Inspiration

Inspiration comes from lots of sources – people, ideas, unexpected acts of kindness and the amazing intelligence of the human mind.

When I find something inspiring, I would like to capture it here. Bits of conversations, fragments of text from a book, quotes, a few pearls or insights from a podcast or a blog or a video.

12th Aug 07

This poem from Rabindranath Tagore – I saw this pinned in the front office of my dentist yesterday

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Journey to the Center of the Earth and Beyond

Bill Stone, the maverick cave explorer who invented robots and dive equipment that have allowed him to plumb Earth’s deepest abysses, explains his efforts to build a robot to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plan is to send the machine to bore through miles of ice and swim through a liquid underworld that may harbor alien life. And if that’s not enough, he’s also planning to mine lunar ice by 2015.

Inspiring and Informative Videos

Your Learning and Your Brain -From Ronald Gross

Brains have no race or color,
so I will always seek,
when meeting other humans:
What makes THIS brain unique?

Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks, dated 1508:

Irons rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

“Imagination is more important than Knowledge” – Albert Einstein

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig

To become a master at anything takes a lot of hard work. Peter provides his insights in the art and craft of software development.

Seven Freedoms of Learning explores the changing field of teaching and learning and how social software plays a part.

Listen to your world, in Leverage by Darby Checketts

“…hear the world whisper, chuckle, sigh, shout with joy, or moan. And as we hear what the world is saying, we are better prepared to lift the world. Listen to your world. Listen to everything and everyone in it. You will hear what it wants you to know”

“Friendship is leverage on the quality of our lives. It begins with basic appreciation and acknowledgment of others… of their trials, their courage, their fundamental goodness, and the work they do for others”

Change the World, by Guy Kawasaki

“You can be rich, you can be powerful, and you can be famous, but you won’t amount to much of anything until you change the world”