Live not Rationalize

The verb "live" was linguistically derived from the noun "life" for an excellent reason. Don't misconstrue rationalizing with living. If you rationalize your life instead of live your life, you'll create struggle.

Don't rationalize your life. Be mindful and considerate, but don't rationalize your life.

Live your life.

(With that note, I've got some dreams to check-off in Hawaii!)

Do I listen to other people?

A lot of people have asked if I receive directions well? If I listen well and can easily apply things that others suggests.

Let me explain this.

I listen VERY well if the message is profound. If the messenger has deep conviction. If the requester or the messenger has fully considered what the situation is like from my shoes. If the person is delivering the message from a completely selfless stance, then I listen and react and act almost instantaneously.

Unfortunately, when people speak from a conceited, inflated ego and act like they can swoop down and dash on a cure-all for me, I don't listen. Also, most people are selfish and request things that benefit only them, so I don't listen to those either. Finally, most people aren't fully uncertain about their requests, so I don't listen in that sense either.

Ask yourself. Do you possess 100% certainty? Are you selflessly examining the situation from his/her shoes? Does your message possess profound poignancy? If all those are true (certainty, poignancy, selflessness) it's guaranteed that person will respond almost instantaneously. Let's put it this way. I hope to be responding even more, very quickly.

Down-Low on Your Voice

Do not. I repeat, Do not force your voice. If you force your voice, you won't be genuine and your sense of certainty will be fleeting. I'll say it again. Don't force your voice. Just don't force your voice.

It's funny. Most people think you only speak with your true voice when you are talking about profound philoosphical concepts. In actuality, you discover your inner voice through chitchat. It's the idle chitchat that leads to your voice. You have to -- log by log -- unpack and unblock your inner voice starting with, first, the chitchat. If you want to say "man, it's cold today" or "gee, this elevator's crowded". Say it. You must say it. Saying that "meaningless prattle", those "senseless brain-dead comments" unblocks your inner voice. Don't expect this to be immediate. Don't expect yourself to say "Hey is that a new shirt?" and to then suddenly start spouting direct quotes from Plato's The Republic. The unblocking process of your voice takes time. But consider this: If you can't even motivate yourself to have a weather conversation with a person, how could you have a profound spiritual dialogue with a person? Start with the chitchat and your voice will arrive in its own time.

Again, don't force your voice. Start with the chitchat and your voice will naturally flow.


Fulfilling your dreams is about proportions. I'll say it again. Fulfilling your dreams is about proportions. Making your dreams come true is about being in proportion with servitude. The quality and quantity of your dreams must match the magnitude and amount assistance you provide to people. Your amount of personal motivation is limited to your amount of encouragement towards others.

The quality of your dreams is interdependent upon your quality of service for others. Experiencing your actual authentic true dreams -- not false dreams implanted onto you by advertising -- is inextricably interlinked with serving others. If you never serve others, you'll never experience your dreams. Similarly, if you never experience your dreams, you can never serve others.

Fulfilling your dreams is a two-way system. For every spoon of dream fulfillment you feed to yourself, you must serve to other people, and vice versa. When you give something to someone else, your reach, your magnitude of giving is limited to the amount of desires you've personally fulfilled. Similarly, if you try to

Balance your desires with the demands of others. If you have too many desires and not enough time being put into demands of others, you'll never experience your voice. Any time you tip the scales and have too much of external demands or internal desires you extinguish your voice. If you balance your agenda so that you have an equal amount of personal desires and demands for others, you unlock your Spirit's voice.

When people place external demands on you, balance those deadlines with your personal dreams and desires. If your personal dreams are ever improportionate with other peoples' demands on you, you extinguish your voice. Balance your internal desires with the demands of others. If you want to increase your amount of desires to five dreams on the wish-list, you must increase the amount of external tasks people ask you to do to five as well.

Cherish the "home" of a Belonging

Quick reminder on age old advice: when you take something out, put it back where it belongs!Laziness creates clutter. I constantly witness people collecting things for a project and then leaving the "shrapnel leftovers" of that project lying in a little smoldering rubble after their task they believe their task to be "complete". Example: you go to organize your basement and need tape from your desk, labels from you bag, a special pen from your kitchen, and boxes from under your bed. Four different places that were drawn from -- four different storage spots. Typically people cop out before the job is complete, and if they have some labels left over, extra tape, and a few boxes, they'll create a temporary "second" location for those belongings! NO! That's death; that creates clutter and like attracts like so your little obstacle pile will grow.

So my advice is simple. It is this: your task is only complete when you've putten the remains back where they belong. Then you don't even have to worry about remembering where you last left them because everything will always be in its place. Sure, this is an ancient adage, and you may feel a twinge of laziness before you "finished the project" but do yourself, your clarity, your strong sense of connection a favor and put things back where you got them out. You'll feel more alert, centered, and energized as a result of the organization and be able to emotionally and physically move more freely!

Living as a Conduit

I realized I am a conduit. When I interact with people I don't absorb their emotions, but sense them and then dish them back out. In every aspect I am a conduit and things must have immediate application. Anything that can stagnant on me doesn't work and is deadly and must be removed. I'm talking about everything. Take reading a book. I need to read and then type out the book word-for-word or at the very least read it out loud to have that world flow through me. I like being that conduit. I preferably like to read my own work because I trust the author. I retyped by mexico SPTC journals and relived that world process. Utterly amazing! Loved it. So much fun. It's strange that by experiencing something, letting it flow through you and sending it back out, you experience most fully, much more fully than be clinging to the experience and/or trying to save it! I have IMMENSE gratitude for Dr. Pereira, Laura Vick, and all the amazing leaders who generously worked hard for me to have so many exhilarating, cultural, educational experiences.

Biographical Quilts

Introduction to Dynamic learning: Going with the Grain of the Brain
Create Biographical Quilts

When we read a biography, we aim to learn facts. Facts not in some isolated order, but facts in an interconnected weaving of knowledge. These "Biographical Quilts" teach information, facts, and knowledge in a unique method of weaving seemingly disparate lives in and out of each other. The timespan and the relevancy between the individuals could appear vast and impractical, but the "Biographical Quilts" weaves together the prominent events, styles, and themes of these people in extaordinary ways that keenly harness the brain's power of memory through association. After all, we do not learn by simply inputting facts into our brain -- it is an organic organ not a inanimate computer. Instead, we make intricate associations. The problem with the typical portrayal and organization of information is that it treats the brain like a computer, providing very little associations. The "Biographical Quilts" relies on the neuro-associations of the brain's typical behavior and presents information that is easily incorporated into the brain's neurological organization. While the associations between individuals may appear to be irrelevant, the connections are made and the brain will remember them more efficiently because of the seemingly irrelevant associations. The biographies appear irrelevant because, in standard thinking, they are. But, by harnessing the advances of neuroscience, "Biographical Quilts" zeroes in on the most effective learning method. Even though it may appear irrelevant, this product teaches you how to learn facts, simply by reading. By reading "Biographical Quilts" you utilize the brain's working memory, which stores and manipulates current information. Most papers, articles, or fact databases fail to present information that goes "with the grain of the brain"; most typical fact-based literature does not harness the powerful organizational affects of the prefontal cortex.

Our Prefontal Method of Chunking
The prefontal cortex creates stimulation in neurons that hold a network of current information. The problem with most fact-based literature is that this neural network only produces only an isolated bit of data. By learning just about Shakespeare in a single reading, or just about Aristotle, for example, you can only recall those specific "chunks" of memory at a time. Memory is stored in "chunks" and when these chunks move to long-term memory, they can quickly become lost of they are "small chunks" . If you learn about Shakespeare, Aristotle, and the Earth's Geology, for example, in single setting, the prefontal cortex will create a more accessible and larger memory web, producing a memory chunk that is more likely to be retrieved, rather than forgotten. "Biographical Quilts" is neorologically designed to work with the prefontal cortex neurons to generate information that will be remembered more efficiently.

Chunking up and Chunking Down
When we "chunk" up we look at the larger picture, and when we "chunk down" we focus on smaller details of information (2). The problem with typical nonfiction writing is that they focus on one of these elements -- just details (chunking down) or just the big picture (just chunking up) -- but for the brain to create a comprehensive neural network, which will be more efficiently learned than a neural network that is one-sided, both types of memory absorption are required. "Biographical Quilts" creates a comprehensive information network by zooming in to the small chunks and then chunking up to the big picture. The methods in which the information is presented in "Biographical Quilts" utilize the most efficient form of memory data chunking; the way the series is organized caters to the natural functioning of the brain, instead of working against it, and the method of writing stimulate uses a patterned mental association, which generates a more comprehensive network of neurons in the prefontal cortex.

Why Read Biographical Quilts?
By reading "Biographical Quilts" you will learn more information, more quickly, and absorb more knowledge, more efficiently than you would be taking any kind of class, tutorial, or workshop. Even purchasing an encyclopedia and reading the entire set will not present information in a way that effectively creates an effective learning diagram that causes associations for deep, long term learning. "Biographical Quilts", in addition to stimulating your brain to remember more facts, knowledge, history, and famous events about famous people, it will activate the cortexes (including the left and right hemispheres) in such a way that your brain will be more effecitve to absorb more information more quickly and efficiently. Reading this book will simply transform your brain into an organized "rolodex" of easily-accessible information, instead of a blob of forgotten facts. Event the avid reader can benefit from "Biographical Quilts" because it stimulates the brain in such a way you feel more organized to learn more about anything. Why were people, in biographies chosen as the anchoring element (the type of information creates the neural associations in the prefrontal cortex), instead of, say scientific facts, mathematical formulas, or literary stories? The answer is simply. People create information. People create the scientific facts (geology, physics, chemsitry, biology, anatomy, etc.), the mathematical formulas, the literary stories and the entire history of knowledge. If you learn about specific people and what those people did, you will learn everything that is ever known about knowledge*. Humans are the knowledge anchor for every bit of fact their is to know. If you learn about any fact -- anthropological, biological, poltical, historical, linguistic, or chemical, for example -- that fact originated in someone's mind; it originated from another person. If you study the biography if every famous person, that contributed to the the entire "humanistic knowledge base" (all the knowledge in existence from the beginning of time to projections into the future), you will simply know every fact there was to know. People are the anchoring identity, the common vein, for all learning. Learning about people (how they acted, what they said, what they thought, what they wrote, what they believed, and what they did) will teach you everything you could possibly learn in any book, encyclopedia, fact database, class, school, or other learning environment, and more.

What You Will Learn
You will learn things more efficiently than you would if you simply learned the facts because people anchor and produce the information -- they are the source of the facts. It is scientifically guaranteed that if you learn, for example, about the life of someone, rather than just facts, you will absorb the information more effectively and be able to recall it more accurately because the information will have a person-based context. For example, if you learn about the life of Robert Millikan, which would include his famous "Oil Drop Experiment" in 1909 that determined the size of an electron's charge, instead of merely learning the size and the charge of an electron, you will remember it more vividly and accurately because it will be tied to people. Birds of a feather flock together; people remember people more than they remember facts about electrons! Additionally, by learning about Millikan's life, instead of just the prominent products of his life (that an electron has a negative charge of 1.6 X 10^19 Coulombs, a unit of energy measurement), you discover about how he recieved the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics in 1923 for his famous experiment, the details of the experiment, and interested tidbits about his life, like how he gained access to U.S. Mint gold and silver to do light polarization research for his Phd. Some might consider all these facts to be extraneous and bland and others might consider these life details to be interesting and scintillating. Regardless of your opinion on whether the biographical details are interesting or not, they are crucially necessary to remember the essential facts, like the charge of the electron. By focusing in on the biographies -- whether you are seeking the prominent facts of a specific field or interested in the nuances of someone's life -- you will learn the information you quench and the acquire knowledge that makes you appear more intelligent in the most effective manner. Looking, appearing, and actually being more knowledgeable will change your life; "Biographical Quilts" will completely innovate your thinking process to a new level of associative absorption.

What you Will See
o "Biography sketch" = details of life, marriage, birth/death, schooling, major events, published works
o "Quintessential Contributions" (QC) = ideas produced, literature written, things that they did, ideas they thought of, scientific frontiers the broke through
o Biography under Telescope ( = details of a "quintessential key contribution" (QC) looking at a microscopic, single element of a person's life; single detialed element of bios (not full spectrum of life; minals details) = millikan's oil drop, einstein's thought experiments, shcliemann's finding lost cities


Foot Notes
1. Kalt. www.jneurosci.org—RC210
2. Robbins, Anthony. "Awaken the Giant Within"
*.This gets a little philosophically complicated because it is based on epistemology, and on the fact that humans organize information about time periods in which they were not present. "Epistemology" is the study how learned and acquired the knowledge that we know. Given that humans haven't been in existence for the entire creation of events, we have still learned about those events and organized information that relates to those eras. Humans weren't around when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, for example, but we created the facts about that era. Therefore, learning about those specific people who studied prehistoric fossils will teach us about the dinosaur age. Similarly, learning everything about Einstein and his predecessors will teach you everything there is to know about quantum physics. Even moreso, studying the lives and biographies of Geertz, Malinowski, and Meede will make you an incredibly factually-informed anthropologist. Therefore, you can quickly see that learning everything about people will teach you everything that humans know.


Hemingway and Faulkner compared to Joyce
James Joyce was born in Dublin, Ireland to John Tansislaus Joyce and May Murray in 1882, the oldest of 10 children. He began schooling at the Clongowes Wood Catholic Prep Jesuit School, and rebelled against Catholic disciplinary traditions upheld there in 1888, at age 6. At age 9, his family's social-economic status declined because of his father's, Stanislaus's, drinking. Even though he caused this social-economic decline in the family, James praised and loved his father for his story-telling, being a good storyteller, and gathering taxes dutifully. 2 years after leaving the Clongowes Wood school, due to the family's decreased social-economic status, James enrolled at Belvedere College with a scholarship, making this his second Jesuit school.
This was at age 11 in 1893, where we experienced a life-changing fiery sermon that alterred his life and influenced later books, like Portrait of an Artist (1916). This hell-fire sermon at Belvedere, which occurred after his first experience after sex, almost caused him to become a priest, but his senses sought art, so he became an author, but his reactions to the sermon were very strong. After 5 years of school, he graduated Belvedere College in 1898 at age 16 -- Joyce certainly had an array of schooling and life experiences occur to him at a young age, all before 20 -- before he went on to attend his third school, University College at Dublin, where he rebelled against the Irish Tradition. This was in the same year. At all of his three schools -- Clongowes Wood, Belvedere, and U College at Dublin -- Joyce was always rebelling at something, albeit Jesuit traditions or Irish heritage. Eventually he left the school scene after 4 years at University College at Dublin in 1902 at age 20 and went to Paris to meet his future wife Nora Barnacle, who was the perfect balance for James because she was sometimes sarcastic and provided cynicism to his writing, causing him to lighten up on his intense literary focus.

He then lived with Nora and kids in Trieste, Zurich, where he taught at the Berlitz school, and Paris during the next 25 years throughout the first World war. This was when he began working on Dubliners, too. The Berlitz school in Trieste in 1914, in Paris, and in Dublin (having to return from Paris because his mother was sick) were three places that Joyce taught English, making him a valuable teacher and writer throughout his life. Between bouncing between Trieste and Paris, Joyce tried to start a chain of move theaters in 1909 at age 27, the same year that his first book Dubliners was published, although it was later burned because of profanity. Three years later, Joyce reattempted to publish Dubliners in 1912, and when it was finally published in 1914, 5 years after it was finished, in the United Kingdom, he began writing his epic, Ulysses, which evolvedfrom naturalist tradition to a radical break from the narrative tradition, which is dispalyed in Ulyesses. Written during World War 1, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916. Then Ulysses was finally published in 1921 at age 39, after 7 years of writing, but was criticized because of obscenity. This masterpiece was officially published in Paris by Shakespeare and Company in 1922, a year later, which, continuing his logically intelligent pattern of starting a book when one is published, Joyce began writing his coda, Finnigan's Wake. 8 years later, at age 49, Joyce finally marries long-time sweet-heart and counter-part, Nora Barnacle, in 1931, which was 2 years before the United States version of Ulysses was published, after a ban was removed in 1933 (12 years after it was originally published). Even though Joyce's work is controversially obscene, it is all, undoubtedly, literary masterpieces. Supposed to be the culmination of his career -- considered by Joyce -- and his greatest, most complex work, Finnigan's Wake -- a multi-voiced, multi-dimensional web occurring on a single night, involving the dream of protagonist Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker that cycles through years of Irish and American history, that uses radically broken-down and reassembled language, hybrid words that mix languages, and complex puns -- was published in 1939, at age 57, 2 years after Collected Poems was published. Joyce died of an ulcer in Zurich aat age 59 in 1941, and his musuem, The Joyce Musuem, opened in Dublin in 1962, 21 years later. Joyce's mastery is epiphanies (a moment where a character realizes something and everything fuses and makes sense in a larger spiritual perspective), language that has been broken down radically and then reassembled, hybrid words (that mix languages), and complex puns. He shapes his novels, possibly rebelling his rebellious setting at the three schools he attended, to have a cumulating impact.

QC: Hemingway's first book, Dubliners, couldn't be published right away, and had to wait until 1914 because of obscenity and libel. It is 15 short stories about squalid and sentimental lives of Dubliners who dream with a dismal life against a dismal background whose cumulative affect ends in despair. The city is portrayed in moral and political paralysis, an insight displayed to the reader by the use of epiphanies, the succession of relative moments, which was Joyce's trademark. The Dead, the final and most complete story in Dubliners, are based on many elements of Joyce's life. Some of the real-life connections are Miss KAte and Miss Julia, based on real-life music teachers, Mr. Bartell D'arcy had real-life connections, Gabriel Conroy, who disliked Irish nationalism and tradition, prefers European culture, and writes local journal reviews, resembles Joyce if he hadn't traveled to Europe. Gabriel's image is challenged three times in his life, each by a woman. The maidservant, Lily, insults his patronizing speech and says a bitter comment about men, causing Gabriel to worry hi speech will be the wrong tone for the audience at the party. Next, Miss Ivors attacks his ignorance of Irish culture, and his wife, Greta, arouses him (she is thinking of the dead, Michael Furey, who visited his wife, even when she was ill, and died) to feel that his colorless self will never be similar to Furey's passionate devotion. So he is caused to doubt his speech, his political beliefs, and his capacity for love by the social scene, where is destroyed, and should have been more focused. He loses his sparkle and feels dead (he thinks the dead intermixed with the living in one community, like the snow that falls through the coutryard, through Dublin, and Ireland, and the Universe) at the end of the novella.

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man was published in 1916 and was based on Joyce's life up to 1902 (age 20 before going to Europe), referred to as the Stephen Dedalus character, but it is not a conventional autobiography. It is a radical experiment with fiction language, involving echoing fragmented parent's baby talk in mature rhetoric. It's unique style combines 1st person (subjective) and 3rd person (objective) voices and with epiphanies and his dramatic dialogue, it hints at the completely radical break from narrative tradition, that Joyce will make in Ulysses. His reaction the the Belvedere college sermon is covered in this quasi-mini-autobiography, too.
Ulysses, controversially published in 1922, is Joyce's most prestigious work. Its account of June 16, 1904, "Bloomsday" is based on the Odyssey (the Latin translation of Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, is Ulysses) where each chapter is associated with an hour, color, symbol, and a body part, making each chapter a scintillating adventure. The main characters are Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising-space salesman, his wife, Molly Bloom, and Stephen Dedalus, a teacher. He creates a total life in all these characters with realistic descriptions and verbal representations of their innermost random and innate thoughts using interior narration. The very concept of such a developed peek into the character's inner worlds with interior narration is incredibly unique in the literary tradition at this time, but Joyce takes it a step further by brining in many-sided puns, evocative word games and patterns, allusions that are historical, literary, religious, and geographical, and tragic irony. You need a map, a Bible, a history encyclopedia, and great whit for deciphering and laughing at complex pun-filled language to read this masterpiece, but it is an extraordinary accomplishment.

William Faulkner was born in 1897, 15 years after Joyce, in New Albany, Mississippi to a Southern family. In 1918, William joined the Canadian Royal Air Force at age 21 and attends the University of Mississippi the next year in 1919, but only for a year. He lived in Paris for a short time in 1925, at age 28, near the time when he met Hemingway and Salinger, which was a year after his first book The Marble Faun was published in 1924. Then in 1929, the famous The Sound and the Fury was published at age 42, the same year, that he married Estelle Oldham Franklin in 1929 -- although this era began a period of depression for the rest of the United States, this period was definitely not a year of Depression for Faulkner. Hopefully, this masterpiece would uplift the moods of a disheartened nation in years to come. Already, it is clear that Joyce celebrated many more academic and life-changing experiences (with the fiery Belvedere sermon) than Faulkner, but both are still profoundly talented writers, regardless of the quantity of youthful experiences. In 1931, Sanctuary was published and Faulkner bought Rowanoak, a pre-civil war mansion that became his own personal sanctuary, in Oxford, Mississippi and lived as a recluse writing, similar to Hemingway's writing place in Cuba or Joyce's in Paris or Trieste. Then in 1932, at age 35, Light in August was published, before The Hamlet in 1940, 8 years later, and 17 years after Light in August (9 years after The Hamlet), Faulkner finally received the well-received Nobel Prize in Literature the same year his short story, The Night's Gambit, was published. In 1954, The Fable was published at age 57, which one the Pulitzer Prize, before Faulkner "permanently retired" at age 65 in 1962 the same year The Reivers was published, also winning a Pulitzer Prize.

Faulkner's mastery is rhetorical, highly symbolic, and involves brilliant literary technical skill. Combined with convoluted time sequences and stream of consciousness writing, Faulkner reveals the innermost hopes, dreams and secrets of characters with insights of humor, tragedy and psychology. This indepth analysis and in-depth command of the English language is similar to Joyce, who used the hybrid words and reassembled broken-down language. The setting for most of Faulkner's reads are in the fictional town of Yoknapatawpha county (supposed to be in Mississippie) which, as a microcosm, represents the entire South as a whole. Faulkner celebrates tragedy, energy, and the humor of ordinary life, something that Joyce enunciated on, but Faulkner mastered. He examines the dissolution of traditional values and authority on multiple levels of Southern Society, including the abuse of blacks by Southern whites. This uniquely ethnic twist, involving the violent and sordid accounts of post-civil war South decay and anguish, makes his novels compelling, historically relevant, and captivating with the intense manipulation and control of the English language. Joyce and Faulkner both use the language of English as a versatile tool to shape literary art that captivates and transports the reader to another dimension of masterpieces.

Ernest Hemingway was born 1899 on July 21 in Oak Park, IL. He graduated from highschool at age 18 -- pretty normal track -- in 1917, which was when he also began working for the Kansas City Star. From this journalism experience he learned the craft of writing short, terse sentences, curt paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, and immediacy, which would later become his trademark later in life. Faulkner is the master of long run-on, page-long sentences and Hemingway is the master of concision, always being extremely parsimonious with his short sentences and phrases. He quit the Star the same exact year he began working with the journal, applied to the army, was deferred, but became a Red Cross World War 1 ambulance driver. Bottom-line, age 18 in 1917 was a massive year for Hemingway. The next year, 1918, he began his Red Cross work in France and fought with the Italian infantry before becoming wounded, which was before his 19th birthday, and he also fought in the Spanish Civil war on the Loyalist side, similar to Orwell's history. Possibly, too soon after a way experience (because of an upcoming divorce) and being simply too young, Hemingway married Elizabeth Hadley Richardson before he visited Pamplona, Spain, 2 years later in 1922, which became the basis for his knowledge of bull fights for later books. The next year, in 1923, Three Stories and Ten Poems -- apparently Hemingway was into quantity early in his career, just trying to get the numbers of stories and poems out there -- was published as his first book, at age 24. Three years down the line The Sun Also Rises was published at age 27, which focused on disillusioned expatriots who alleviate their psychological wounds by common sex, drinking, travel, and brawling. Evidently, this was similar to how Heminqway felt after his war experience and, possibly from jump-starting his marriage, possibly to be more of an adult, simply wrote about his qualms in a fictional novel instead of discussing his malaise.

Generally, Hemingway's life was very productive, but because he killed himself with a shotgun in Ketchum, Idaho in July, 1961 at age 62, some of the events in his life that could point to this later depression are discussed, but this is certainly not to emphasize depression about his entire life, just, simply, to show potential cause-and-effect relationships. Seven years after his first marriage, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer, his second wife, at age 27 in 1927 on May 10. The next year, at age 28, Hemingway's father killed himself and Ernest was forced to help his Mother's family financially and emotionally. The death of his father by his own hands could have certainly led to Hemingway's decision to kill himself later on. His masterpiece A Farewell to Arms , which was about a wartime love affair between an ambulance driver and and English nurse, was then published the next year in 1929 at age 30. Obviously, Hemingway's World War 1 experience in 1918 left a mark on him -- two books The Sun Also Rises and Farewell to Arms were about the psychological aftermath of the war or the ambulance driving experience during it -- very trying times, indeed. 6 years later Green Hills of Africa was published at age 36, about big-game hunting, bravery, and virtue of the primal challenge to life. This book was similar in context, but not message, to Orwell's How to Shoot an Elephant short story.

In 1937 at age 38, Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil war, and divorced Pauline, creating a marital war for himself, and married his third wife, Martha Gelhorn, whom he met four years earlier in 1933 in Key West. Because of the playfulness of Johnny Weissmuller's life, his 5 marriages connote frolicking and a playboy fun-seeking demeanor, but, because of the seriousness of Hemingway's life and reads, the 4 wives he had seem to connote turmoil instead of experimentation, and troubled seeking for a partner, instead of lacksadaisical commitment. Johnny was, no doubt, committed to his wives, but you know he had to be having fun as well, doing the Tarzan thing. Then the next year in 1938, First Forty-Nine Stories and The Snows of Kilamanjaro were published. 2 years later, the troubles of the Spanish Civil war, from that horrendous year of war -- 1918 -- are portrayed in a brilliant novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, which was about how humanity and brotherhood were argued for after the Spanish Civil war. Four years later, he marries his forth and final wife, Mary Welsh, before settling in Cuba in 1945 at age 46. Then, in 1952 at age 53 his last work The Old Man and the Sea, about indomitable courage and perseverance of an old, aged Cuban fisherman catching a gargantuan marlin, was published 2 years before getting the Nobel Prize in Literature (like Faulkner did 14 years earlier and like Marquez got 28 years afterward) in 1954, the same year he was expelled from Cuba by the Castro Regime. In 1959 he moved to Ketchum, Idaho, before committing himself to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for high blood pressure and depression, where her received electric shock therapy, which disabled him from writing, before he killed himself the next year in 1961.

BT: Possibly because of not having written anything for 6 years (after writing something ever year previously) coupled with the fact that he couldn't write in the near future due to the side affects of ECT, Heminway killed himself at age 61. Maybe the similarities of battle experience -- Orwell and Hemingway both fought for the Loyalists in the Spanish civil war -- led to their connection with each other's styles. The Spanish war could have contributed to Orwell's dystopian view of the world, and was discussed in Homage to Catalina, and Hemingway's year of wars, most certainly could have tarnished the young man's -- late adolescent's -- worldview for years to come, leading to his troubled life. After the year of journalism -- 1917 -- and the year of wars -- 1918 --(Spanish Civil and World War 1 with the Italian infantry) and hectic ambulance driving, Hemingway returned home to Oak Park, IL. Getting wounded, fighting in such wretched battles at such a young age all in a very condensed time period could have quickly and easily led to distraught in young Hemingway. This is not to emphasize the moroseness of Hemingway's life and his suicide, but to analyze why such a brilliant author took his ow life. When any person kills themselves it is a tragic horrible event because of the pain that person must have experienced. Hemingway's suffering was, no doubt, condensed in that single year period of 1918 during the World War 1, where he had the three war experiences (fighting with Italians, fighting with Loyalists, and driving the ambulance) that seemed to be a permanent hardship for him. True, he partially turned those lemons into lemonade by writing great books like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls based on those years, but he could've communicated himself a little more. Nevertheless, this author was a brilliant mind of the 20th century and left an indelible mark on the annals of the greatest literary pieces ever.

QC: It is interesting that Hemingway's best known books -- The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls -- were all primarily based on his war-times, indicating that by writing about material that was close and poignant and emotionally significant to him, he produced some of the century's greatest work. His style his direct, terse, and sometimes monotonous; he was influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Using the terse sentences, concise paragraphs, active verbs and compression he learned from the Kansas Star, Hemingway crafted his writing style to be totally unique. His focus is people living dangerous, but essential lives that conquer their pain with intrepid, heroic courage. He wanted his characters to not, necessarily, be famous, but to be bold and hardened through experience and to exhibit bravery and and display of the primal challenges in life (like in Green Hills of Africa) no doubt, like himself. The Garden of Eden was a book worked on from 1946 to 1961 in that shows his attempt to use a different writing style, showing a great quality of versatility and that he was still a developing writer.

It seems that some of Joyce's stuff was certainly morose and dismal (with Dubilners, for example) but this seemed to be a parody, whereas Hemingway's emphasis on the morose seemed to be a view from his world. Joyce chose to depict people that way, but didn't feel permanently trapped in moreseness, while it seems that Hemingway led a hardship life like one of lifestyles depicted in the 15 stories of Joyce's collection. The way Joyce depicted elements of his own life in Dubliners, for example, is similar to how Hemingway depicted his war life in his three famous books. But the difference between these two authors is that Hemingway seemed to write out of psychological obligation, while Joyce wrote to share his experiences and views. These three authors, born within 15 years of each other, shaped the uniqueness of modern literature with Hemingway's uniquely concise prose, Faulkner's complexity with long sentences, and Joyce's complex hybrid, pun-filled language and break for typical tradition. The break from typical literary tradition in Joyce, definitely was connected to his rebellion with the Irish and Jesuit traditions of his youth. The connections with youth in these authors novels is inevitably clear -- youth is portrayed in aged men's writing. They have to keep writing or they become congested, but when they create literature, it is prolifically masterpieces of their time.

Lincoln, Kennedy, Washington
Next in the Presidential line-up was "Honest Abe", "The Illinois Rail-Splitter", Abraham Lincoln who was the 16th president, serving one term from 1861-1865 as a Whig Republic. Born in 1809, February 12 -- 108 years before Kennedy was born in Brookline, MA to Rose Fitzgerald and Joseph Patrick Kennedy -- in Hardin County, KY to a poor, carpenter-farmer father, Thomas. Unlike Washington who had the aristocratic upbringing from Augustine and Mary Ball, and Kennedy, who attended Harvard in 1936 at age 19, Washington had no formal schooling, and actually taught himself to read. During the time that US banned the slave import (a period that set the dispositional precedent for some of Abe's greatest contributions), Abe's mother died in 1818 when we was only 10. At age 22, he travels to Salem, IL and becomes a partner in a failed grocery store in 1831. 11 years later, at age 33, he marries Mary Todd, 12 years before debating Stephen Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He debated Stephen Douglas (D) for IL Senator in seven deabtes in 1858. Finally, two years later he was nominated president, his luck changing, over three opponents in 1860. A year later, in 1861, March 4, he became the first president with Hannibal Hamlin as vice president. He was re-elected for a second term in 1864, defeating George McClellan (D) with Andrew Johnson as the Vice President, but died a year later at age 56 on 1865, April 15 in Washington D.C. from John Wilkes Booth's assassination bullet in Ford's Theater.

QC : Abe Lincoln is best known for his works with slavery -- primarily ending slavery and terminating the Civil War. Ironically, Lincoln was not an abolitionist (anti-slave); he thought that slaves were second priority to unifying the nation. These two had some chemistry, however, because as Lincoln found out the preservation of the Union revolved around the fulcrum of abolishing slavery, which went against the Dredd Scott decision in 1857, making slaves non-citizens. It is interesting that he abolished slavery purely to save the union, and not because he necessarily disagreed with slavery -- he even owned slaves! He wrote his famous Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, January 1, -- less than a year before his famous Gettysburg Address in 1863, November 19 -- that completely ended the war, which started when Fort Sumter was fired upon in 1861, April 12, a month after Lincoln became president. It was as though the nation waited untill he was president to start the long-brewing conflict against slavery! The Gettsburg address says that the devotion of the soldiers was not in vain and that the nation will receive a new birth of freedom: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent...a new nation...we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground...from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...government of the people, by the people. for the people shall not perish". This was written in about a half hour on the train to Gettysburg! Lincolns efforts culminated in the year of his death, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery, was ratified.

BT : Even though he held a variety of jobs as a clerk, military man, store owner, and lawyer, Abe linclon is known for failure. This non-religious non-schooled Kentucky-born man failed 13 times running for governmental positions, failing for his Senator candidacy in 1855, and the grocery shop in 1831.

Finally, we get to President Kennedy, whose 1917 birth we have already discussed, but whose 1961-63 Presidency and 1953-1961 Senatorship is to be discussed. In 1940, when his Harvard education ended, he wrote the famous piece describing why Britain didn't see the Nazis coming, entitled Why England Slept, and enlisted in the Navy a year later, becoming a patrol topedo boat commander in World War II at age 34. 2 years later, his patrol boat was bombed and sank in, where he was credited as saving the lives of some crew. He had fully shifted gears out of military into politics where he defeated Henry Cabot Lodge for U.S. Senate 9 years later in 1952, before marrying Jacqueline Lee Bouvier a year later in 1953. Three years later in 1956, he lost the presidential nomination, but, while recovering from spinal surgery, he, like Bruce Lee, wrote a book during his recovery period entitled, "Profiles in Courage, which detailed American political leaders who resisted public opinion to vote with their own conscience, and was honored the Pulitzer a year later in 1957, the same year his first of two children, Caroline was born (John Jr. was the other child). Next year, in 1958, he was re-elected as Senator, and became the youngest president ever and the first Roman Catholic president, 2 years later in 1960 at age 43, narrowly beating Nixon in the popular vote after winning the primaries. The "Bay of Pigs" incident in 1961, April tested Kennedy and he was criticized for sending in CIA-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba.

He made up for this crisis with the June, 1961 "Cold War" talks with Kruschev in Vienna about the USSR peace treaty with Germany, creating East and West Germany with the Berlin Wall being erected that same year. Next year he created "Freedom Ride", which promoted integration, and protected school desegregation in the famous issuing of Federal Troop and the National Guard to Alabama. In October of 1962, he blockade the Soviet missile shipments to Cuba, after a CIA plane discovered the missile base, which almost resulted in a nuclear war between USSR and US. Before his assassination and final departing in November, he created a USSR peace treaty in October 1962, preventing atmospheric testing of nukes after the near world-wide launch after the missile shipment was discovered in 1962. At age 46, that same year, the Roman Catholic "JFK" or "Jack", increased U.S. military advisors and military in South Vietnam, because of the growing communist threat, and because the corrupt South Vietnamese dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown. Generally, Kennedy kept tabs on nukes, world-wide communism, Latin American financial aid, 3rd-world country development, the space program development, civil rights, helping the U.S. economy, and was thought to have sought an idealistic "Camelot". His expectations were of greatness, even though some were concerned with his sexual relations. He supported Truman's administration's domestic programs, but criticized China's policy.

BT: Kennedy does huge accomplishments one year at a time (Senator ('58), President ('60), Kruschev talks ('61, "Freedom Ride" ('62) Soviet Missile blockade ('62).

QC: "Alliance for Progress" : This ensured economic assistance for Latin American countries.
"Peace Corp" : American volunteers for developing 3rd-world countries are channeled through this organization

"New Frontier" : This brought the nation out of the economic slump by using tax reform, federal education aid, Social Security, Medical care, civil rights expansion, and the hopes and dreams of peace as instigagtors and fuel for reform. It only failed because Republicans and Souther Democrats opposed JFK, which is maybe why he was assassinated in Texas. The Warren Commission of LBJ investigated the assassination and found links to U.S. CIA agents, although nothing is proven.

"Star Wars" developed the space program.
Civil Rights -- Kennedy made many advancements in civil rights including the incident with integrating the Alabama school, "Freedom Ride" and causing the civil rights bill to get passed after his death.

Biographical Sketch: George Washington, known historically as "The Father of his Country", the first president of the United States, born on February 22, 1732 in Pope's Creek, VA to slave-owning parents, Augustine Washington and Mary Ball Washington, who taught him to plant, understand morals, manners and knowledge and become an 18th century gentleman. Among the presidency he was also a solider, planter, and land surveyor. His term -- longer than the 35th president, Kennedy, known for saying "I am a donut" on June 26, 1963 near the Berlin Wall, involvement with the Cold War and "Bay of Pigs, whom was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas supposedly by Lee Harvey Oswald -- last eight years from 1789 to 1797. The federalist was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel for the French and Indian War in 1754, before he harried his wife Martha Custis in 1759 from whom he adopted two step-children. During the same year of 1759, Washington began attending the House of Burgesses. 16 years later, in May of 1775, the Second Continental Congress (the legislature back then) elected Washington Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

This was appropriate timing to have enlisted such an esteemed tactician and leader as the Commander of the Continental Army because 2 months later, on July 3rd of 1775 the American Revolutionary war began in Cambridge, MA. Although not directly involved in the Revolutionary War at first, George Washington soon read Thomas Paine's Common Sense in 1776 and sided with colonial independence. In 1781, Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, ending the American Revolutionary War, and two years later, the Treaty of Paris called for Britain to recognize American independence. Then after 4 years of partying, Americans decided to have an organized new constitution created from the Articles of Confederation, which they ratified in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia. Some argue that this constitution should've been from scratch, but it has endured. Two years after the new constitution was ratified at the Constitutional Convention, Washington was elected the first president with a unanimous vote, and John Adams vice president. Apparently, the fact that he had only an elementary school education nor the fact that he was an Episcopalian Deist (believing that God existed only before the world's creation), didn't impede the voters from choosing him as president.. Four years later, in February 25 of 1793, the First Presidential Cabinet meeting was held, which Washington got to see the effects of from the Oval Office for the next term, before he retired to Mount Vernon in March of 1797, leaving the presidential obligations to John Adams, but not with a final note. In his Farewell Address, he advised America to have excessive party spirit and to be wary of long-term foreign alliances (like the former one with Britain).
Biography Telescope: Some argue that the presidents that were around doing their thing during the "Articles of Confederation", which were ratified by the Continental Congress in 1777 after 16 months of debate, were the first presidents. Nevertheless, Washington, with his honesty, known for saying "I cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the cherry tree." to prove his honesty, was the first president under the constitution produced by the Constitutional Convention. Additionally, in addition to the first president, Washington was the only president not to live in Washington, D.C. and the only President to be inaugurated in two cities, New York and Philadelphia.

Sophocles, Plato. St. Paul
Now that we have used the biographical quilts to dynamically learn about Shakespeare, Homer, Mandela, and Salinger. Let's focus on three great and almost ancient individuals -- a playwright, aphilosopher, and a religious afficionado. Sophocles, respected for his charm and humor, was born in 496 bc outside of Athens, in a suburb called Colonus to a well-off industsrialist Sophilus. Similarly, Plato was born as Aristocles (but was renamed "Platon", meaning broad shoulders because of his physical stature) in the same Grecian region 68 years later in 428 bc to Ariston and perctone, an aristocratic family with history political leadership and royal descendents. Then 438 years later St. Paul was born as a privileged Roman citizen in Tarsus to a father who was part of The Pharisee sect, and received formal education in the Law of Moses, Jewish rule, trade, and to exercise the mind and body in Jerusalem by Gamaliel. These privileged birth situations -- born to industrialists, royalty, or Roman citizenship with excellent schooling -- were the opposite of Abraham Lincoln's early family life (to be discussed with Kennedy and Washington) which was non-aristocratic and involving now formal education; lincoln actually taught himself how to read. The schooling of Plato is most impressive: introduction to greek metaphysics and epistemology under the study of the famous philosopher and mathematician, Pythagorus, who was known to only allow participation to some classes if the student had fasted for the sake of mental purity, and the student of Heraclitus, Cratylus. This unimaginably advanced preliminary schooling all occurred before the age of 19, when Plato met his greatest teacher, Socrates in 409 bc.

Meanwhile, our famious playright, jumping back 72 years, was picked for his talent and beauty to lead the victory dance in the battle of Salamis in 481 bc. Even though Sophocles was considered by Plato in his Republic, written the same year Plato's most esteemed student, Aristotle entered his Academy, the "hostage of the tyrannous yoke of Eros (love-life", Sophocles still was privileged to, under the direction of his father, get schooling in Athens. Additionally, he worked with the priest of Halon to introduce the religion of Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine, to Athens. Because Sophocles took care of the snake that supposedly embodied the God Asclepius in his very house when the temple was being rebuilt, he was looked upon by fellow Athenians with much respect.

Additionally, according to excerpts from the anonymous biography The Life --released almost a century after Sophocle's death, in 406 bc. at an age of 90, which was 3 years after Plato met Socrates -- Sophocles's dramatic career lifted off when he enterred his first play-writing competition. The competition was so heated, between Aeschylus and Sophocles, that the panel of judges had to be replaced with a panel of generals that would provide more security. Sophocles beat Aeschylus and, because of his thin reedy voice, pursued writing plays instead of being in them. He went on to write over a hundred and twenty plays, only seven (6%) of which survived. His early political interests and friendship with the greastest Athenian ruler, Pericles, influenced his plays to involve corruption, fall from power, and political plots like in Oedipus Rex, which took plae in a mythical location 30 miles away from Athens. Becuase of his awe-inspiring mastery to create profound plays, it would suit Sophocles well to have a death that was dramatic.

In addition to rumors about his spirit supposedly able to lull storms, the events near his death were filed with as much rumor as his exceptional plays. Apparently, his own son took him to court saying he couldn't manage his own finances, but, as final good-bye before his death soon thereafter, Sophocles recited lines from his famous play, Oedipus, which inspired the court to let him go. Even after his death, mythical stories and rumors still permeated the name Sophocles. Dionysus, supposedly, told the Spartan leader Lysander to allow the burial of Sophocles, when it had been banned because of Spartan rule. Despite the wavering veracity of this story, it would have been suiting to Sophocles, the author of Oedipus the King, whose plot revolved around a body that would not be allowed to be buried. He ended up living -- via rumoe or actuality -- the very essence of some of his plays.

The death of Sopohocles, the playwright, in 406 was almost congruent -- in time and place -- to the famous meeting of Plato's new teacher Socrates three years earlier in 409 bc. The wise teacher only had the privilege of teaching Plato everything he could possible know for 10 years before he was tried and killed for corrupting the morals of Athenian youth and religious heresies (which was just accusations based out of Athenian fear) in 399. Because the death of Socrates was due to the adherence to his beliefs. he became the first western martyr, even before Jesus Christ. The fact that Plato received excellent schooling at all during the despotic rule of Athens by "Thirty Tyrants" after the end of the Peloponnesian war in 404 was remarkable. The death of Sohpocles inspired Plato to travel around the Mediterranean for 12 years engaging in Socratic dialogues, his mentor's philosophical trademark. When he returned to Athens in 387 bc, he had realized the poignancy of Socrates teachings and started his own school, The Academy, which emphasized astronomy, biology, politics, math, and philosophy.

This astounding institution lasted for the next 800 years -- empires don't even last that long -- until it was destroyed in 529 by emperor Justinian. Then, 42 years after he recieved his initial schooling from Socrates, Plato began schooling the Syracuse ruler, Dionysus II in 367 bc. Seven years after tutoring Dionysus II, in 360 bc, Aristotle, (the quality of a student that Plato was to socrates) entered The Academy. Plato was able to mentor this paramount student for another 12 years before he died in 348 bc. 58 years after the death of Sophocles. It is clear the exceptional lives of Sophocles and Plato overlapped sentiently as well as in the arts.
358 years after the death of Plato, St. Paul was born as Saul in 10 ad. The early part of his life was pepperred with persecution. He persecuted over 180 Christians including the martyr, St. Stephen. Ironically, it wsa precisely the prayers of St. Stephen that supposedly inspired God to show mercy to St. Paul after his blinding. During his life, Saul sent out on "the Road Damascus", the major city of Syria under a high commission of the local king, Aretas, to bind and capture all Damascus Jews who confessed their faith in Jesus. It seems that even 2000 years ago, Syria and what is now the Middle East experienced a high degree of religions activity. During this journey through desert and rugged terrain, Saul experienced was blinded for three days. He, experienced the light of God, which in John 5 "God is light: in him is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship from one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us all from sin."

Jesus spoke that the persecution of Saul only strengthened Christianity: "By persecuting my church you make it flourish, and only prick and hurt yourself". Jesus told a Christian believer, Ananias, that "Saul is a vessel of election to carry his name to the Gentiles (non-Jewish/Christian people)...receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost". So through Ananias, Jesus cured Saul of his blindness, became "reborn" as Paul, and devoted the rest of his life to spreading the word of Jesus to the Gentiles, instantiating the beliefs that Christ is God's eternal son, the church is the mystical body of christ, christ pre-existed before his resurrection, and Christ was exulted to God's side after the resurrection. It is ironic that he was condemning people for believing in Christ for the earlier part of his "Saul-life" but now preaches that Christ, being God's son, who resides at his side and existed before his resurrection, embodies the entire church! He was baptized in Arabia after three years of prayer and reflection before JEsus warned him, "Leave Jerusalem immediately becuase they will not accept your testimony about me". He travelled to Antioch, Cyprus, Asia Minor to write Corrinthians (written in Ephesus), Romans (written in Achaia), and the four "captivity" epistles, written while on House arrest in Rome. His writing occurred before his troubles began when he returned to Jerusalem, was imprisoned for preaching, revoked of his citizenship and shipwrecked in Malta. Even though he made his pleas in Aramaic and the people listened to him, he was beheaded under the Roman persecution of Nero -- I bet Paul was waiting for Christ to blind, like he had done to him, to prevent him from continuing his trial -- in June 29, 65 ad, at the age of 55.

To understand the writings of Paul, some of the basics of the Bible must be understood. The "Bible", meaning book, took about 1500 years to be written from Genesis, written by Moses, to Revelation, written by John. Despite the large time span and the myriad authors that contributed to the Bible, none of them contradict each other, which supports the veracity of God and the Bible itself. The two parts of the Bible -- the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible), 39 books supported by Christians and Jews, and the New Testament, 27 books accepted only by Christians as scripture -- underwent many translations from Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek to Latin -- from the church leader, Jerome's Vulgate in later 4th century, to John Wycliffe's English translation by hand in the 1300s, to the King James Bible in 1611, to the New International version of the Bible in 1978. All these translations aimed to accurately translate the word of God from the original Hebrew and Aramaic writings.

The New Testament (Christian Bible) discusses how the coming, life, and resurrection of Christ, The Messiah, occurred for us to be saved from sin, and details the creation of the Christian church. The Old testament discusses the creation of the universe and man, how God created Israel for his chosen people -- Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- and their descendants, and how God plans to provide us with a path to save us from sin. It is clear why there exists so much controversy in the Middle East, the very ground of Israel was declared by Christian and Jewish faith to be made for practitioners of Judiasm and Christianity over 3000 years ago, but Muslims have dibs on this religious ground as well. The homogeneity of respecting their faith on a common ground should provoke recognition and camaraderie not distaste and war. The interconnectedness of all religions -- from their physical place of worship (primarily Israel) to their Scriptures to their prophets -- will, hopefully, be the "sight" given to people, just as it was given to Saul, in their myopic blindness, After all, religion should not tarnish and destroy, but escalate the beauty and potential of man.

Easter is the celebration of Christ's resurrection. Before it, 40 days of preparation, called Lent builds up to this monumental Christian holiday. Lent is 40 days because this is how long Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted and fasting. Lent is actually 46 days, but the 6 Sundays from Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, to Easter, the end of Lent, are "the Lord's Days", which are days of celebration and breaking the fast for that one day.
Devoted to spreading Christianity, devoted to writing 120 plays, or devoted to building and instructing an institution that would last over 800 years, instructing some of the finest students, Paul, Sophocles, and Plato all had extreme commitment to what they did. Additionally, the common theme of stability rang true among this great people. Paul's preaching helped establish the Christian church, which would exist in and out of persecution for over 2000 years, Plato's long-lasting Academy was no doubtedly impressive, and the surviving seven Sophoclean plays are still read, discussed, and analyzed today. The antiquity of these famous people, clearly his irrelevant to their enormous impact, which is something we feel in the present -- when we go to Church, read philosophy, or visit the the theater. Even though we may not visit the exact Church Paul helped build, or the exact Republic text of Plato, or the exactly Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, the impact Paul had on religion, that Plato had on philosophy, and that Sophocles had on theater will be felt by reading and studying any of these areas.

Dante, Tolstoy, Keller, Orwell
Biography Sketch: George Orwell was born on June 25, 1903 as Eric Arthur Blai in Motihari, India to parents of American Civil Service and then changed his name to George Orwell and became more affiliated with the United States. In 1922 he finishes Eton College and joined the Indian Imperial Police service in India's neighboring country, Burma. He was there for five years untill 1927 before ending the Imperial Service, and began writing, which led to the publishing of his first book at age 30, Down and Out in Paris and London. Only a year later, in 1934, the book inspired by his police Imperial service, Burmese Days, was published, and the year after that in 1935, The Clergyman's Daughter was published, followed by the Road to Wigan Pier in 1937, which documented the Lancashire miners, and Homage to Catalina in 1938, which was a documentary of Orwell fighting in the Spanish War with Loyalists. Finally, his two big works were published in the 1940s with Animal Farm in 1945, the end of World War 2, which reflects the distrust and failure of the Soviet-style autocratic, communist government. Then his epic, 1984, a dystopian novel setting forth fears of dehumanization of humanity in an intrusively bureaucratized, mechanistic, totalitarian future world, was published in 1949. The year of this prolific writer's death, 1950, at age 47, marked the publishing of Politics and the English Language, which linked authoritarianism with linguistic decay, making it widely influential, and Shooting an Elephant, a short story argued to be some of his best work, was also published.

BT; George Orwell's numerous contributions of literature were marked with his political shrewdness, his sharply satirical voice, and his incredibly lucid prose and style, usually with a setting of dystopia. Being a socialist, he criticized imperialism, fascism, Stalinism, and capitalism.
Biographical Sketch: Dante Alighieri inherited copious money from his dad parents at age 18 in 1283, marrying Gemma Donati in 1285 at age 20 (after his father prearranged the marriage in 1277, 7 years earlier, when he was only 12), but then five years after that, at age 25 in 1290 his true love and spiritual inspiration, Beatrice Portinari died, causing him to intensely study classical philosophy. Dante could have so many religious references because of his extremely contrived marriage -- prearranged by his father -- but the emphasis of Beatrice on his life is extraordinary; she was guide in the third and final canticle of his famous contribution, The Divine Comedy, through Paradisio. Additionally, she was depicted by him as the perfect holy female, and her death caused him to break from his style and develop the even more structured and unique style of using lyrical canzonis in poetry. The New Life, a tribute to Beatrice, which examined love as something mystical and spiritual was published in 1293 at age 28, three years after her death. Then two years later, Dante enrolled in the Guild of Doctors and Pharmacists and participated in the citizen's government, "Council of a Hundred", a year later in 1296. He gets priori office, four years later at age 35 in 1300 for two months after being a councilman or chairman for the past five years. In 1302 his political connections, really rocket because he allied against Pope Boniface VIII and with the White Guelphs, or Bianchis (Whites), who were the opponents of the papal extremist Black Guelphs, or Neris (Blacks). When the Neris gained power, Dante, being a Bianchi and after allying against the Pope, was exiled. Nevertheless, he still published, like Helen Keller, who made contributions regardless of her disability -- blindness, deafness, and muteness -- Dante overcame this disability and still published Eloquence in the Vernacular Tongue the next year in 1303, On Monarcy, a Latin treatise discussing the poet's political philosophy in 1313, and his amazing opus, The Divine Comedy was published in 1319 after much travel in Ravenna, which is where he died at age 56, three years later on December 14, 1321.

QC: Just as Orwell crafted his literary style around lucid prose, inventing a unique style blending satire and dystopia, Dante Aligheri, born in 1265 in Florence to a Guelph family, which was decayed nobility, crafted his own innovative style of canzoni, or lyrical poems. Possibly from having such brilliant mentors, like the apprenticeship with the famous poet, Brunetto Latini, Dante Aligheri used the canzoni to write tercet poetry -- where every third line is set apart. This contrasted with dactylic hexameter. Because he used an Italian vernacular, as opposed to a Roman dialect with Virgil, Dante's highly structured writing catered to his local audience, making his work readable by the people he was trying to save from damnation. In addition to structured Italian vernacular style, his greatest contribution single literary contribution, The Divine Comedy, is made up of 3 canticles (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradisio), 33 canti each, with one introductory canto per canticle, making it a 102 canti read. It is called "comedy" because it is written in the vernacular, and the ascent from hell to paradise is not a "high" work or "low" work, but universal writing.

Helen Keller, born in Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1880 on June 27 was only 52 years after the birth of Tolstoy, and her family met with Alexander Graham Bell to suggest that she be taught by Annie Sullivan. In 1887, Annie began teaching Helen at age 7, and she entered Radcliffe College 13 years later in 1900, where she wrote Story of My Life, and in 1904, became the first deaf-blind student to graduate college ever. She did so with flying colors, too, being cum laude. In 1936, Annie Sullivan died, when Helen was 56, but then Helen was redeemed for her work by receiving the Gold Medal National Institute of Science award 16 years later in 1952. 16 years after that award, Helen Keller died at age 88 in 1968 on June 1. It seems that from Annie's death to Helen's death, the Gold Medal Science award marked the 16 year middle point of this 32 year period.

Finally, Count Leo Tolstoy was born in August 28, 1828. He wrote amazing works like Anna Karenina (published from 1873-1877), about adulterous love, and War and Peace (published from 1865-1869), about the 1812 invasion of Russia, which had unique motifs like the blue sky representing the metaphysical spirit in all of us. He hought that marriage hid sensual beast-like natures and that science hid rapacity and ignorance, and, unlike Dostoevsky -- who used a dramatic method, viewing Humanity through the lens of the Fall, focusing on the past and social hierarchy, and writing stories whose morals were always incredibly complex -- Tolstoy uses an epic method, viewing humanity through a Rousseauistic lens, focusing on the rejection of history and status, and wrote stories with simple and direct moral, making these two Russian authors polarities in style focus, perceptive lens, and expression of morality. They were both, however, very spiritualistic, emphasizing the abandonment of materialism. Before his death in 1910 at the ripe old age of 82 in Astapovo, Russia, Tolstoy gave up his three large estates and lived like a simple Russian (plowing fields, eating peasant food, and wearing common clothing) to live the simple life.

Additionally, in 1851 at age 23 he started a Christian Anarchist cult, which was a simplified version of Christianity, reduced to simple commands like "do not resist evil", that condemned modern civilization, state, courts, law, war, patriotism, marriage, modern art and literature, science, and medicine. He married Sophie Behrs in 1862 at age 34, producing 13 children. This widely radical religion could have partly led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901 at age 73. It seems that Tolstoy may have taken the creation of his religion possibly too far because of the extremity of his reforms (he apparently took his idea of living the simple life and formalized it) and because he, himself was a writer and then banned writing. He disapproved of Gustave Flaubert and thought that lusts for power and luxury always led to malign. His writing emphases were the good life, emphasizing life outside civilization in the soil (i.e. humans should return to the essentials in nature), he then, obviously, started practicing what he preached and began to live this excessively simplified life himself later on, plowing fields, eating peasant food, and wearing peasant clothing, as described above. He was against materialism of any kind, which is similar to a theme in Peter Shaffer's Equus, which will be discussed later, that discussed how materialism and convenience have destroyed our capacity for worship and passion", and believed that from the simplicity that one should live, rose humility, to love thy neighbor, and

The criticisms of science, however, or fairly common in the literature world. Poe, for example, believed science to be a winged vulture that preys upon poetry. Why this rivalry amongst poetry and science? It is a common theme for novelists and poets to disparage science because of, possibly, things these authors don't understand or down right dislike of the field. Nevertheless, all of Tolstoy's 90 volumes of writing were published for thirty years. 18 years after his death from 1928-1958, allowing us to read his masterpieces today.
QC: One of Tolstoy's greatest works was the short story of The Death of Ivan Ilych. In this famous work, the protagonist, Ivan, a Russian Judge is an average man of the prosperous middle class who is confronted with disease and, consequentially with death and dying as well. This normall "go-getter" protagonist works frequently but not viciously and has drifted from his wife and children. The ailment with his kidney occurred when he was doing the trivial task of fixing a curtain and leads him to his deathbed, where he is awakened to self-consciousness, where he realized his false ambition. His son, Vasya, and servant, Gerasim, are the only people in the novella who are close enough to nature that they are free from hypocrisy, and make Ivan mention the truth of his death, while all the others conceal that fact and try to comfort him. The false, hypocrites that surround him (similar to how Jesus was surrounded by the "blind fools", the teachers of the Law, whom he called hypocrites in Matthew 22) are his wife, who is only concerned with her own suffering during his agony, his friends, who discuss the vocational promotions they will get after his death. And the doctors, who only worry about the name of the illness, where they act like judges in a cross-reference, cutting off Ivan, who seeks details of his ailment. After all his pain and hypocrisy from his wife, friends, and doctors, Ivan recognizes "it", which is a realization based on the pulses of morality. Ivan wants to go back to a normal life, and tries to avoid his inevitable death, but then screams for three days straight (another Bibical reference, tying in Jesus death and resurrection three days later) and dies, saying "Death is finished...it is no more."

Poe, Weissmuller, Schaffer, Marquez
Even though some of his poetry was modeled off Lord Byron, Poe was considered to be one of the greatest writers of his time, and prolific journalist. Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 -- a month before Abraham Lincoln was born in (both in the same state) -- in Boston to two traveling actors that both died when young Edgar was only three years old. Some say he actually met his future wife, Virginia Clemm, and began his literary carer in Baltimore, instead of Boston, but this is controversial. At age 17, in 1926, Poe entered the University of Virginia for only a year before he got expelled for gambling debts, which led him to join the army. He took refuge with his foster father John Allan, but feuded with him when John refused to repay his gambling debts, permanently severing the father-son relationship. In 1827 the Tamerlan and Other Poems collection was published. 3 years later, age 21, Poe was dishonorably discharged from the army for neglecting his assigned duties. 6 years, later age 27, Poe married his 13-year old cousin, Virginia Clemens, in 1836, making it a 14-year age gap between them, and he was over double her age!

This was one year younger than Johnny Weissmuller was when he got married, who had his first marriage at age 27, in 1931, with Bobbe Arnst (Weissmuller then had to divorced Arnst after signing a long-term movie contract with MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) so the female audiences would woo over him, being single). Poe then published his famous Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque and The Fall of the House of Usher in 1840, at age 31, which was one year before the Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter was published. Some of his latest work, The Raven was published four years later in 1845 at age 36. Then the later 1840s of his life became quite traumatic and trying. At age 39, in 1848 he attempted suicide because of Virginia Clem's burst blood vessel six years earlier that made her invalid in 1842. The next year, he actually did die in Baltimore (now a "Poe" haven and place of tribute), but not before finishing and publishing his last work, Annabel Lee. Poe is a master at turning short stories into an anecdote for art. Additionally, he is credited with creating the detective story, and emphasizing a new type of horror mystery.

Johnny Weissmuller was known for his Olympic swimming, his movie career, and his ability to woo thousands of women with his charm, good looks, muscular physique, and exquisite humor. Born in 1904 on June 2, Johnny Weissmuller was a product of the 20th century born in Romania. At age 18 in 1922, he entered the University of Chicago and swam in Lake Michigan and at the YMCA. He entered his first Olympics of 1924 in Paris, 2 years later, and took home 3 gold medals, beating Duke Kahanumoku's record. Then the subsequent summer Olymbics of 1928 in Amsterdam, gave Johnny 2 golds, making him a 5-gold 2-time Olympic champion, setting 67 world records. That's a couple lifetimes worth of accomplishments right there, but Johnny went on to be a BVD swimsuit model in 1929 at age 25, and after signing the MGM contract in 1932 at age 28, he launched off his movie career with Tarzan the Ape Man (the first of over 30+ Tarzan movies) that same year. He was the perfect star for the ladies and for the Depression Era because of his humor and outrageously massive personality.

His second marriage, at age 29, with Lupe Velez in 1933, lasted 5 years before divorcing her in 1948, before marrying his 3rd wife Beryl Scott 2 years later in 1940. Beryl and Johnny had 3 kids before Johnny divorces her, ending the 8-year marriage in 1948, a decade after ending his 2nd marriage. The same year, Johnny married his fourth wife Allen Gates, before divorcing her four years later in 1962. He had married and divorced 4 times by now, making his loyalty pretty goofy. It seems that by having MGM start the trend of suggesting to divorce his first wife, Johnny wasn't able to stay committed. If had stuck with the 1-year marriage with Arnst, things might have worked out. He then, wend on to mary Maria Bauman a year after divorcing Gates, making his 5th marriage his longest (21 years before dying in 1984, January 20th due to Cancer). Two years after his fifth marriage, he became the founding chairman of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1965. It is funny that maybe Johnny got 5 golds and wanted to make 5 marriages. Johnny rifled through 4 marriages (1-year, 5-year, 8-year, and 4-years long) in 18 years, averaging a new marriage every 4.25 years, but still led an incredibly life with his movies and swimming talent.

In 1926, May 15, Peter Shaffer was born in Liverpool. England and worked as a coal miner, librarian and bookstore clerk before beginning his writing career. The first step in his pursuit of writing, however, was the attendance of the Cambridge University School. His literary style of being playwright is primarily philosophical because his founding fathers were Bertoldt Brecht and Noh Drama. Shaffer's debut was 1959 at age 33 with his famous Five Finger Exercises, which landed him a Dramatic Critics Award. Then his famous Equus in 1973 at age 47, 14 years after his debut, became a huge success, being adopted to film in 1977 with famous actor, Richard Burton, and being given a Tony Award in 1975. His play Amadeus, published in 1979, 2 years after the film version of Equus came out, was adapted to film in 1984, which reeled in the Best Picture award for that year. Shaffer would commonly by a published play to remember how to emphasize writing, gestures, and the theater collection. The film version of Equus is powerfully directed by Dexter through suggesion and the Chorus is similar to Equus noise, which makes Equus defied, similar to God.
QC: Peter Shaffer's main contribution, Equus, was a masterpiece that had Martin Dysart as the psychiatrist, who communicated with Alan Strang, the emotionally troubled protagonist, who was the son of Frank, the timid, inward father, and Dora Strong, the religions mother. Hesther Solomon is the magistrate who puts Alan in the psychiatric hospital, not prison. Jill Mason is the girl Alan likes and Harry Dalton, is the stable owner. The plot of the play, simply is that alan works with horses, while Dysart addresses how Alan Strang blinded 6 horses to the magistrate, Solomon, and persuades her to put Alan in the hospital, instead of the priso. Solomon asserts "there is something special with the boy" convincing Dysart to see him after saying "Children before grown-ups" (63). Solomon is the sound, reasoned voice throughout the play, making her profile an ideal fit for a judge.

When they first meet, Alan sings advertisement songs and Dysart tells the nurse to send him to his room, but Alan avoids the nurse. Obsessed with Greek culture, Dysart always is looking for someone to visit Greece with him. The encounters get interesting when Dysart begins to have dreams. Dysart dreams he is a priest in Homeric Greece, where he gouges out the organs of children. Shaffer said he wanted to create a world where gouging out the eyes of six horses would seem comprehensible. Dysart realized that neurotics are "dazzling at the game [of being aware of weaknesses]. They aim unswervingly at your area of maximum vulnerability....which I suppose is as good a way as any of describing Margaret [Dysart's wife] (60). Dysart and his wife have no children ad are occupied by material things, de-emphasizing the poignancy of child-like voice. Dysart reads Greek history while his wife knits by the fire (61). Dysart becomes concerned that his relationship with psychology could have become spurious because his wife is his psychologist: "Margaret: the Shrink's shrink" (61). The relationship between Dysart and Alan is similar to Good Will Hunting because their introduction dialogue was a battle of whits (63), testing each others sociology and integrity, rather than actual therapy (there was a lot of question avoidance and trying to get the upper hand, saying that Blink is stupid). Dysart tries to get inside Alan's mind, while Alan tried to be somewhat mentally inaccessible. The example of Alan's sexual vitality and worship (74) is something that Dysart envies. In the end, the message of maintaining passion in life, but protecting your sacred worship, is poignant, making it a masterpiece play.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born on March 6, 1928 in Aracataca, Northern Columbia, raised by his grandparents. In 1940, at age 22, Gabriel was awarded a scholarship to the gifted and attended a Jesuit-run school. In 1946, 6 years later, at age 28, Gabriel attended Bogota University as a Law Student and met his future egyptian wife Mercedes Pardo. At the University of Bogota, he wrote The Third Resignation, which was published by El Espectado, and read Kafka and realized that narrative doesn't follow through with plot continuity, which gave him liberation for writing in the complex style that he used in books like 100 Years of Solitude, which was published in 1967, June after 2 years of work, beginning in 1965. In addition to Kafka, Marquez was influenced by the eclectic array of authors including Sophocles, Hemingway, Joyce, and Woolf. In 1950 Gabriel abandoned law at age 22 for writing and moved to Barranquilla before traveling with the Venezuelan editor of Elite, Plino Mendoza in 1957, a year before he married Mercedes Pardo in Barranquilla at age 30, which was when he began working in Caracas, too. Apparently all of his political work wasn't complete, because in 1975 Marquez worked between Bogota (the place of University and schooling) and Mexico City, creating HABEAS, and organization to aid political prisoners. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 at age 54, before being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer 17 years later at age 71 in 1999. Believing that a writer should write about what is close to him, Marquez's style is similar to Faulkner's ability to recreate childhood with a mythical twist. This idea of writing with emotional and mental proximity allows the writer to engage in compelling descriptions because they can approach the explanation form multiple angles and perspectives, having experienced the topic with such personal detail. The political uprisings, "La Violencia" and the congressman slaughtering were definitely "close" topics to Marquez. In addition
BT: Earlier the same of his birth, 1928 "La Violencia" had started in October, where subcontractors went on strike for better medical treatment, and improved conditions like toilets, and cash. This war-strike went on for another 25 years before ending in 1953, but not before taking 150, 000 lives. Also that same year in December after the birth of Gabriel, the conservative governor of Northern Columbia killed 100s of rioters in the Cienaga uprising, which was only 30 miles from Aracataca, Gabriel's birthplace; the slaughtering ordered by the governor was an incident used in 100 Years of Solitude. Additionally, there were intense riots in 1948, April 9 when Liberal congressman Jorge Gaitian was assassinated, when Gabriel was 20. With the Cienaga slaughtering and the "La Violencia" brutality that erupted during the same year of Gabriel's birth, and the rioting later on in his life it is clear that these historical events shaped his writing.

QC: The masterpiece 100 Years of Solitude took a special environment to write. In the two years committed to writing this famous work, Gabriel locked himself in a writing area called the "cave of the mafia" because of the huge amounts of smoke produced by his, sometimes, six packs of cigarettes a day. He wrote for 18 months non-stop, having his wife, Mercedes, watch over his family, and eve nthe community helped out by extending loans and debts, recognizing that he was creating a masterpiece that would benefit them all with legendary prose in the long run. The idea of helping writers write is a gamble because the book may not be a success. Nevertheless, the appreciation of the creation of literature is an act that should occur more often, regardless of the final output of writing -- hopefully it will be quality, but if it is not, honoring the sacred art of writing is an act that is highly praiseworthy and wise. Even if Marquez hadn't produced epic material after the community aided him in his writings, it still would have been kind gestures that should occur more often. Luckily the book was a success, but aiding people in their creations -- albeit literary, artistic, cinematic, political, etc -- is human and should occur more frequently within the arena of humanity, praising all creators, and their fervent, committed attempt to generate quality.

The external HTML version of my document for "Biographical Quilts" can be accessed here.

Manufacturing the Dream-Reality Passage

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, your life becomes a broken-winged bird that cannot fly” – Langston Hughes

I don’t have an interest in being an Olympic athlete; I don’t have an interest in being a millionaire. Those would be fantastic achievements, and if they happened, I certainly would be excited and appreciative. But those are not my dreams. Those are my father’s dreams, my mother’s dreams, dreams of close friends; my brother and I are very closer so many of those are his dreams – but not my dreams.

Your perception of dreams can quickly be myopically warped and diluted with two dangerous, blinding derailments:

1. Fear and doubt, so you don’t think your dreams are possible or
   
2. Other people’s dreams and goals.

If you dilute your own dreams with obstacle #1, fear and doubt suppresses your confidence and the faith in your ability to actually make your dreams your reality life path. If you fall victim to obstacle #2, you become distracted by the powerful dreams of others, and your identity becomes eclipsed.

Visualize being a reminiscent old-timer. You’re 80 years old, looking back on all of your life challenges and accomplishments and you realize those achievements were not your own, they belonged to someone else. Could you imagine that?! Imagine the visceral frustration of looking back and seeing your dream path diverging from the path you actually lived; just imagine the horror of looking back and seeing the road of your ultimate dreams, and the life path you actually led being sprawling different roads completely on opposite ends of the map.

Make your dream path and your life path the same road! Focus HARD. Concentrate on being aware of YOUR dreams and acquiring them. Identify your dream. Pinpointing the dream – that’s what your energy should go towards.

How do you do that? The leverage of exercise, travel, and nutrition. When you exercise you chisel down your core needs and you are more focused. Proper nutrition keeps you alert and intent and keeps your body, your dream vehicle, clean. Drugs are deadly. Keep good health so you don’t fall victim to doubtful depression or fear in your pursuit of dreams. By traveling, you witness different cultures and you realize what “sticks with you”. What qualities don’t diminish regardless of where you are in the world? Those qualities easily could be YOUR dreams. For a dream to be truly YOUR OWN, that dream must survive and thrive in office cubicles, on different continents, on mountaintops, on beaches, with intelligent people, with unintelligent people, with jokesters, with the serious – all the time.

You possess energy to live for one reason: To merge your dream path with your life path into same passage.

Post your dreams to let the imaginings be heard. This is the first step to manufacturing the dream-reality passage.

Present Problem

• Langston Hughes; Olympic athlete; Millionaire; mother, father, brother
  
• Myopically warp with dilute derailments – fear and doubt, others dreams
  
• #1 – lose faith in ability; #2 powerful dreams of others, identity eclipses
  
• Visualize old-timer; 80 years old; challenges and accomplishments not your own; sprawling different roads, opposite ends of the map

Present solution

• Make your dream path and your life path the same road! Focus HARD. Concentrate on being aware of YOUR dreams and acquiring them. Identify your dream. Pinpointing the dream -- that’s what your energy should go towards.
• Leverage of Exercise – chisel down core, focus
  
• Nutrition – dream vehicle (body clean); drugs are deadly; doubtful depression
  
• Travel – sticks with you
• Any environment – YOUR OWN survive and thrive

Redefine Bottom-line

• You possess energy to live for one reason: To merge your dream path with your life path into same passage.
  
• Be heard; post; manufacture dream-reality passage

Blogging Versus News

The press reports mythology; not facts,” writes Dave Winer, legendary CEO of Userland. Blogs report truth. If you want a fabricated myth with facts woven into it, read your paper. If you want unfiltered veracity read your blog.

Manufactured Time & Infinite Time

Man made time – man manufactured time -- by counting tallies etched in stone and examining the solar and lunar phases, thousands of years ago. The ancient Mayans and Aztecs used advanced astronomy towers to accurately use the sun (which, due to physics) reliably showed the source of time it took for earth to complete one revolution in the solar system. Because of Newton's first law: An object in motion, stays in motion; and an object at rest, stays at rest" the earth, with no friction in space, has constant inertia, providing an adequate source of time, making it a reliable reference for our man-made calendar. All fine and dandy; all should be nothing new. What’s interesting, however, is that anything could have been used for a "clock" -- it could've been flower blooming patterns: when a certain flower blooms, it would be day, when it folds close that would be night, etc. We must learn to associate our sense of time with the efforts used in determining the nature, or the classification, of time.

Determining the categorization of time is best accomplished by identifying finite versus infinite time. James Carse writes, “Power is a concept that belongs only in finite play. But power is not properly measurable until the game is complete” (Carse 28; “Finite and Infinite Games”). In reference to the measurability of power, Carse, of course refers to a situation where an underdog component can suddenly “come back” in the end of a game: so a game mus be finished before the metric of power can be applied. However, “power is contradictory, and theatrical” (Carse 29). Power is an artifice; a sham. Power doesn’t exist! It doesn’t exist in infinite play and therefore the expansive thinker, the infinite player, completely disregards power concepts or goals. Winners never get distracted by the illusion of power.

Now, of course, the winner doesn’t disregard time in a setting where timeliness is a crucial element of success. However, the infinite winners recognize and understand that power is a time-bound artifice that should never be a goal or a focus of anything. To understand the nature of a man-made structure of time, examine what is crucial and connected to you.

What is important to us? The man-made structured interval of time? Or embracing time based on its "mood". Does it feel like slow-time and "fast-time"? How does the sentient experience feel? This is not saying that time doesn't exist, but just illustrates that time could quickly be illustrated as something that provokes more than tic-tocks of a clock or pages turned on a calendar-based planner. Our sense of time should use calendars as reference frames, but these conduits for "evaluating time" shouldn't limit our feelings, the sensations of the time’s mood. Man-made time should simply be a container to associate our sense of place, but the emotional emphasis of time should authentically embrace the milieu of time 100%. After all, if we simply examine time as a source of tallies, counters, and another 365 days, we deny ourselves the right to fully feel each day’s moments. Time and decisions are all we have to start with to produce emotions, journeys, situations, and outcomes. If we examine and interact with our time as if it were a sterile, linear, environment quantifying it with notches on a wall or measuring it like you would numbers on an abacus (where you simply shift over spherical markers on a wire like days on a calendar) we prevent spiritual growth. Engage spiritual understanding and growth by heeding finite, man-made time, but recognizing that the true essence is in the infinite time experience.

Spiritual growth can exist in structure, but not within confinements. Structure can help growth in many ways, but the primary method of enunciating ourselves to create a new structure is by examining, sometimes destroying, and then rebuilding our current structure.