Final Post

For the handful of friends who were regular followers, I offer my sincerest thanks. Your feedback has inspired me to a higher level with each new blog post. We have been drawn closer (even when we didn't agree), through this blog. I hope that I haven't let you down.

My heart and gratitude go to Jennie, for making my posts clear and accessible, and for her loving comments.

Here are some of the bests:

Best Post : Better Aspirations

Best Music : Stand by Me

Best Quote : Joseph Campbell

I hope that you have learned from some and enjoyed a few.

Finally: If you want to be happy, practice Compassion. If you want others to be happy, practice Compassion.

Blessings for health and happiness to all beings,
Nalton

Taj Mahal - Take a Giant Step

What is Education ?

As we prepare to go back to school as a nation, let's consider this.

The purely personal side of a good education, an education available to every one of us, is not emphasized enough. Not enough so that we can understand the fact that it is so much more agreeable and interesting to be an educated person.

And what ultimately is the goal of an education?

The goal should be to help us learn to think. And if that's truly the goal, when do we ever reach the destination?

What Do You Know ?

Here's a humbling question: If you were magically transported back in time -- say 1,000 years -- what could you teach the people of that time?

This makes me realize how little I really know.

If you could manage to keep from being burned as a sorcerer, wise men of the time would make pilgrimages to see you and ask thousands of questions.

You would be 400 years before Gutenberg and his movable type printing press; 600 years ahead of Galileo; 500 years ahead of Columbus. But of all of your knowledge of our modern world and its thousands of wonders, what could you show them how to do?

The aspirin tablet, the first real wonder drug and painkiller, would have been an unbelievable boon to them in their suffering. Could you show them how to make it?

How about the steam engine? Could you show them how to make one? Or a simple electrical generator? Or how to make wire? Could you make a clock?

We know so much about so many thousands of things, but with the exception of our specialty, we'd be really hard pressed to show them how to make much of anything.

Thinking on this also helps me realize how interdependent we are. We could do very little without the help of thousands (or millions) of other people. Everything we have comes from other people.

So what do we know enough about to teach to others if we should suddenly find ourselves without the help of our modern society? Without modern medicine and dentistry, communication and transportation, educational facilities or modern utilities?

Now Is Never Gone

Here is a HQ video on YouTube, if you'd like (larger & better pictures).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv16_2PeCc8

Here is a live recording of Jim Chappell performing the track, Gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlR9p7lBZM

Now Is Never Gone - words

There is no refuge from this life
All that's dear
is slowly swept away.

My younger life's dreams
they are gone.

Scattered through the days;
never more to come.

My joyful hopes and plans
are withered and are dried
by the mounting years.

But that is how it is.

So what is it we are supposed to do
when our hopes and dreams
can never be fulfilled?

Need we live a life looking at a past
that is larger than what's left?

Why should that be all
that we have or all we'll ever be?


But this is what I've learned -
This moment is what you have.

It's all you ever had.

That is when your joy is found
For now is where you are.

If no joy exists right now
what hope is there in a time not come?

Albatross -Ottmar Liebert

Also look for the Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green) version in my blog.