Thursday, December 31, 2009

Five Secrets

My next post is an excerpt found in the sacred space column (newspaper article) and was really influenced by it. This is titled 'Looking Back' by John B Izzo.

A diverse group of senior citizens offered insights that came down to these five points:
1.Be true to yourself by living with intention. Know your heart's desire and seek it.
2.Live with no regrets. Regrets are feared more than death. So mend fences, make peace. Take chances, pursue those dreams, and accept failure as well. Rather than be crushed by failure, learn from it.
3.Become Love. Love is not an emotion but a choice; a way of being that involves seeing ourselves and others with kindness and compassion. That love creates the opportunities to follow your bliss, heal wounds in yourself and others, and to find peace despite challenges and hardships.
4.Live in the moment.Right here,right.
5.Give more than you take. Find yourself and then lose yourself.Once your identify your heart's desire and live your life pursuing it, the chance of accumulating any regrets is reduced.
Leave the campsite better than you found it, as one wise elder put it.

Things are easier said than done.Somewhat similar to this earlier post.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Big Crisis?

Read this article today by Rahul Bose regarding the Copenhagen meeting. I think the whole thing about climate change is overhyped to an extent mainly caused by the media. The overall prediction cannot be relied upon just like whether forecast but the best thing is the future comes one day at a time and some preventive measures are a great help. Simple things like walking, using public transport, unplugging, switching off the lights when not required, minimal use of ACs, from everyone are crucial.

Although the climate is getting hotter due to the greenhouse effect, there is still hope. Also read the news regarding bacteria converting CO2 to liquid fuel by genetic engineering (click here) but such kind of technology is hard to commercialize.

I think much more important is the minimal energy resources available for the evergrowing demands of the human population. Petrol, Coal, Gas are continuously driving the economy since the whole world is dependent on them. Biofuels and Bioethanol are being developed and tried to be included in the commercial industry through laws in US primarily( click here) but even Brazil has such laws.

The Copenhagen summit is a first step to getting the priorities right for all the countries. But why should developing countries sacrifice their development so that the developed countries continue with the emission so as to say. This seems like a backdoor solution which has a high chance of failing.

Once the basic amenities(water, food,electricity) of all the people are fulfilled and recycling technologies focused on things will fall into place. Like using less paper helps saving trees in a way;the various recycling technologies will help minimize the inputs required.Also, development of renewable energy resources should be the most important topic.

Adaptation and finding solutions starts with certain habits, discipline, focused attention at all times rather than worrying about what would happen and is happening.

24th December 2009: Read a news story about Solar cells that turn clothes in battery chargers( click here) This is not the first one regarding solar cells, dont know why there is no progress to employ such technologies in a large scale. If any of the world leaders were serious enough, they would try to implement such technology in daily activities of the masses. Energy conversation would be enormous, at least the resources would be spared for some time.

23rd February 2010: Another news story about fuel cells in the papers (click here and here)