Was just talking with a friend and the discussion turned to smiles; how they are beautiful or how people have to try to get a good smile.
I feel a smile is all about feeling good; if you are feeling good and you have a smile on your face - that's what a beautiful smile is all about.
A few weeks ago I was coming back from somewhere and saw a kid, around 10 years old, hanging out his head from the back window of a car. His face looked a combination of sadness, curiosity and boredom. And something made me wave at him; and he waved back with a big smile; and that made me smile. Not as big as his; but it was a smile; and it made me feel good. From my understanding of the world, and for my sake, that is a beautiful smile.
As I told my friend, "a smile is in itself, by definition, amongst the best beautiful things in the world".
So my friends, if you find that you have not genuinely smiled lately, do all of us a favour and look around you, I am pretty sure you will find something which will make you feel good and make you smile.
Showing posts with label funda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label funda. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Black Holes
Black holes are holes just to outsiders; to the insiders, they are full; like a cup brimming to the top.
So, it's just a matter of being on the correct side. Strange, how knowledge and revelations are different...
Well, let's make this one black. Go, go, go
So, it's just a matter of being on the correct side. Strange, how knowledge and revelations are different...
Well, let's make this one black. Go, go, go
Monday, October 08, 2007
Forgiving Yourself
How often have we heard that it is tougher to forgive oneself than others. If you have some guilt and you are not able to forgive yourself, the guilt keeps eating you from the inside and harms you much more than a just punishment that you would have received for whatever wrong you committed. That's why the first and most important advice that a psychiatrist / psychologist gives a patient is to forgive oneself.
Over the last week or so I have read two books: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Both novels tell stories about relationships and how somethings that the protagonist did in the past keeps haunting him till he gets a chance to redeem himself.
The books are very different from each other. The Kite Runner has a childhood friendship as its central story whereas it's the relationship between a mother and her son which runs through the plot in Albom's story. Hosseini's work spans over 3 decades whereas the story in For One More Day spans just one day, with memories of years gone by forming interludes. The Kite Runner is a bigger roller-coster of emotions, more complete in the sense that it depicts so many of human emotions.
The story is told from the perspective of the main character Amir, who longs to get praised by his father, who has the best friendship with the son of the house's domestic help. His life takes him through the toughest times that Afghanistan has faced, the earlier part of the story running through the time when Russia attacked Afghanistan. Through small sub plots, the author builds up the different characters and takes you to the world where you go through the same feelings as the characters experience: the shame of betraying a friend, the fear that you will lose your parent, the hopelessness, the anger that comes with guilt, the never-ending chain of thoughts that makes you an insomniac, the realisation that something is the one chance that you will get to redeem yourself. I specially loved the later part of the book where the story becomes a little fast paced, and the author makes it so real. There is no dramatisation of events. The way you learn of shocking events, without any fanfare, seems so true to life where there is no room for extra glamour; the truth being so simple and we learning it without the camera panning at stupid angles over and over again. The Kite Runner is a must read for anyone who has interest in the way humans interact with each other, how society behaves and how small events have effects that last all your life.
Coming to For One More Day, it is the story of Chich Bonnetto, a one time Major League baseball palyer, who is down and out in his life and tries to commit suicide. Instead of dying, he meets his mother, who had died eight years earlier. From then on, the story is a web of events in the current day, memories from the past and some notes that the author has found in the lead character's belongings. The text of the novel is not as powerful as The Kite Runner. But small snippets that you find in the book are so strikingly true that you stop to think about them. For example, on his mother's death, Chick says after you lose your parents, it feels like you are going into a battle without a backup you always felt you had, no matter what. That statement is so true, I could think of it in conjunction with my life, how whenever I have any trouble, I know at the back of my mind that I have my parents to go to, in case everything else falls apart. Chick realises so many other things while spending one more day with his long lost mother, one extra day which we long for after our beloveds are gone. Another thing that hit me in the novel is Chick's mother's habit of leaving him notes. It made me think how with the advent of technology, email and mobile phones, we have forgotten the beauty and value of handwritten letters. I remember, when I was in Delhi preparing for JEE, my father used to write letters to me. Those letters were a source of strength and motivated me to work harder. And today those letters are perhaps the biggest treasure that I have, the reminders of the love and faith my parents had in me, the reminders of one of the most important phases of my life. That is what we, as a civilisation, have missed with use of mobile phones and email.
Though the two stories are very different, one thing that is common is the advice that the lead character gets from people who love him most - forgive yourself, that is the first stop on the way to a better life, a life where you feel at ease with yourself and the world around you.
Over the last week or so I have read two books: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and For One More Day by Mitch Albom. Both novels tell stories about relationships and how somethings that the protagonist did in the past keeps haunting him till he gets a chance to redeem himself.
The books are very different from each other. The Kite Runner has a childhood friendship as its central story whereas it's the relationship between a mother and her son which runs through the plot in Albom's story. Hosseini's work spans over 3 decades whereas the story in For One More Day spans just one day, with memories of years gone by forming interludes. The Kite Runner is a bigger roller-coster of emotions, more complete in the sense that it depicts so many of human emotions.
The story is told from the perspective of the main character Amir, who longs to get praised by his father, who has the best friendship with the son of the house's domestic help. His life takes him through the toughest times that Afghanistan has faced, the earlier part of the story running through the time when Russia attacked Afghanistan. Through small sub plots, the author builds up the different characters and takes you to the world where you go through the same feelings as the characters experience: the shame of betraying a friend, the fear that you will lose your parent, the hopelessness, the anger that comes with guilt, the never-ending chain of thoughts that makes you an insomniac, the realisation that something is the one chance that you will get to redeem yourself. I specially loved the later part of the book where the story becomes a little fast paced, and the author makes it so real. There is no dramatisation of events. The way you learn of shocking events, without any fanfare, seems so true to life where there is no room for extra glamour; the truth being so simple and we learning it without the camera panning at stupid angles over and over again. The Kite Runner is a must read for anyone who has interest in the way humans interact with each other, how society behaves and how small events have effects that last all your life.
Coming to For One More Day, it is the story of Chich Bonnetto, a one time Major League baseball palyer, who is down and out in his life and tries to commit suicide. Instead of dying, he meets his mother, who had died eight years earlier. From then on, the story is a web of events in the current day, memories from the past and some notes that the author has found in the lead character's belongings. The text of the novel is not as powerful as The Kite Runner. But small snippets that you find in the book are so strikingly true that you stop to think about them. For example, on his mother's death, Chick says after you lose your parents, it feels like you are going into a battle without a backup you always felt you had, no matter what. That statement is so true, I could think of it in conjunction with my life, how whenever I have any trouble, I know at the back of my mind that I have my parents to go to, in case everything else falls apart. Chick realises so many other things while spending one more day with his long lost mother, one extra day which we long for after our beloveds are gone. Another thing that hit me in the novel is Chick's mother's habit of leaving him notes. It made me think how with the advent of technology, email and mobile phones, we have forgotten the beauty and value of handwritten letters. I remember, when I was in Delhi preparing for JEE, my father used to write letters to me. Those letters were a source of strength and motivated me to work harder. And today those letters are perhaps the biggest treasure that I have, the reminders of the love and faith my parents had in me, the reminders of one of the most important phases of my life. That is what we, as a civilisation, have missed with use of mobile phones and email.
Though the two stories are very different, one thing that is common is the advice that the lead character gets from people who love him most - forgive yourself, that is the first stop on the way to a better life, a life where you feel at ease with yourself and the world around you.
Friday, May 11, 2007
hope
this one is my creation again and i am putting here courtesy of Amit Sinha
the difference between humans and other animals is that we have the concept of hope; we realise it when it is there and it makes us do things which are otherwise impossible
the difference between humans and other animals is that we have the concept of hope; we realise it when it is there and it makes us do things which are otherwise impossible
Powered by ScribeFire.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
a discussion about wishes, utopia and karma
this is an excerpt from a chat i had with a friend of mine; i don't know how to put it more presentably, so just copied and pasted from my gmail chats section. And of course, I took permission from Neeraj before posting this.
me: waise agar free hai to mera abhi wala status message pad aur comments
My status message at that time was:
heart: why do wishes rarely come true?
mind: because most of the times they are stupid.
heart: but they are wishes, they have all the rights to be stupid.
Neeraj: okies
kyun deewana ho jata hai koi?
kyun armaan uthte hain kahin?
maalum nahin,
yeh dil aakhir chahta kya hai?
me: hehe
achhe poet ho tum bhi
Neeraj: nahin nahin
yeh shayari gadar the movie mein thi
me: koi is sawaal ka jawaab de de to jindagi bhar gulami karein
Neeraj: :)
hahaha
well wishes have every right to be stupid
me: yup, u r correct
see this is the good thing about u
Neeraj: but not every stupidity has the right to be fulfilled
or else, where would intelligence go??
down the memory lane
:P
me: yea thats correct, but why the hell do we need intelligence
to devise ways to fulfill our wishes only, right?
Neeraj: no dude
world is not only about wishes
intelligence has to be thr to maintain a balance
imagine if the world was filled with stupidity
also its difficult to imagine a world, if everyone was intelligent
me: i am not saying stupidity
i am just saying what about a world where everyone's all wishes were fulfilled, irrespective of their stupidity or brilliance
but then again my mind says: there is no such thing as utopia
Neeraj: wouldn't that be boring??
a world full of satisfaction
no motive or reason to keep going
me: so u dont want it to be boring, that would be just another wish, it will also be fulfilled
Neeraj: it already is fulfilled
me: tahts the problem with utopia
it keeps contradicting itself
Neeraj: i dont say, none of my wishes be fulilled
me: thats why it doesnt exist
Neeraj: i am saying, some of them shud and some shud not
me: why wish if u dont want it to be fulfilled
?
Neeraj: utopia is a foolish design of a pervert mind
i want it to be fulfilled
the best part is the ignorance about these things
we want 100 things, and out of these only 10 are to be fulfilled
me: utopia is an utopian creation of a high (by use of drugs) mind
Neeraj: but the best part is, we dont know which 10
me: what if i just want ten things
Neeraj: so, we work towards fulfillment of all
me: or maybe just a couple of things
Neeraj: then only 1 will be fulfilled, if 10% rule exists
me: why cant we get them
why has this nature to be so cruel
Neeraj: nature is not cruel
just because
me: then why are we not intelligent enough to think of some 9 wishes which we dont want to be fulfiled
Neeraj: its the balance netween spices of life that makes it interesting
me: and tht brings us back to the question why wish a wish u dont want ot be fulfilled
Neeraj: i want all my wishes to be fulfilled
and i wud work towards them
me: why do we want interesting? why dont we want satisfying
Neeraj: but the result is not in my hands
me: mayp be that is why we are humans and not dolphins
Neeraj: coz a satisfied soul doesnot exist
me: chal bahut bore kar liya tere ko
Neeraj: maybe
me: tu jaa , pad le
Neeraj: nahin nahin
me: yea may be
Neeraj: load nahin hai
i can go on this topic for hours
have thought over it a lot
when u have an unfulfilled dream u tend to think over it
me:
i guess the important thing is that u just need an indication that u
are going in the right direction, even in the knowledge that u wont
ever reach the destination (that is complete satisfaction) or may be
that the destination doesnt even exist, even in that knowledge, the
belief that u are moving towards the right direction, the belief that
hope exists ...may be that is what is important
Neeraj: karmanye vaadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachanah
this is one shloka that has been mis-interpreted many times
or mis-understood
me:
but then what do u do when u dont know what ur karma is...u have some
ethics , beliefs which tell u dont do that...and some desires which
tell u do that, and those desires are not against ur ethics
either...its just conflict of ur basic nature, u pitted against urself,
and u cannot even isolate the jekyll and the hyde, they are one...what
do u do then
Neeraj: thats the problem, i know there can be confusion sometimes but confrontation seldom occurs
being a jekyll and a hyde is seldom in our control
so i think we should do what our karma asks us to do when u are in whichever form
me: then atleast why dont we turn into one ...just delete the other part
it wont be painful then
Neeraj: but thats not in our hand
we created them
me: yea, but if both forms are together, how do u know what
Neeraj: but destruction lies somewhere else
every moment we are supposed to take a decision
and this decision depends on the circustances faced by a person
me:
saala i feel helpless when i realise that we can go on discussing this
and even then, in all probability, i wont ever reach a conclusion
the only solace lies in the fact that time heals
have u ever faced such a time? or have views on this? if u hv ever thought in this direction,
Powered by ScribeFire.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Quantification of sadness
We all have bad times; some simple enough, with negligible magnitude and very small timespan - they just pass by; some significant enough to make us think and act; and some are those which force us - to think why?
Us humans, specially the breed called IITians, have a tendency to analyze everything logically. So, when faced with a difficult situation, we generally think of the reasons behind it and ways to cope with the situation. But sometimes the situation is such that it defies any normal logical thinking and then the only resort (again logic determines that it is the only remaining viable option; ironic, isn't it) is to ask why?
Like Joey said, "Why God, Why me?".
And then the left half of the mind takes over from the right, suppressing the pain in the way, and thinks whether pain is quantifiable? Whether a physically greater loss or more difficult problem would have caused more pain (and by pain I mean the emotional one, the one which is in our brain; or our hearts, to say more romantically) ; and then it thinks how could you measure that pain? After all, you have already resigned yourself to it; just asking questions; knocking on God's doors to pray; can there be more helplessness?
sadly, after a lot of deliberation, you reach just one conclusion, and as always a logical one, that you can not gauge this unless you face such a situation.
And they said that we were an intelligent lot...
Us humans, specially the breed called IITians, have a tendency to analyze everything logically. So, when faced with a difficult situation, we generally think of the reasons behind it and ways to cope with the situation. But sometimes the situation is such that it defies any normal logical thinking and then the only resort (again logic determines that it is the only remaining viable option; ironic, isn't it) is to ask why?
Like Joey said, "Why God, Why me?".
And then the left half of the mind takes over from the right, suppressing the pain in the way, and thinks whether pain is quantifiable? Whether a physically greater loss or more difficult problem would have caused more pain (and by pain I mean the emotional one, the one which is in our brain; or our hearts, to say more romantically) ; and then it thinks how could you measure that pain? After all, you have already resigned yourself to it; just asking questions; knocking on God's doors to pray; can there be more helplessness?
sadly, after a lot of deliberation, you reach just one conclusion, and as always a logical one, that you can not gauge this unless you face such a situation.
And they said that we were an intelligent lot...
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
DR. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad
First read the speech (do read it carefully and completely, pls)
"I have three visions for India.
In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone.
We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation.
We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed
nation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision.
India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.
I see four milestones in my career:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.
The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.
One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet around.
He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients.
In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. >>From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around!
Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.
Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE?
Another question : Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is.
She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don' t work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say.
What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore..... Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost."
YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???
We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own.
You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commis sioner of Bombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right.
We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too....I am echoing J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
Lets do what India needs from us.
Forward this message to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.
Thank you,
Dr. Abdul Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)
This is one of the best lectures i have ever read or head.
When I was in the four bliss part, it seemed good but wasnt affecting me much. But when it came to that part where I am at Singapore, I started realizing. How true he is!!
I find myself guilty of the wrongs that he has described. How often do we change our behaviour depending on the surroundings - you are in a big posh shopping mall, you behave all nice and goody goody; move to the local neighbourhood bazar and think about your actions, you will understand Dr. Kalam's views.
Well, I am gonna do two things to start with. First, I am gonna change my behaviour like above; and second, I will refrain from using the words - pura system hi aisa hai. If there is something wrong, find out the person(s) accountable and blame them, not the whole system. And don't forget to take responsibility and contribute positively.
"I have three visions for India.
In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone.
We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation.
We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed
nation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision.
India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.
I see four milestones in my career:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.
The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.
One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet around.
He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients.
In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. >>From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around!
Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.
Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.
In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE?
Another question : Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is.
She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don' t work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say.
What do YOU do about it?
Take a person on his way to Singapore..... Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost."
YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???
We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own.
You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commis sioner of Bombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right.
We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too....I am echoing J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
Lets do what India needs from us.
Forward this message to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.
Thank you,
Dr. Abdul Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)
This is one of the best lectures i have ever read or head.
When I was in the four bliss part, it seemed good but wasnt affecting me much. But when it came to that part where I am at Singapore, I started realizing. How true he is!!
I find myself guilty of the wrongs that he has described. How often do we change our behaviour depending on the surroundings - you are in a big posh shopping mall, you behave all nice and goody goody; move to the local neighbourhood bazar and think about your actions, you will understand Dr. Kalam's views.
Well, I am gonna do two things to start with. First, I am gonna change my behaviour like above; and second, I will refrain from using the words - pura system hi aisa hai. If there is something wrong, find out the person(s) accountable and blame them, not the whole system. And don't forget to take responsibility and contribute positively.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Steve Jobs at Stanford
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Thats what i am doing, looking for what i love to do. Thanks to this speech, i now understand that its not easy to find it; but keep looking , u will get it.
And the death concept is awesome, got to try it.
Also what i have realised in past few days is that even if i am not doing the thing i like, i should keep doing it for some time, at least. Only then will i know if i really like it or not.I guess thats what he means by keep looking.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Thats what i am doing, looking for what i love to do. Thanks to this speech, i now understand that its not easy to find it; but keep looking , u will get it.
And the death concept is awesome, got to try it.
Also what i have realised in past few days is that even if i am not doing the thing i like, i should keep doing it for some time, at least. Only then will i know if i really like it or not.I guess thats what he means by keep looking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
