I must Tell My Friend Zarquil About This

Unplanned humor is usually the best. I was out with some friends last night watching the Perseid meteor shower, after reading a lot of #Meteorwatch Tweets during the day. One particularly keen astronomer (whom I follow) goes by the Twitter name "Zarquil".

Not everyone knows their way around the sky, and I had been pointing out some key spots to my friends: Perseus, the Great Dark Rift, star clusters in Sagittarius, and the center of the the galaxy. Just around midnight, we saw a couple of really bright fireballs, and I made the comment "I must tell my friend Zarquil about this". There was a moment of silence, while we all realized how odd that sounded. And then a bit of laughter when I explained it,

Memorial Service

It's strange how much we learn about someone at a memorial service. Really, we should all try to learn the things about others that will be written in their eulogies.

Refocus

I'm finding that I just can't stay on the same topic forever. You run out of things to say unless you maintain focus for more time than is really good for you. Also continually finding quotes to support one's thoughts takes time that might be used more productively.

One of the things I do is running, and another is crossfit. These are both useful in keeping me healthy and happy (I actually do experience "runner's high"), but they take up a lot of time. I may have to restructure my day to be more productive.

The Edge of the Unknown

“Running lets us rediscover what we knew as children: that being safe all the time isn’t very interesting. There are no air bags in our running shorts. We are vulnerable to the whim of fate and the blindness of serendipity. But we are not held hostage to fear. We boldly go where we know we belong. The fun is at the edge of the unknown.”

John “The Penguin” Bingham

For as far back as anyone can remember, young men have sought Adventure. They would go to sea, or head off into a new country as explorers or pioneers. They would face the dangers of the unknown in return for the rewards of interest and the chance to live heroically and boldly. Sometimes, we have to let go of our safety nets, and plunge into the Unknown.

Finding the Ideal

"I also acknowledge, along with William James, that even people engaged in repetitive, dreary, manual labor pursuits ... can still find significance in the doing - if they are linked with some great vision or ideal. These individuals, in spite of their location and circumstances, are able to display the traits of heroism, courage and strenuousness which James held so dear."

Douglas R. Hochstetler

This quote is from "Running and Philosophy", a collection of essays edited by Michael W. Austin. If you're a runner, then you should read this book. It has a lot to say about living a full, meaningful, authentic life. The thing now is to find the Ideal most meaningful to you.

Evgeny Morosov and Web 2.0

It was very instructive yesterday to do the talk on Diaries and Journals. People were much more interested in blogs and social networking than in traditional diaries. We are all strongly interested in what's new and transformative. It is also fascinating to realize that Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Blogs are the basis of what is being called Web 2.0.

Here's an interesting link on the impact of Social Networking: Evgeny Morozov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuAs5uysD8

The Great Project of Our Generation

" ... so the great project of our generation, it seems to me, is to build for the first time out of a global ethic and our global ability to organize and communicate, a truly global society."

Gordon Brown

"Wiring a Web for our Global Good"

You simply can't argue with Gordon Brown or the vision that he expresses at the TedGlobal 2009. This speech, is so full of heroic stories that it's hard to feel unmoved. I must look up the Rwanda Children's Museum, and the story of David.