of Snow, a 1992 novel by Danish author Peter Høeg. A strange mystery that involves a child's murder and an eeriey trip to Greenland. The book is also made into a film, casting Julia Ormond

Do you know what the foundation of mathematics is? ... The foundation of mathematics is numbers. If anyone asked me what makes me truly happy, I would say: numbers. Snow and ice and numbers. And do you know why?
Because the number system is like human life. First you have the natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. The numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands. The child discovers a sense of longing, and do you know what the mathematical expression is for longing?

The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling that you are missing something. And human consciousness expands and grows even more, and the child discovers the in-between spaces. Between stones, between pieces of moss on the stones, between people. And between numbers. And do you know what that leads to? It leads to fractions. Whole numbers plus fractions produce rational numbers. And human consciousness doesn't stop there. It wants to go beyond reason. It adds an operation as absurd as the extraction of roots. And produces irrational numbers.

It's a form of madness. Because the irrational numbers are infinite. They can't be written down. They force human consciousness out beyond the limits. And by adding irrational numbers to rational numbers, you get real numbers.

Because now, on the spot, we expand the real numbers with imaginary square roots of negative numbers. These are the numbers we can't picture, numbers that normal human consciousness cannot comprehend. And when we add the imaginary numbers to the real numbers, we have the complex number system. The first number system in which it's possible to explain satisfactorily the crystal formation of ice. It's like a vast, open landscape. The horizons. You head towards them and they keep receding.

Click here for a film clip of the mathematics scene.

Into the wild

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea and the music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more."
— Lord Byron

I love nature like nothing else. Maybe because I feel it is the one thing that can get me back to the thing we all hunt around after when it comes down to it, the feeling of a meaning with our lives - a feeling of importance, an answer without a question. So, that is how nature make me feel, an answer arises inside of me in the forest, in its stillness, babbling brooks and shimmering lights. A feeling of purpose coming from nowhere and arriving within. I am at peace there, and I need nothing more than the trees and existence itself.
Because of this I have always been touched deeply by different medias describing this feeling, such as films, books and poetry. One of these were the film "Into the wild"

Into the Wild is a film based on the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer about the adventures of Christopher McCandless.
Plot:
Christopher McCandless is a top student at Emory University and an athlete. After graduating, he decides to give $24,000 of his savings account to Oxfam and later, to burn all the money in his wallet. He hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wild. During his adventure, he encounters several unique people that change his life before he faces the dangers of wilderness.
A story of a man who left society behind in his search for truth. The truth within himself and the truth in being.

Thought about the film:

It is a story as old as stories themselves, a theme which we have seen or heard in many variations before - A man leaving his old, safe life behind, going into the unknown, looking for true meaning. And many movies have also been made of the subject.
I am tempted to call these movies the "Carpe Diem-films". The stories that are meant to show you something deeper, that is whispering softly, or shouting out loud to you - "seize the day!" Disappointingly often these films are just a stew of sentimentalism that hardly ever seem heartfelt or genuine (e.g: the movie "The bucket list", featuring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman)
But "Into the wild" is something different. It is an exception to the rule, a story that genuinely speaks from the heart and also reach you there...this movie wakes you up, shakes you. It crawls under your skin and moves you. And maybe it might even make you rethink some of your life values.
It is a movie quite unlike what we are used to these days in the film-land of sentimental trow-up. At least I feel that I haven´t seen anything like it in a long time.
Into the wild is really worth a visit to the movies and hopefully, maybe later, it will take you to a visit to the forest ;-)

- Official site
- The original article that inspired to the book

Fatherfucker

A re-post from 2006

I have discovered an artist which I really enjoy, for several reasons. I have always liked several kinds of music, everything from metal, rock, jazz to electropunk.
This time it is Peaches. A woman who a first glance just seem to be a singer getting famous through sexually provocative lyrics and shows. And this is a quite popular opionion. here has been many quotes about her, like "The title Impeach my Bush, may suggest otherwise but Merrill Nisker (known as Peaches) is concerned with sex and little else. Which is no bad thing, to Dan Martin's mind"
- Dan Martin, The Observer
But looking a little closer, this woman is truly great and has, in my opinion, a lot to offer more than catchy tunes and sex.

Peaches is provocative, but not mindlessly and manipulative to get fame and attention.
One of the reasons she is provocative is because the mainstream dictates that women be the objects of desire, not the agents of it. And Peaches reaches out and grabs us by the balls.

-"Well, I'll be happy when it's not provocative." she says
But still society seems to react strongly to her messages.
"If I'm saying two boys for every girl, it's like Jan and Dean saying 'two girls for every boy'. I don't really understand why it's normal and accepted when it's said in that context, just because it's something we're used to." she says

She takes the things we are used to for women and take for granted, and switch it around to count for men as well. One example is one her albums called Fatherfucker. The title alone seemed to indicate her move towards more actively subverting the standard gender norms and double-standards. A kind of Regender exercise for sex. As she says:

"Why do we stub our toe and say, ‘Aww motherfucker!’? What is a motherfucker? … We use it in our everyday language, and it’s such an insanely intense word. I’m not one to shy away from these obscene terms that we actually have in our mainstream. Motherfucker is a very mainstream word. But if we’re going to use motherfucker, why don’t we use fatherfucker? I’m just trying to be even.

This girl has an uncompromising attitude towards women’s sexuality, and is not afrad to show it
She also scores points for not fitting in with the glamour model standards of beauty which demands of women before they can have an opinion on sex. One of her tracks has referenced her cup size of AA, she’s donned a beard for the cover of one album, and photos of her regularly show pubic hair protuding unapologetically from her bright pink shiny pants. Wow.

Hit it Hard, includes the line “make a woman a man and a man can-can”. Boys Wanna Be Her describes some rockin’ female star who inspires the admiration of boys and girls alike, in fact “the boys wanna be her” (as we all know, for a boy to want to associate with anything female is A Very Bad Thing).

This track can remind of something sais by Abby Lee, who wrote recently:

"It’s 2007 and when it comes to sexual material for the heterosexual women, I’m bored of only being offered female imagery - as if everyone, men and women included, should find that stimulating…. I’m all for a more open and uncensored sexually liberated society, but if women are still going to be marginalied purely as objects for men’s pleasure and not as the subjects seeking and obtaining pleasure in their own right, then I’m destined to be a moody fucking bitch who will not shut up about it."

And in my opinion it’s not good enough to simply have things for women that are the same as they are for men now. There needs to be an emphasis on freedom, fairness, equality, consent and respect for both/all genders and importantly, not intruding on anyone’s preference to be free of sexual imagery imposed on them in their daily life.

But I don’t believe that Peaches messages are about switching things around to the extent that women are as objectifying or disrespectful towards men as some men are towards women. Equality, fairness and consent are indeed features. In Get It, there’s a simple message: “you wanna get it/give it/got it? well it may sound like a simple idea but/to get it gotta give it”

Two Guys (For Every Girl) is a track that’s had a lot of attention. At a time when in practically every music video you see sexy ‘babes’ groping each other, the cover of every lad mag magazine has two nude girls, breasts pressing together pouting, the UK’s most successful sex magazine aimed at heterosexual women (Scarlet) always has a woman on the cover and regularly includes pseudo-lesbian imagery, simply reversing the genders in this track actually IS subversive.

"Come over here hot boys don’t you worry I’m nice…
i got a lusty proposition that I know will suffice
let me lay out this condition that I know will entice
i wanna take you home and get you satisfied…
just one thing i can’t compromise
i wanna see you work it guy on guy
i wanna see you boys get down with each other
i wanna see you do you’re lil nasty brother"

This is taken from her interview in the February/March 2006 issue of Bust:

Interviewer: Do you think it was at all empowering for girls to see Madonna and Britney kiss?

Peaches: It was good for publicity. I’d like to see Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams make out on stage; that’s way more subversive to me than seeing Madonna and Britney Spears. I think girls are so ahead. That’s what Fatherfucker was all about. It’s like, ‘boys, shake your dicks.’ How many songs tell women to ‘shake your ass’? Or, I’m watching those VH1 specials on ass and every time they mention a guy’s ass they’re like, ‘I don’t wanna see that, ehhh!’ But every time they mention a girl’s ass they’re like, ‘She’s got a great ass!’ It’s about time Pharrell Williams and Justin Timberlake or Snoop Dogg and fuckin’ Ludacris suck each others dicks for everybody to see, and release a video… I want every girl to go home with two guys if they want to. And I want two guys to impress the girl by making out in front of her.

But if you have been all shocked by her lyrics, then take a look again. She often says and makes things that reminds us to not take it too seriously.
With lyrics like: “Slippery dick? It’s just a fish in the Atlantic (note:and it is true)… fist fuck cock suck/what’s the diff?” she says innocently, like, what’s all the fuss about anyway? I like to think this is a comment on double-standards and how different sexual practices are viewed and treated. Does it matter what you do and who you do it with, as long as it’s consensual? No. It shouldn’t matter.

And anyway....I think she is HOT! Attitude yeah!

"To learn is to find out what you already know.
To act is to show that you know it.
To teach is to let others know, that they know these things just as well as you do"

Life is some good shit ;-)
~Aasa

“Most schools teach children to be unimaginative…Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better teaching if we thought of adults as atrophied children. Many ‘well-adjusted’ adults are bitter, uncreative, frightened, unimaginative, rather hostile people (anyone you know fit this description?). Instead of assuming they were born that way, or that that’s what being an adult entails, we might consider them as people damaged by their education and upbringing.”
-Keith Johnstone

Å gjøre tam

a beautiful passage from "The little prince" worth a read


This is from one of my favourite books, "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Hope you´ll enjoy the read, I recommend it warmheartedly
~ Aasa

Chapter 20:
...

But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men.

"Good morning," he said.

He was standing before a garden, all a-bloom with roses.

"Good morning," said the roses.

The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower.

"Who are you?" he demanded, thunderstruck.

"We are roses," the roses said.

And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden!

"She would be very much annoyed," he said to himself, "if she should see that . . . She would cough most dreadfully, and she would pretend that she was dying, to avoid being laughed at. And I should be obliged to pretend that I was nursing her back to life--for if I did not do that, to humble myself also, she would really allow herself to die. . ."

Then he went on with his reflections: "I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose. A common rose, and three volcanoes that come up to my knees--and one of them perhaps extinct forever . . . That doesn't make me a very great prince . . ."

And he lay down in the grass and cried.

It was then that the fox appeared.
"Good morning," said the fox. "Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing. "I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."
"I am a fox," the fox said.
"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.
But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?"
"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"
"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"
"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"
"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."
"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."
"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.
The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.
"On another planet?"
"Yes."
"Are there hunters on that planet?"
"No."
"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"
"No."
"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.
But he came back to his idea.
"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.
"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."
"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."
"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . .
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Read more in "The Little Prince"

Quote

"It's a Jewish parable that a friend of mine told me.
These two friends are condemned to death. But the king, he liked them and he didn't want to kill them. So, instead, he tied a thin rope across this abyss. And he told them both to walk over the rope. Whoever made it to the other side would be allowed to live.
So the first one walked over the rope and he makes it safely to the other side. And after he made it, his friend yells out to him, "How did you do it?" And the other guy answered,
"I have no idea. All I know is that whenever my weight pulled me to one side, I leaned to the other."

~From the series "In treatment"

Not a pretty girl

An other song...
with very simple lyrics...but still I adore it.
~ by the beloved Ani Difranco.

I am not a pretty girl
that is not what I do
I ain't no damsel in distress
and I don't need to be rescued
so put me down punk
maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair
isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

I am not an angry girl
but it seems like I've got everyone fooled
every time I say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
and imagine you're a girl
just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they'd prefer you
were dirty and smiling

and I am sorry
I am not a maiden fair
and I am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

and what if there are no damsels in distress
what if I knew that and I called your bluff?
don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up

I am not a pretty girl
I don't want to be a pretty girl
no I want to be more than a pretty girl

~ Ani DiFranco

Download this song

Download other songs by Ani DiFranco

Twin Peaks quote:

COOPER
Roger, I know the move I'm supposed to make. And I
know the board.
HARDY
So ...
COOPER
I've done a lot of thinking. And I've started to focus out
beyond the end of the board. On a bigger game.
HARDY
What 'game'?

COOPER
The sound wind makes through the pines. The sentience
of animals. The last thought of a homeless man before he
takes a night's sleep. What we fear in the dark. And
what's beyond the dark.
HARDY
What the hell are you talking about?
COOPER
I'm talking about seeing beyond fear, Roger. About
looking at the world with love.
HARDY
Cooper, you're liable to be extradited for murder and
drug trafficking -
COOPER
That's something I can't control

To everybody with....

....a low attention span, a fascination for obscure information and a good taste in books
Note to self:
"Must read":

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Quoting time

"True friends stab you in the front."

"No parachute? Wow! This is so cool!"

"Å våge er å miste forfestet et kort sekund. Å ikke våge er å miste livet"

"We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."

"Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them."

"Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be."

"There is no road to happiness, happiness is the road"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."

Time and gravity

~ From the Book "Naive - Super" by Erlend Loe

"......It is a lot more I didn´t know about time.
In a lab in Bonn there is a 3 meter long metal cylinder. Paul writes that it is shaped like a submarine and lying in a frame of steel surrounded by wires and other equipment for measurements. It is an atomic watch, and at the moment it is the most accurate clock on earth. It is more accurate than the rotation of earth.
An accuracy like that surprises me. It evidently has nothing to do with earth. It is just something somebody has decided. I like that. Strangely enough I feel that I can grasp time in a better way because of this. I want an atomic watch for my birthday.

As a compensation for the the irregularity of earths rotation they add a second now and then. The last time this was done was in June 1994.
Nobody told me about this.

Because of the atomic watches the definition of a second has changed. Before a second used to be defined as 1/86.400 of a day, but now it is 9.192.631.770 rotations of a celsium atom.
I think that is a lot of rotations.
This information puts me out a little. I feel a little sick and have to get the ball. I throw it for a while against the fridge until I am able to read on.
..........
Now I am reading on.
It just gets worse and worse.
Paul says that the gravity influences time - the man has no limits
Completely without warning he says that time is influenced by gravity and by movement.
I look at the cover of the book. It is published by a serious publish house. What he says is very likely accurate.

I get annoyed.
Why has nobody told me about this?
Doesn´t physics teachers understand that this makes a lot of difference?
Maybe they knew it all along? In that case I should get a revenge on them. I should push one of them hard in the back when they are not at all expecting it.

On the sun the time passes two million times slower than on earth.It is because of gravity. Paul says it is stronger up there.
I thought time was time and gravity was gravity.
It is obviously not like that.
With a couple of really good atom watches one can prove it in the empire state building.
This is not something I am making up.
If you put an atomic clock in the bottom of the empire state and one on the top, after a while you would see that the one on the top goes a little faster.
During a lifetime you will save a couple of 1/1000 seconds if you are on the street.
The one on the top of the empire state will be a little older than the rest of us.
I put the book down.
I feel very drained.
This definitely changes a lot
Time doesn´t exist"

Book recomendation for hoplessly romantic hearts

Since it is not a wide selection of books in English in the Spanish libraries, I started reading the old classics that they do have.

My first one to devour was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.
And I must say, I am actually glad this book came my way. I read it once, when I was 13, but didn´t remember much of it.

Call me a bleeding hearted sucker (and you are very right) but it was so passionate and romantic. The feminist part, plus the psychological analytic in me has several objections...but I just cried and cried and laughed and cried and wished the book would never end.....and such a romantic fairytale to happen to me too....
*Sighs*

Recommendation

Everybody MUST watch!

Rocky

I have gone quite Norwegian lately
Apologizes to English-speaking (or other) readers

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."

~ Werner Karl Heisenberg

Happy and sad at the same time

"Freedom comes when you learn to let go.
Creation comes when you learn to say no."

I LOVE this quote
There is no need to be religious to see the value of their texts in a spiritual manner.
And the bible is quite a smart book now and then

- Aasa

"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known."

Philosophical Mood

"Answers arise when there are no more questions."
"There is no meaning in life, except the meaning you put into it"
~ Aasa ;-)


"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within." -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle."
-Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

"It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life."
-"Sister" Elizabeth Kenny


"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
-Walt Whitman

"Heaven will be inherited by every man
who has heaven in his soul."
-Henry Ward Beecher

"What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
-Chief Seattle

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-Albert Einstein

"Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself
and know that everything in life has a purpose."
-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross



"Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them."
-David Hume

"The whole of life, from the moment you are born
to the moment you die, is a process of learning."
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."
-Abraham Lincoln

"You are the people who are shaping a better world.
One of the secrets of inner peace is the practice of compassion."
-Dalai Lama

"For what is Mysticism? It is not the attempt to draw near to God,
not by rites or ceremonies, but by inward disposition?
Is it not merely a hard word for 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within'?
Heaven is neither a place nor a time."
-Florence Nightingale

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it,
no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own
reason and your own common sense."
-Buddha

"If something comes to life in others because of you,
then you have made an approach to immortality."
-Norman Cousins

"God is the friend of silence.
See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls."
-Mother Teresa

"Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul;
And sings the tune without words
And never stops at all."
-Emily Dickinson




"Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live."
-Henry Vandyke

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

"You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
-Kahlil Gibran

"Time is
Too slow for those who Wait,
Too swift for those who Fear,
Too long for those who Grieve,
Too short for those who Rejoice,
But for those who Love
Time is not."
-Henry Vandyke

"Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe,
so no thought or action is without its effects,
present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt."
-Norman Cousins


"Peace cannot be kept by force.
It can only be achieved by understanding."
-Albert Einstein

Le Petit Prince

This is taken from one of my absolute favourite books in this world;
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
I recommnded it from the bottom of my heart

~ Aasa

Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.

In the book it said: "Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion." I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in making my first drawing. My Drawing Number One. It looked like this:

I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them. But they answered: "Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?" My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups' response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

So then I chose another profession, and learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown a little over all parts of the world; and it is true that geography has been very useful to me. At a glance I can distinguish China from Arizona. If one gets lost in the night, such knowledge is valuable. In the course of this life I have had a great many encounters with a great many people who have been concerned with matters of consequence. I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn't much improved my opinion of them.

Whenever I met one of them who seemed to me at all clear-sighted, I tried the experiment of showing him my Drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I would try to find out, so, if this was a person of true understanding. But, whoever it was, he, or she, would always say: "That is a hat." Then I would never talk to that person about boa constrictors, or primeval forests, or stars. I would bring myself down to his level. I would talk to him about bridge, and golf, and politics, and neckties. And the grown-up would be greatly pleased to have met such a sensible man.

Go to Chapter 2