Listen and Learn

Words spoken for all to hear

Meaning to see it a little more clear

Listen with both your eyes and ears

See excite, love and even fears

Suspend beliefs, open closed minds

Amazing and amassing new finds

Sometimes wisdom in a whisper found

A world a way but homeward bound

Not all you see is absolute and true

Don’t believe all heard by others or you

Learning to listen, learning to discern

Wisdom from nonsense can be learned

Wisdom grows with mistakes and age

Turn and read on to the next page

But learning never is over or done

There’s a higher place, another rung

Read and listen, learn and discuss

In your developing wisdom learn to trust

Hidden Figures… What a great movie.  It’s about the black women that were NASA’s “computers” during the early space age, and later went on to become computer programmers, engineers, and helped delivered us into space and on to the moon!

I was thinking of a poem about listening and really hearing yesterday afternoon. Then I saw this movie in the evening, and thought about the lesson of these great women whose words should have mattered, but it was the unrelenting and irrefutable mathematics that made them matter, made them be heard and thus made them relevant in the end.  An end that was really the very beginning in so many ways!

In so many ways this movie brings a life lesson for all of us.  Even when you seem invisible to the world, through prejudice of age, race or other reasons you can overcome such prejudice with your actions, with your performance, with delivered results.  In America in the 1960’s, this was a tremendous fete for these women, and it’s not just worth acknowledging, it’s a must for those that respect American ingenuity, equal rights and fair play to celebrate such achievement!

My poem on listening seems trivial in the face of the voice of mathematics, and genius that must be heard because it is what wins the day!  Performance always matters!

Rounded

Remember bubbles wonderful and round

Strength and beauty in round to be found

Arch supports builders dream

Rounded by pi and so very clean

Orbits of gravity efficiency

Life modesty and sufficiency

Heavenly bodies in perfect sphere

Be in the moment, be right here

Hands mark time in a circle face

Everything is right in time and place

A well-rounded life is sure to be

The best of life for you, you’ll see

Water and You

Dew adorned grass, wet feet

Tickle our toes, as we meet

Rain, thunder and lightning

Light and dark so enlightening

Leaves, flowers and so many trees

Storing water and spring beauty please

Waves spray sweet cool, until

Goosebumps showing our chill

Refreshing, floating so lazy

Inspiring thoughts go hazy

Bubbles, jets at a hundred and four

Warming hearts and inspiring more

For making fine whiskey and wine

Cheering your health as well as mine

For life is better with you

And Life-giving water too!

It’s a musing day…

In this morning’s paper, there are three articles about Trump and truth… “Trump vs. Fiction”; “And in Time, Trump vs. Facts” and “The Scary World of Pre-truth” … wow, hold the presses we have a politician lying!  Of course, they never like to use that word… they talk about alternate-facts, fiction, pre-truth, mistaken, anything but liar.   In this case though, we have the king of lying, the king of attack politics, and conspiracy stories.  I read an article that says that 70% of people lie, but nearly 100% of people consider themselves truthful.   I guess that our president, Donald J Trump, probably considers himself a truth teller too, and has somehow found an accommodation with his view of the world and events around him.  I think the media helps him by constantly giving him enough room to move around his lies, and allowing an explanation, which becomes a broader assertion, or “this is what I heard”, or what I believe statement… ugh!   Seems like a dangerous game being played out in Washington.   Hopefully we’ll see progress despite a dearth of presidential integrity.

I read an article about being a conservative on a college campus, apparently a rare and nearly-extinct species in a land of liberal ideas.  The point of the article was made with a statement that you are twice as likely to find a Marxist than a Conservative in the ranks of a college faculty.   Well I’m not too surprised at this, I believe that young people should be more liberal in their early twenty’s, when they have time to think about the world as it should be, and at the same time begin exposure to the way it truly is.   Conservatives will lean toward testing themselves in the real world, Liberals will lean to testing themselves in the world of academia, staying in a world of thought that fits their mind.   Thus, the trend will continue… but that is good, conservatives need a little liberal exposure, and it’s important to understand and internalize the compassion that embodies liberal ideals.   Personal freedoms and social liberties are important just as fiscal conservatism is the bedrock of a capital real-world.

A movie we watched on Friday was interesting, “Passengers”.  Raising a moral question.  If you believe you can make that person’s life, and your own better by changing their life’s trajectory, should you without their understanding and collaboration that you are doing so?  I suppose we do this with our children, but this is not quite the same as an adult.  If an adult has formed a path, but that path could be altered and it would benefit them, should you do so, even if it is without their knowledge and understanding?   A conservative would say no, that personal choice matters more than the greater good, a liberal, or better said in this case, a romantic might think otherwise.   What would you do?

In our society so focused on sports, entertainment and politics, it was a true wonder and joy to see what Match Day 2017 was like.  Match Day is the day that 4th year medical students at 155 medical schools in the U.S. all find out where they will do their residency.  They have a list of their top 10 programs, they apply, they interview over a few months and then wait for this one day, at noon on 17 March this year, its always the third Friday of March, the envelopes are opened.  Its quite the ceremony, live video streamed, thousands watching, and screaming and celebrating and crying too for the joy of achieving a match!  Families hugging, jumping up and down, oh and more than a few drinks passed around!  As I watched, I thought how it rivaled NFL draft day, or the academy awards, or a political race.  Family members sometimes are on stage and they open the envelope and make the announcement. One jokester opened the envelope for his girlfriend and said loudly “La-la-land”.   It was great excitement and it was a real lift to know that there is so much enthusiasm and passion for achievement in education of our medical practitioners as well as researchers.  A doctorate in medicine is an enormous achievement, and deserves celebration.    Our dear friend Dr. Roy Elias matched to his first choice on Friday.  He will be an oncology physician and will also do oncology research, and will learn throughout his residency at UT Southwestern in Dallas Tx during a three year program.

To work so hard to overcome the ruthlessness of math, science, and a new language (Latin of course, but Greek to me) of medicine, requires a passion for learning, for achievement and for a future goal of delivering a great value to society!  The community of support for medical students is critical, it seems they do learn the value of a team and they appreciate support of family, mentors, friends and co-workers.  Oh and they definitely learned how to celebrate!

Congratulations Roy and all Matchers!

More people are migrating and are refugees of war, or corruption, or gang violence and conflict at this time than any time since World War II.  In the US, about 46M people are immigrants (they were born in a different country), some estimated 11M are illegally here.  Europe continues to see an influx of millions of refugees and immigration is a dominant issue.  World-wide the estimate of immigrant population is 255M.  Consider that too many are moving not for advancement and careers but rather to escape corruption, violence and conflict.  This is not a political post, I make no argument about border protection either way, I just hope to point out a situation that may have societal implications…

I shudder to think of the implications if too many millions lose hope…

When Night Becomes Most Dark

Escaping nightmare, or chasing a dream

Into a desert or fording a stream

Tears and perils and threats

From anxiety, strife and regrets

No option, no option, move on

Stay and die or live on the run

Footprints of thousands before

Bloodied knuckles on the door

No attorney, no help, no money

Just move on, hoping for land of milk and honey

Returned and we’ll try again

There’s nowhere else to land

Millennia of refugees, moving on rumor

No love, no life, no soul, no humor

Where to run if left without hope

Turn to find societies slippery slope

Where is revolutions kindling and spark

Where the night becomes most dark

Enjoy…

Scotch and Me

Heavens above blessed rain

Cool and clear refreshes the grain

By the river cool, clean and clear

Harvest my barely or rye my dear

Heat and time and I am one

Evaporate, filter, refine me home

Resting and thinking in barrels of oak

Soul maturing, complex I soak

Color of amber, made nice in a sherry cask

A little sweetness is not too much to ask

Complex and smooth I’ll be just right

Enjoy me neat with a drop of rain tonight

We as humans live in a universe of immense proportions, we are traveling through space at an enormous speed as we orbit around our star, as our star orbits the Milky Way galaxy, and as our galaxy is accelerating away from other galaxies in an ever-expanding universe.  Yes, more than a million miles an hour, in fact about 1.3M Mi/Hr.  Yet few of us think of ourselves as travelers, even though in the time you’ve read this you’ve traveled hundreds of thousands of miles.  So too has everything you see with you, so your motion relative to the walls or furniture is 0.  However, I’ll think about this next time I feel weary from business travel!

In our universe, and local existence, we have an amazing attraction to the apple.  Yes, think about it, apples have been around for millennia, and have been cultivated by humans, such that there are 7500 or more varieties of apples.   Not gonna try them all!  Furthermore, the apple has been a major element of our history, of the story of humankind.  Not only have we cultivated, and improved upon the apple, we can claim an apple helped Newton discover gravity, helped Eve seduce Adam, and all that happened thereafter.  Helped us with understanding, such as who is the apple of your eye?  And in a pie, has been associated with motherhood and all goodness.  Even our biggest city in the USA is the “Big Apple” … oh and I’m writing this on an Apple Computer!

The Other Side

So, I find myself on the other side it seems

Couldn’t imagine, never in my dreams

Never in the middle, never in between

Not here before, not sure what I mean

Flying into the endless sunset

Delaying that night comes yet

Thoughts wheel in the sky

Like starlings way on high

Escaping above, beyond is dying

Surely no more pain, no sighing

But there I find on the other side

Wisdom and beauty of this ride