From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Jul 01 2002 - 03:45:06 MDT
Alex Ramonsky <alex@ramonsky.com>:
>Amara Graps:
> > No man is an island. If one doesn't realize that one needs others, then
> > they will become arrogant and their arrogance will defeat them in the
> > end.
>
> ...Does it matter if one doesn't _need_ others, but _wants_ them anyway?
That might be the flip-side. Or else a perspective that one carries during
youth. At least I did. I was always very careful to distinguish between
*want* and *need*. I didn't feel that I needed very much other than basic
survival things (job, roof over my head, food to eat), but I always wanted
big things.
Now older, I still want big things, but I accept that I am a very social
creature, and I really do _need_ people in different ways. It's also something
I want, especially after years of solitude. It's not something that I can
put into words very well yet.
> >
> > For those of you/us that carry alot of pride, it's a worthwhile
> > experiment to try to be vulnerable sometimes. It's just as difficult to
> > receive help as it is to ask for help. Only at that moment are one's
> > defensive barriers down. The rewards are multiplied ntimes when one is
> > interacting with another person without the barriers. The communication
> > becomes sincere. Also, you might discover that many people gain alot of
> > inner joy from helping someone else or joining in a cause that they
> > believe in too.
>
> That takes confidence, or trust, or blind faith...how do I tell if I'm
> being over-confident, or gullible, or trusting?
You do your best to be ready. Then you jump. Blindfolded. Can be
frightening. Then you see the result. Some times you will know that
you made a mistake. Other times you will know that you did exactly
the right thing. Each time you learn, so you never lose. After all,
if you're not making mistakes, then you are not trying and you are
not living.
On my biking trip, I realized that I was in a vulnerable mode much more
than I usually am (which is already a lot, since I'm so dependent on my
environment through which I travel). I had lousy maps for biking
Portugal: the resolution was too low. They were the best I could find
before I left, and I didn't find much better maps once I was there.
Roads were not marked. Paved roads that I thought would be dirt, and
dirt roads that I thought would be paved. I tried to tell the right direction
sometimes from the wind blowing: it was coming in from the ocean,
sometimes against me, sometimes across me. But the wind was changing
directions too, and the ocean wasn't always in my view.
I needed to ask local's help of directions a minimum of five times (up to ten,
I think) each of the six days I was on my bike. My Portugese dictionary
didn't help in the moment, because you can't really spell what the
person is saying. The best you can do is watch their arm movements: they
point in the right direction for you to go, make circles for roundabouts
or road underpasses or road turns. And guess what? Their directions were
reliable and extremely helpful. Moreover, the persons I asked (or didn't
ask; sometimes they came up to me offering help, when I was stopped
staring at my map) really wanted to help.
One of my blind jumps was to follow a fellow in his truck. He was in a
hauling truck and decided to lead me (after seeing me staring my map) to
the right road by signalling with his hand out his truck window for me
to follow him through the maze of a little village, and then he waited
at road crossings to make sure that I was following behind. He got me
started, and then I found I was on a dirt road! For a short while I was
annoyed and angry with him, until I discovered that there I was
traveling through a large beautiful open space area (called: Arrabida),
there were almost no cars on the dirt road, sheep herds were around, I
saw an ancient villa/farmhouse. Very peaceful place. It was the best
route I could have been on, at that time before I hooked up with the
much busier route ahead. I felt that he had given me a precious
treasure.
By the way, I did have a compass, but I preferred to ask directions
of people because I wanted to interact with them, and this was my personal
way to do that, especially since I was not staying in one location for
any length of time. On many different levels, 'navigation' became the
theme for my Portugal biking trip.
From an author I like: Paulo Coelho:
"When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of
rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more
slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the
people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to
attach much more importance to the things around you because your
survival depends upon them. You begin to be more accessible to others
because they may be able to help you in difficult situations. And you
accept any small favor from the gods with great delight, as if it were
an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.
At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in
them, and you feel happy to be alive. The word peccadillo, which means a
'small sin,' comes from pecus, which means 'defective foot,' a foot that
is incapable of walking a road. The way to correct a peccadillo is
always to walk forward, adapting oneself to new situations and receiving
in return all of the thousands of blessings that life generously offers
to those who seek them."
>
> > But I don't think that 'thinking' is the issue. The 'overview' mode for
> > me is taking a step back and paying attention to what my heart is
> > telling me. Are my dreams alive or did I let them die? Did I let
> > disappointment and failed experiences and experiments rot my enthusiasm
> > for following my dreams or am I seeing my life through a child's eyes?
> >
> > People who have lost their dreams no longer think that life is a grand
> > adventure, as children see their lives, but instead they live something
> > of a tired day-to-day existence, caught in duties and allegiances and
> > baggage and they ask only very little of life. Dead dreams poison our
> > psychological selves infecting every aspect of our lives. When our
>
> The last two paragraphs will be a part of the constitution of the
> government of the first space colony. Well they will if I have my say,
> anyway.
>
Thanks, Alex!
Kids have it made. Enthusiasm is a great strength. Our job as adults
is to hang onto that or else rediscover it (again and again), and use
or live that enthusiasm to follow our dreams.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "The best presents don't come in boxes." --Hobbes
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