Success

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
Whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or
A redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
Because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

Identity

The world tells us all about
what we are supposed to feel,
how we are suppose to be ...
and what it wants us to want.

It subjects us to a barrage of subtle
and not so subtle persuasion.
Adverts blare out at us.
TV shows and movies beckon to us.

People around us whisper in our ears
to indicate through their expressions
whether they approve of our behaviour.

In all this, it is hard to know
who we truly are and what
we genuinely require.

Hard but not impossible.

If ...

I f

the earth were only a

few feet in diameter, floating a

few feet above a field somewhere,

people would come from everywhere to

marvel at it. People would walk around it

marveling at its big pools of water, its little

pools and the water flowing between the pools.

People would marvel at the bumps on it, and the

holes in it, and they would marvel at the very thin

layer of gas surrounding it and the water suspended in

the gas. The people would marvel at all the creatures

walking around the surface of the ball, and in the water.

The people would declare it precious because it was the

only one and they would protect it so that it would not

be hurt. The ball would be the greatest wonder

known, and people would come to behold it, to be

healed, to gain knowledge, to know beauty and

wonder how it could be. People would love it,

and defend it with their lives, because they

would some how know that their lives,

their own roundness, could be nothing

without it. If the earth were

only a few feet in

d i a m e t e r.

"When sleeping women wake, mountains move!"

-Chinese Proverb -