What happiness means to children

May 2, 2016, 3:30 am

≪ Previous: Forest Cathedral: A tribute to Pamana (Philippine Eagle), a lost national treasure.

Children are better models than adults, children can fulfill their happiness with simple things, while adults seek for more. - Chiara Alyssa Cochico, UST Arts and Lertters
Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Happiness is taming a wildflower.

Happiness is a lot of water to play with.

Happiness is taking time out with the family on a weekend.

Happiness is learning to paint.

Happiness is a kid with a kid.

Happiness is anything but work.

Happiness is riding a sled.

Happiness is a program for kids.

Happiness is palo sebo.

Happiness is sailing the sea in make believe.

Happiness is guessing who is behind the mask.

Happiness is playing with the saints and angels.

Happiness is with the whole clan on a Sunday on the beach.

Happiness is doing an errand and wading on a stream.

Happiness is waking up in a camp away from home.

Happiness is braving the prehistoric animals in a museum.

Happiness is being flower girls in a wedding.

Happiness is respite in the coolness of a shade.

Happiness is playing at sea - timeless, careless and free.

Happiness is learning the first steps of a dance.

Happiness is graduation time.

Comment:

When I read this article, I was touched because children can be happy on simple things but those simple things are important in life. Happiness with children can be fulfilled because they are contented and they don't aim high enough to be happy,just simple things, and they are happy in taking care of what they have,they care for their surroundings and achieving simple things that they have.

Children are better models than adults, children can fulfill their happiness with simple things. While adults seek for more. Chiara Alyssa Cochico

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Conversation with Nature

May 3, 2016, 4:48 am

≫ Next: Catch the Waterfall and the Morning Sun

≪ Previous: What happiness means to children

Mural and Verses by Dr Abe V Rotor Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]

“Don’t be afraid, I am your friend,
neither have I a bow and arrow nor gun
but a big heart for all creation,
I learned from school and my religion.”

“Your gospel of truth and kindness,
of the Good Shepherd’s caring
a lost lamb in danger and darkness,
woe to us in the wilderness.”

“I know you only in books and on TV screen,

you talk my language in cartoon;

may I ask where on earth have you been?

that I may trace your lonely zone.”

“Heaven’s sake! Let me and my shrinking flock,

live incognito, away from human,

who fancy my strange call and my color black,

just I thank you, li’l young man. “

“A seashore in the city, how we wish it so,
to hear the sea, a shell on our ear,
fancy on canned nature in parks and show
In our domicile with least stir.”

“Then you miss creation in its fullest, freest,
the Maker’s greatest masterpiece;
Foolish Homo sapiens, will you ever realize
you’ve been an orphan eversince?”

"Owl, symbol of genius and watchfulness,
yet you're elusive and scary to find,
wouldn't you come out from your disquise
and share your gifts to mankind?"

"So little is the impact of my life I may say,
but prey on creepers for your sake,
and your loved ones sweetly fast asleep,
then retreat before daybreak,"

"Fish, teach us how to swim;
birds, teach us how to fly."
that we may cross the oceans
and cruise the open sky."

"You've your niche, so do we,
with neither wings nor fins,
we keep each others' respect,
humility and company."

↧

Catch the Waterfall and the Morning Sun

May 3, 2016, 4:49 am

≫ Next: Has man, as a species, reached his sunset?

≪ Previous: Conversation with Nature

Mural and Verse by Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]

Catch the waterfall before it reaches the sea,
Catch the morning sun before it goes down,
Catch the passing years at every opportunity,
Catch the future as the world goes round.

Dedicated to Carlo Dano 5, Lagro QC, May 2, 2016

↧

Has man, as a species, reached his sunset?

May 4, 2016, 1:34 am

≫ Next: Self-Administered Test: History and Great Men and Women

≪ Previous: Catch the Waterfall and the Morning Sun

A search for enlightenment on the future of man in postmodern times.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]

The riddle of the Sphinx goes this way. “What animal walks on four feet at sunrise, two at noon, and three at sunset?”

I first heard this riddle when I was a child, and when I failed to answer it my father casually explained the life cycle of man to me. It was one of the many mind teasers taken leisurely and with humor. But in a lecture which I attended at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, Science as Critique of Society, where the future of man was discussed, the riddle flashed back to mind serious repercussions.

Has man, as a species, reached his sunset? Or is history merely repeating itself?

The world now and then remembers a sweet-bitter memory of its past. After “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome,” mankind plunged into the Dark Ages, which lasted longer than the two previous civilizations combined. Are we taking the same road to destruction, a road strewn with roses, but facing abyss at the end?

This may be a tough question to handle. It is discomforting to consider, but necessary to absorb in the context of a wake up call. How can a world of computers, open universities, mega cities, supersonic transport and satellite communications find affinity with world of the ancients to draw such a conclusion? “No, not in our modern world,” we say.

We Live in a Modern World.
Modern is a Janus word. It is seldom perceived this way because we take “modern” for granted since it is all around us in different forms: modern medicine, modern transport, modern education, modern technology, and modern weapons. You name it and the malls and the Internet may have it. What is modern is something we put to use, often hastily, replacing a present implement or practice.

For example, modern agriculture is pictured as using a combine, a huge air-conditioned tractor that can simultaneously perform several jobs. Modern industries are automated using robotics. Modern society is said to be successful when it brings people of different races, backgrounds and walks of life together. Modern education is one that makes learning computer-dependent. Electronics has invaded our lives, such as e-commerce, e-learning.

How wired is our globe? Today, 95 percent of PC power is idle; the grid aims at tapping it all. As the Net evolves, all machines and people will become nodes on one network, and any one computer will be able to tap the power of all. But by using the grid, crooks could commandeer cars, even home appliances. It is scary. (Time, Life in the Grid)

Let us take a look at the other side of midnight, so to speak. It is modern agriculture that created pesticide residues and spurred resistance in pests. It is also responsible for making man-made desert we call in ecology desertification.

It is modern industry that has thinned the ozone layer and created non-biodegradable wastes. One the one hand, population increases have crossed the line beyond the threshold reserved for wildlife sanctuary. On the other hand, affluent living has thickened the atmosphere with waste gases and particulates causing the phenomenon called Greenhouse Effect. As cities grow the quaintness of living disappears. Much of the essence of the Lyceum has been lost in modern education. The common sense that often goes with the intelligence of naturalism is now being poorly cultivated.

Instinctive versus Acquired Intelligence
There was a conversation between a bushman and a visiting scientist in the middle of the Kalahari Desert.

“Why are you so illiterate?” asked the bushman of his guest in his unique language.

It was a question a civilized person, a beautiful woman and a doctorate holder at that, would have asked instead.

But the bushman knew when a hyena had just passed; if the wind is dangerously picking up human scent and delivering it to waiting predators; and where to find water in a no-man’s land.

Today, instinctive intelligence has been juxtaposed with, if not replaced by, acquired intelligence, that one hardly knows the difference between the two. In times of peace and plenty, instinctive intelligence tends to become dormant, lulled by the many amenities of living. We are like a typical person from New York, who may be street-smart but maybe illiterate in matters of nature, and may be pathetically helpless when disaster strikes. We do not even know if we are existing in a “desert”, at a loss in realizing danger, because we are so used to the good life. This is the condition into which modernism has transformed us.

Where Does Modern Life Lead Us?
In Shelly’s celebrated fiction novel, Frankenstein, wasn’t the monster Dr. Frankenstein created, a product of modern science of that time? It is not different today. Wittingly, or otherwise, we are creating a modern Frankenstein monster in our quest for power and wealth - a monster which first appears as an obliging genie, but at the end refuses to go back into the bottle of its origin.
Orthodox version of the Apocalypse
Let us look into the monster modern man has created.

1. By splitting the atom man has unleashed the most explosive force the world has ever known. This tremendous power can plunge the world into Armageddon. Today’s nuclear stockpile threatens the globe with obliteration of humankind three times over. This means a thermo-nuclear war can instantly kill a population of 18 billion people, notwithstanding the gross destruction of other organisms, and obliteration of the environment as we know it.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons – atomic, hydrogen and cobalt bombs - reached its peak during the Cold War. With the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, in 1987, the accountability of nuclear stockpiles became a big question among its former satellites. It is not impossible to smuggle a nuclear warhead which is only about the size of an attaché case, or produce radioactive material for making a nuclear bomb in the guise of nuclear power generation. We know that nuclear weapons technology is no longer the monopoly of the West and highly industrialized countries. The latest additions to the list of countries capable of making nuclear weapons are North Korea and Iraq.

War - the scourge of the human species. Mural, HoChiMinh City (Photo by AVR ca 2007)

2. Unrestricted massive expansion of frontiers of production and settlements has resulted in loss of natural habitats, in fact, whole ecosystems as evidenced by the death of rivers, lakes and coral reefs, and destruction of forests and wildlife. It is a fact that if man can tame the earth, so can he destroy it.
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The demise of a single species can produce a cascade of extinctions and threaten an entire ecosystem. (AV Rotor, Living with Nature in Our Times, 2008)
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3. Growing affluence continues to accelerate man’s conquest of nature through industrialization. Practically every country in the world is on a race towards industrialization in order to meet capitalistic standards of high economic growth and development. But Gross National Product (GNP) merely sums up a country’s output. Very little focus is given to Human Development Index (HDI), the guarantee of equitable distribution of benefits that elevates quality of life in a country. In certain societies such us ours, socio-economic inequity can be aptly summarized as having 10 percent of the population controlling 90 percent of the nation’s resources, and that 50 to 60 percent of the population are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Industrialization has widened the division between the affluent and the poor, stunting migration patterns that have caused massive urban growth, while siphoning off the resources of the countryside. This, in turn, has created a world order dominated by multinational companies and self-proclaimed global leaders now questioned by the free world, and challenged by civil initiatives and terrorism.

4. The recent scientific breakthrough, the breaking of the code of heredity - DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid), the Rosetta Stone of genetics, has opened up an entirely new concept of the origin and development of life.

But more amazing and frightening is the new power of man to tinker with life itself – playing God’s role in the creation of new life forms, extending human life to nearly twice its present longevity, and in eliminating diseases even before their symptoms are manifested. Cloning suddenly became a fearful word as applied to humans, following the success with “Dolly, the sheep,” the first cloned animal. Even this early we are warned of food products manufactured from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), dubbed as Frankenfood.

One by one, countries are coming out against crops with engineered genes – and there may be more to the skepticism over GM crops. Genetic modification can be a strategy to bring agriculture under the dominance of foreign corporations. On the grassroots level farmers doubt if GM crops can be grown side-by-side with non-GMO plants and not being affected negatively since open pollination knows no boundaries.

Public outburst against Genetically Modified Organisms.
The biggest scare that can be spawned by genetic engineering is Genetically Modified Man (GMM) - a being different from the original man described in Genesis, who is God-fearing, loving, sociable, intelligent, and with a high sense of values.
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A transformation of our technology and values could make it possible to build a society that will stand the test of time. (Time, A Culture of Permanence)
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5. It was unprecedented that the world has traveled far and wide on two feet – communications and transportation – with the West discovering the East, and subsequently resulting in intermarriages of the races, in trade and commerce, education and culture, politics and government, religion and philosophy. With the advances of science and technology the world has shrunk further into the size of a village now wired with fiber optics. But such union cannot be merely characterized as gross merging of characteristics. Here the rule of compatibility may bring diverging directional paths, especially when we force the union of dynamic processes, such as the liberalism of the West and traditionalism of the East. Through time and with continuing “intermarriage”, perhaps a global society will form and accelerate towards homogeneity. We rejoice in meeting friends from across the globe, at getting international news live, and in finding commonalities of interests, and in being part of a genetic pool.

Remember the universal soldier? The Renaissance man? This new kind of man --- will he be superior over say, than man in the times of the Greeks and Romans? Will this superman represent the fittest of the survivors in accordance with the standards of evolution? Or the righteousness of man in pursuit of the precepts of the Church?

The Dangerous Game of Numbers
The basic biological principle concerning the survival and dominance of an organism is having a large population, surrounded by a wide range of genetic diversity.

We know that each organism has a life cycle of its own patterned by its species, but the intriguing part is that each species has a unique population cycle.

To attest to this natural law, observe the swarms of locusts and gnats, the spontaneous appearance of mushrooms to make many a fairy tale, the aggregation of corals following a once-in-a-year orgy, large herds of reindeer, salmon runs, schools of tuna.

Additionally, diseases run into epidemic levels, decimating large numbers of people in the bubonic plague which killed one-third of the population of Europe. Sometime between 1918 and 1920, the total number of deaths due to the Spanish influenza was estimated at 40 million with the US and India, hardest hit. Based on the world’s population at that time, one out of six people on earth was killed by this pandemic disease. Today, we are confronted with similar threats, AIDS (Acute Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome), and the recent SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). The world stands alert in preventing the repetition of another epidemic.

Many of us may still remember Pied Piper of Hamlyn, a German folk story. If one would only realize its theme, which is mass suicide, the story would make a horror box office, rather than one for bedside reading.

Once upon a time a strange young man called on the mayor of Hamlyn who was worried about how to get rid of the rats infesting his town. “I will eliminate the rats,” assured the Pied Piper. To which the mayor, on seeing his jester’s costume and a small musical instrument in his hand, laughed, “I’ll give you all the money you want if you can do just that.”

So the Pied Piper played a strange music with his pipe and walked through the town, and rats followed him. Rats from the attic, canals, the kitchens, rats from everywhere, were drawn by his music. Playing until he reached the edge of the sea, the piper caused the rats to plunge into their death, thus ridding the town of these pests.

But the mayor did not keep his promise of paying the piper his money.

So the Pied Piper played again, this time with a stranger music that caused children to follow him. Children came from their homes, schools, and the streets, were drawn by the music of the piper that led them to the mountains. They entered the misty forest, and thence into a yawning cave that closed after them. The children were never heard again. Only a lame boy was spared. He saw it all happen and told this story.

Does the Pied Piper story have any scientific explanation?

Scientists in Scandinavia observed a similar mass suicide among lemmings. Every once in a while, the population of this rodent increases substantially and becomes a pest to farm folks and homeowners. In large numbers, they move from place to place, ravaging agriculture and articles of commerce. After this rampage, they plunge themselves in hordes into the sea in the same manner as the rats of Hamlyn.

Here is another celebrated case. Locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis), a major insect pest, follows a more complicated population growth pattern. There are four stages in its life cycle. In the solitaria phase the insect behaves individually like the grasshopper in an Aesop fable. As food becomes scarce in the summer, the individual locusts group together to form congregans. These then coalesce to form larger groups, proceeding to the swarming stage, migratoria. Except for those that revert to the solitary phase, the dissocians, the swarm continues to expand. Because of sheer numbers, an overnight attack by the pest can virtually demolish entire crops like rice, corn, legumes and vegetables. The swarm darkens the sky in midday, hisses in deafening sound, rides on wind current to reach far and wide, destroying many things on its path.

Our planet is getting overcrowded.

This population growth pattern that ends in mass extinction is also happening in the microscopic world. This can be observed in yeast during alcohol fermentation. The yeast cells rapidly increase in number, so with the enzyme – zymase - which they secrete. Zymase converts sugar into alcohol, so that alcohol builds up while the amount of fermentable sugar proportionately decreases. Ironically it is the accumulated alcohol and starvation that ultimately kill the yeast cells, a phenomenon known as autotoxicity.

Do we carry in our genes the Pied Piper or Lemming syndrome? Has human society any similarity with the migratory habit of locust? Are we internally building toxic materials, like the yeast, which will lead us to our doom?

These are questions that will trouble and challenge our most profound thinkers. But there is one thing that we should remember. It is not man’s superior mind that is the saving grace of the world, because the more he discovers things, the more he asserts himself in the biosphere.

It may be man’s intelligence that is bringing his doom closer. It reminds us of the Fall when man disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom. Whatever is our interpretation of Paradise Lost, the fact remains that mankind’s vulnerability lies in the improper use of his rationality. One such blatant act is the destruction of his environment as man craves to fulfill his unending quest for food, lumber and minerals.

There is a theological and ecological dimension to this thesis. When we destroy nature, we invariably disrespect the Creator.

Today’s Hercules and the Modern Hydra
Here is a stage play to portray man and the monster he created in battle. The modern Hercules pursues the Hydra of many ugly heads. It will be more dramatic than the romanticized Greek mythology. And the task will be enormous. Will our new Hercules succeed?

These are tools that we would offer to our hero to use.

Elimination of all weapons of mass destruction
Preservation of ecosystems
Renewal of values and strengthening institutions
Population planning and control
Social control for equitable distribution of resources
Restrained agriculture and industrial development
Science and technology with conscience
Enlightened education and media
Effective governance and order
Investment in the new generation and the future

Let us imagine that the play will last for days, years, generations or eons of time. We must be patient and persistent, like the Sphinx on the watch, but let us not fall victim to it.

We know that nothing is permanent in this world. Everything has a life cycle – even the stars – and this is what makes things transient. Take for example our sun. It is no longer the young blue-flamed torch in the sky for it has aged. It is now reddish and approaching a nova, the last stage of a star about to explode, and die - in the next 5 billion years.

There was once a scientist who expressed the highest level of optimism for humankind. He envisioned that as the sun becomes senile and prepares for its demise, man shall then have colonized the other planets, thus ensuring the continuity of his species.

Our species has its birth, growth, maturity and stability, before it too, shall perish and give way to another dominant being. What will it be? Nobody knows. This natural law of succession is evident from the fossil record that tells of the earth’s natural history. Of the five billion years of the earth’s existence, scientists found evidences of early life forms as early as three billion years ago, progressing very slowly to break away from simple, unicellular life forms.

Then, a billion years ago, life burst into a myriad of multi-cellular forms. Very recently did man arrive. If the world’s history is a year calendar, man arrived in the evening of December 30th. That is how young our species is as compared with, say the Coelacanth thought to have perished 60 millions years ago, or the dragonfly and cockroach which have been existing on earth since before the age of the dinosaurs.

Man in the last one million years became a dominant species, but not for the reason that he possesses the instincts of other dominant organisms before him, but by the use of a special singular tool - intelligence - which no other organism at present or in the past ever possessed.

The question today is not how we dominate the earth but for how long will we dominate it. It is not appropriate to compare man with the dinosaurs, or the early mollusk, or amphibians or fishes. These organisms cannot shape their environment and their destiny as man can. Man has conquered every corner of the earth, and soon the space above and around it, and in the depths of the oceans. He has studied how nature works and has been able to duplicate it in a growing number of ways. He has created new elements and compounds, including amino acids which are building blocks of life itself.

There is reason to believe that our species, if unchecked, may soon face extinction. But it is not unlikely that this demise will come from a giant meteor crushing earth, similar to what is believed to have caused the disappearance of dinosaurs. However, some scientists like Dr. Schumacher, the proponent of “Impact Technology”, believe that this extraterrestrial accident is not remote from happening again.

But if the death of our species would come, it is likely our own doing. Our intelligence may be unable to overcome the dictates of our survival instincts, leading to our own mass suicide. Will our society, perfect as Utopia, simply drift like the migratory locust searching just for food, mate, and other biological needs?

Will our species remain entrapped in a geometric population growth pattern, unable to use its intelligence to break free? It is possible that the population explosion, unending materialism, and breakaway science and technology will combine to create autotoxicity similar to that which killed the yeast cells?

We are engaged in a drama where we are not only the audience, but also its characters, playing the role of a new kind of hero, one who can save our environment and our species. The hero’s victory means the survival of mankind. It is a long struggle and will triumph.

Going back to the answer of the riddle of the Sphinx, man is that animal. As a child in the morning he crawls on all fours; as an adult at noon he walks erect on two legs; and as an elderly person, reaching the evening of his life, he walks with a cane for his third leg.

If we play the hero’s role well, we can yet delay the arrival of our sunset as a species.

The Sphinx at Giza, Cairo, Egypt.

Reference: The Living with Nature Handbook by AV Rotor, UST Press 2003

↧

Self-Administered Test: History and Great Men and Women

May 4, 2016, 2:17 am

≫ Next: What Happiness is to Great Men and Women

≪ Previous: Has man, as a species, reached his sunset?

Dr Abe V. Rotor

Supply the missing word or words/keyword, or statement. Answers are found at the end of the test.

1. Story telling as an art, and form of literature was born in this country. Here the “state-of-the-art of story telling” reached its peak at towards the end of the 19th century.______________

2. Rhett Butler played by Clark Gable said, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.” What is the title of the novel or movie do you find this famous line? ____________

3. This is a popular phrase that captures how powerful Ancient Rome was at the peak of its dominance in the known world._____________________

4. England became the biggest empire in 18th century and had colonies all over the world – India, Australia, US, Canada, to name the most important colonies. There is a famous statement to describe this dominance, which says,________ .

5. This is one element of a good anecdote that stimulates the intellect, sagacity, understanding. It shows cleverness. ____________

6. This is another element of a good story that lifts the spirit, and brings man towards optimistic goals. ________________

7. Bato bato sa langit, ang matamaan ay huwag magalit. This doesn’t speak well of a good story. The refers to ____________

8. Avoid this aspect in story telling, promoting an idea, thing or person. __________

9. This is one aspect we should avoid in story telling: directly imposing a norm or moral obligation._____________

10. It took this man to convince four kings to support his plan to reach East if he goes strait West – thus he named the island he first landed on as East Indies._____________

11. If you are presented with a simple problem that has a simple solution, instead of wasting time and resources, they say, “Cut the Gordian Knot.” Who is the first person who showed it this way by cutting the complicated Gordian Knot with single stroke of his sword? _____________________

12. This flying insect circled a lamp which Rizal used as symbol of martyrdom. _____________

13. He is known even to the present as the “man of the masses,” who on one occasion, promoted an engineer on the spot. _______________________

14. The most loved anecdote teller of all time. His anecdotes, and anecdotes about him, are known all over the world._____________________

15. He took the crown from the hands of the Pope who was about to crown him, and crowned himself. _____________________

16. This is the Lady with a Lamp who made her rounds in the hospital into the wee hours of the morning with a lamp. ______________________

17. This city was named after an emperor whose mother was a Christian in disguise. He became liberal to Christians in practicing their faith, and was made a saint._____________

18. English admiral, ordered by his superior not to proceed in his mission because the enemy ships were waiting. He took the telescope and trained it on his right eye which is blind, and said, “I can’t see the enemy, sir.” ________________

19. He isolated himself in his room for days, eating but little, and when he emerged, his face lighted like that of a saint, and holding his masterpiece Halleluiah. Who is this composer.__________________

20. He attended a concert in which his musical masterpiece Pastoral was played. At the end, the audience stood to pay respect to the composer. Someone had to signal him to acknowledge the ovation.__________________________

Bonus: One of the most famous meetings in history. US newsman Stanley was sent to Africa to search for Dr. David Livingstone. What was Stanley’s greeting?

ANSWERS: 1 United States, Washington Irving (Rip van Winkle), Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven) are among the founders of short story as an art; 2 Gone with the Wind; 3 All roads lead to Rome; 4 The sun never sets on English soil; 5 Wit; 6 Inspirational; 7 fatalism; 8 Propagandism; 9 Moralism; 10 Christopher Columbus; 11 Alexander, the Great; 12 Moth; 13 President Ramon Magsaysay; 14 Abraham Lincoln; 15 Napoleon Bonaparte; 16 Florence Nightingale; 17 Constantine, the Great; 18 National British hero - Horatius Nelson; 19 Handel; 20 Ludwig Van Beethoven; Bonus, Dr. Livingstone, I suppose?

RATING: 19-20 - Excellent - You must be a college professor.
16-18 - Very Good - You are a wide reader, a good student of history.
13-15 - Good - You can initiate a good conversation.
10-12 - Fair - You don't get lost in a good conversation.
9 and below - Read more, listen to Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid.

↧

What Happiness is to Great Men and Women

May 4, 2016, 2:22 am

≫ Next: Message on a Palette Board

≪ Previous: Self-Administered Test: History and Great Men and Women

Happiness is... according to four Nobel Prize Laureates

Happiness is, to great men and women, a motivating force to achievement and not its own result; of making others and not oneself feel happy and successful, of being treated fairly, of being cared for; of reaching out for a cause with great determination, and whether one succeeds or not, finds fulfillment at the end. Happiness is... what makes this world a better place to live in - indeed a mark of greatness of anyone who can contribute to it in his or her own way.~

Dr Abe V Rotor

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained. It is of such fundamental importance to the human condition that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were deemed to be unalienable rights by the United States Declaration of Independence. (Happiness From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Albert Einstein, Man of the 20th century, was always in jovial mood while at work. Here he plays a violin before delivering a lecture. The smiley face is a well-known symbol of happiness.

What is happiness to great people? Do they perceive the kind of happiness most people feel? Or do they have a world of their own too, when it comes to enjoying life?

Or, if their being unique and not understood in many ways, is the barrier - what then is happiness to them? Is there still a place of happiness in their genius?

Let's take it from some great figures of the world.
1. Happiness is... according to Albert Schweitzer
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success . if you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer was a Franco-German theologian, organist, philosopher and physician. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of Reverence for Life. His passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. He founded the famous Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene'
in Gabon, then French Equatorial Africa.

2. Happiness is... according to Albert Camus
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

Albert Camus was a French Algerian author, philosopher, journalist and footballer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was a key philosopher of the 20th-century and his most famous work is the novel L'Étranger (The Stranger), and for his writings against capital punishment in the essay Réflexions sur la Guillotinehis views contributed to the rise of the more current philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom..
3. According to the Dalai Lama

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only make others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. Tibetans normally refer to His Holiness as Yeshin Norbu, the Wish-fulfilling Gem, or simply, Kundun, meaning The Presence. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his unwavering leadership in leading the Tibetans as one people in their own country amidst threats of China and the influence of modernism.

4. According to Mother Teresa
To Mother Teresa, happiness serving the poor. To quote:

"I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

- Excerpt from the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), born in Skopje, Yugoslavia (what is now Macedonia), moved residence in Calcutta, India; 1979 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; leader of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresea started the House for the Dying, the Missionaries of Charity to help lepers and victims in many disaster areas of the world. She was awarded the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.

Happiness is...therefore, to great men and women, a motivating force to achievement and not its own result; of making others and not oneself feel happy and successful, of being treated fairly, of being cared for; of reaching out for a cause with great determination, and whether one succeeds or not, finds fulfillment at the end. Happiness is... what makes this world a better place to live in - indeed a mark of greatness of anyone who can contribute to it in his or her own way.~

The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognize the relevance of happiness and well being as universal goals. In 2014 Happy (Pharrell Williams song) became the anthem and inspired clips from around the world. Acknowledgment: Photos from the Internet

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Message on a Palette Board

May 4, 2016, 6:19 pm

≫ Next: Little Fishermen

≪ Previous: What Happiness is to Great Men and Women

Dr Abe V Rotor

Caked paint on pallete board used by the author, 2016

I labored painting to the last rays of the sun,
     and all the day's worth was gone;
on my palette board, lo! what I have found,
     a subject never was in my mind.

A work of art indeed but whose masterpiece?
   and i looked up to heaven to ask
what the images mean and want to convey,
   it's our world wearing a Janus mask.~

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Little Fishermen

May 4, 2016, 7:28 pm

≫ Next: Arc de Triomphe, a detailed study (Article in progress)

≪ Previous: Message on a Palette Board

Dr Abe V Rotor

Fishing in younger days, author (right) and companion, San Fernando La Union, circa 1975

Meager may be their catch for the day,
     loafing on the idle sea;
had a big, big fish come their way,
     wonder where they would be!

They would on the ocean lost and bare,
     to places queer and unknown,
on the highest floor, on a swivel chair,
     or on some engraved stone.

Fishermen, you love a life at the extreme.
     with the big fish that got away
in make-believe story, either lie or dream;
     tell us how to fish, we pray. ~

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Arc de Triomphe, a detailed study (Article in progress)

May 4, 2016, 7:47 pm

≫ Next: The Grain Center is as Old as Joseph's Dream and Aesop's Fable

≪ Previous: Little Fishermen

↧

The Grain Center is as Old as Joseph's Dream and Aesop's Fable

May 4, 2016, 8:12 pm

≫ Next: "All roads lead to a farmstead."

≪ Previous: Arc de Triomphe, a detailed study (Article in progress)

Dr Abe V Rotor
Former Director, National Food Authority

NFA Grain Center in Cagayan Valley, circa 1977

Like the nucleus of a cell depends the life of a nation,

the Center the equalizer in times of plenty and lean,

buffer stock is built like in Joseph's prophetic dream,

of seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.

Politics of war and peace draws the politics of food;

nothing's really new but terminologies, flag and tool,

and Demeter or Ceres the same goddess of harvest,

so with The Ant and the Grasshopper Aesopfable.~

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"All roads lead to a farmstead."

May 4, 2016, 8:49 pm

≫ Next: Stop at Nature on the Wall

≪ Previous: The Grain Center is as Old as Joseph's Dream and Aesop's Fable

Dr Abe V Rotor

Farmstead, aerial photo by the author, circa 1976

It is likened to the prairies of North America,
      the Fertile Crescent, the Nile's delta;
the Andean plateau, the pampas of Argentina;
      this tiny nook somewhere in Isabela.

I have travelled far and wide on this single road
     with "all roads leading to it," here and abroad
with the seasons, creatures born and growing old,
      and tell the universal story of the world.~

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Stop at Nature on the Wall

May 5, 2016, 4:35 am

≫ Next: The Power of MINDFULNESS

≪ Previous: "All roads lead to a farmstead."

Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Take time out, stop at Nature’s invitation,

real or in imagination;

Take time, let the world go by for a while,

in stride with a smile.~

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The Power of MINDFULNESS

May 5, 2016, 4:50 am

≫ Next: I shot an arrow into the air ...

≪ Previous: Stop at Nature on the Wall

The Art and Science of MINDFULNESS
Mindfulness is the intentional and objective focus of one's attention on the thoughts and feelings occurring in the present moment. Mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience - instead of letting your life pass you by.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Fishing in acrylic by the author, 2014. Analyze the painting and list down your observations or awareness on the details of the scene. Imagine yourself to be in the scene and reflect on the applicatioons of mindfulness.

Lesson: Go over these twenty applications of mindfulness and add your own thoughts and experiences in each item. This is a very good material for workshops, for the school, or simply in ordinary conversation.

The art and science of mindfulness and its applications:

1. Mindfulness leads to discovery

Alexander Fleming "accidentally"discovered Penicillin. We call such

discovery as serendipity. Had he thrownthe "contaminated" culture, he
couldhave missed the greenish mass of green molds consuming the

colony of bacteria in a petri dish.

2. Avoidance of embarrassment

Watch your language, please. Don't enter through the exit door.Your t-shirt

is reversed. Avoid sudden outburst - laughter or anger. Don't clap in the

middle of a concert.

3. Prevention of accidents.

Stop, look and listen before you cross. Always be alert when driving. Be

mindful in the use tools in the kitchen, workshop, and garden.

4. Keeping with good health

You forgot your medicine. You ate too much of the restricted food. Don't

overwork. Don't carry more than your body's weight - much less if you are a

senior citizen. It's flu month, stay home as much as possible.

5. Enhancement of learning

Be keen with the lecture. Read aloud, specially poetry, to have the real

experience of reciting. Give full attention to details, don't skip pages. The

more senses you use, the more you learn and the longer you keep them in

your memory.

6. Tool in critical thinking

Acronym AJA - Analysis, Judgment, Action- in this order. Don't interchange

the two A's. Study your case well, or else you ay lose your case in court.

How did Hemingway end The Old Man and the Sea to drive his theme and

message in just a few pages?

7. Tool in decision making

Related to the above - tool in critical thinking - postpone making decision if you are not well prepared. Take a weekend break. Mindfulness is relaxation. Never make decisions when you are stressed.

8. Keenness of events and happenings

The chandelier appears to be swaying. Earthquake? Or you are not feeling well?

You freeze in the middle of an accident. Don't be a victim of budol-budol. Know the fire exit, stairway, elevator when checking in a hotel.

9. Deciphering reality from fantasy

Analyze make-believe stories. Telenovelas are usually embellished. But fiction can be symbolic of reality. Fictions may be advanced ideas. Or simply myths.

10. Enlightenment between truth and falsehood

You know if a person is lying. Too bad, the fellow is an actor. Mindfulness gives you time to analyze. He avoids eye-to-eye contact. He has the Pinocchio syndrome, rubbing his nose now and then. Or a tear jerker (crocodile's tears).

11. Development of personality

How's your grooming? You poise, stride, posture. Beard stubs don't fit your attire and occasion. Formal dress can't go with rubber shoes, even if the shoes cost more.

12. Expression of values

Say: Excuse me. Thank you. Beg your pardon? Say, Best wishes to the bride, congratulations to the groom. Read Julie Yap Daza's small book, Manners for Growing Up. Follow etiquettes in social media.

13. Enhancement of good relationship

You forgot the birthday of you loved ones. Worse you greet the wrong fellow. Recognize your audience, specially the VIPs. Don't flatter too far, it is embarrassing or courting trouble.

Mindfulness preserves friendship.

14. Reduction of anxiety, tension and stress

The term "mindfulness" is derived from the Pali-term sati, "mindfulness", which is an essential element of Buddhist practice. It has been popularized in the West by Jon Kabat-Zinn with his mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Mindfulness is also an attribute of consciousness long believed to promote well-being. (Wikipedia)

15. Preserving institutions and society

Mindfulness keeps you in touch with your community. Participate in the programs and projects of your barangay. The integrity of our institutions lies greatly in people's active participation. You are mindful of electoral process, banking system, K-to12 program, justice system, etc. And if you must press for reform, you must. Mindfulness leads to the expression rights and privileges.

16. Closeness to nature (naturalism, green thumb)

Beethoven composed Pastoral on the meadow, Grieg's Morning at sunrise, Abelardo's Mutya ng Pasig by the beautiful Pasig River then. Darwin "followed" Nature in his four-year voyage on a research ship, Beagle, to formulate his theory of evolution which he later wrote into a book, Origin of the Species through Natural Selection, the most significant and controversial theory in the 18th century and up to now.

17. Closeness to the Creator

Handel wrote Alleluia Chorus in seclusion and on emerging a week after, confessed he saw God in his music. Have you had your retreat lately? Do you compose your prayers personally? Do you believe in miracles? Mother Teresa claimed of the apparition of St. Gabriel. The miracle at Fatima was witnessed by young children. Which means mindfulness may start early in life. Are prodigies the products of early mindfulness?

18. Interdisciplinary and holistic scholarship

Team work is key to winning. Mindfulness is both practiced invividually and as a team. Observe a team of surgery doctors and nurses work in the operating room. Mindfulness is cultivating the eight realms of intelligence and this is a lifetime experience.

19. Awareness of the wholeness of the human being

The human being is not a robot, it is whole. Holism as an important subject in mindfulness application in natural and social sciences. Models to this human attribute are Gandhi, Rizal and Mandela

20. Road to peace of mind

Anent to the awareness of the wholeness of the human being, is the aim of every person to have peace of mind. POM has four attributes: mental or intellectual, emotional or psychological, physical, and spiritual. We may find it difficult to maintain a "perfect square" every day, but we must always aim at it. For there is no true happiness in this world without Peace of Mind. ~

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I shot an arrow into the air ...

May 5, 2016, 4:52 am

≫ Next: Red Sky

≪ Previous: The Power of MINDFULNESS

and it fell on a newspaper!

Dr Abe V Rotor

Dad, circa 1947

I was about 4 or 5 years old. Dad was reading Manila Bulletin on a easy chair.

I was playing Robin Hood.

Since our sala was very spacious (it had no divisions), anything on the ceiling and walls was a potential target.

But something wrong happened.

In physics a crooked arrow would not follow a straight line, so it found an unintended mark – the center of a widespread newspaper!

The arrow pierced through it and landed on my dad’s forehead, almost between his eyes.

He gave me a severe beating with my plaything as he wiped his forehead, blood dripping.

I did not cry, I just took the punishment obligingly.

Dad must have seen innocence in my eyes.

He stopped and gave me a hug.

The End

(With apologies too, to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of I Shot an Arrow into the Air)

↧

Red Sky

May 5, 2016, 10:30 pm

≫ Next: Meditation in the Air (Greater Lagro Gazette April-June 2016 Issue)

≪ Previous: I shot an arrow into the air ...

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]

Red sky when a meteor struck the earth 26 million years ago which wiped out the dinosaurs and other animals, long before the dawn of mankind;

Old Quirino Bridge at sunset, Santa, Ilocos Sur

Red sky when prolonged drought swept over Africa at the dawn of civilization, flushing out early humans from their abode in the forest to the grassland;

Red sky when Black Death decimated one-third of human population in Europe and elsewhere, in three major waves during the Dark Ages;

Red sky when conqueror after conqueror invaded and destroyed empires, until the ultimate Greco-Roman collapsed into warring fiefs or kingdoms;

Red sky when two world wars gripped the world causing untold loss of lives and properties, and later leading to a Cold War that polarized the world for 45 years;

Red sky when the flu in 1920 killed one in every six people on earth, virtually without warning, and sufficient capability in controlling the epidemic;

Red sky when HIV-AIDS became a modern disease contacted and transferred through sex irrespective of gender, affecting whole families and communities;

Red sky when the Ebola virus, the most dreaded human disease, spreads like wild fire, exacerbated by the lack of knowledge and tools in combating its global spread;

Red sky when terrorism has gained foothold, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), recruiting members worldwide through social media and logistics;

Red sky when 15 million Filipino kids are food-poor, so with a billion hungry people worldwide, in the face of economic progress and postmodern living;

Red sky when the sea is rising, glaciers melting, other natural disasters getting frequent - the effects of man-induced global warming and environmental degradation;

Red sky when the world's nuclear arsenal, capable of annihilating the present population, go into wrong hands, or used to gain political supremacy. ~

↧

Meditation in the Air (Greater Lagro Gazette April-June 2016 Issue)

May 6, 2016, 2:49 pm

≫ Next: Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall (Article in Progress)

≪ Previous: Red Sky

“Down below I see my friends, my neighbors, and me.”

Dr Abe V Rotor

A wisp of smoke greets the lazy morning air from among the trees that line a creek

appearing like a miniature forest. Summertime, 2013.

Take me for a moment away from you, Mother Earth,

higher than the highest mountain, the tallest building,

that I may view life whole and solid and unabridged

in a perspective beyond details, and without stirring:

I see clouds shrouding you from the sun and blue sky,

in cumulus like giant mushroom on the horizon, rising,

and released into nimbus, becoming heavy, falling as rain

in the accompaniment of wind, thunder and lightning.

I see rivers swell and lakes fill to the brim in monsoon,

flooding fields and pasture, spilling through the valley,

meandering, roaring over waterfalls and boulders,

resting in swamps and estuaries, then flowing to sea.

I see farmers in the field, women and children, too,

and work animals pulling the plow and the harrow;

I hear singing and laughter and joyous conversation,

barking of dogs, cackling of fowls trailing the furrow.

I see harvesters gather the golden grains by hand;

drying shocks in the sun, and building haystacks;

I see flocks of pigeon and native chicken gleaning,

women and children, the sun setting on their backs.

I see the fields scorched, a smoke here and there -

bush fire! when the grass dries up bursts into flame

spreading all over, burning anything on its path -

what a waste! but it is nature's work and game.

I see poor harvest, good harvest, where and why,

crops early or late, and fields never planted at all;

I see farming a way of life, farming as a business,

and farm life in all seasons, happiness is its goal.

I see children flying kites of various makes and colors,

beside them grownups cheering, coaching, flying

their own kites too, oh, they have not forgotten

the art of their childhood, so do I, reminiscing.

I see children playing patintero, trompo and sipa,

games of old folks when they too, were children;

games of beetles and spiders as gladiators;

palo de sebo andpabitin cannot be forgotten.

I see tourists, I see balikbayan, I see old and young;

familiar and unfamiliar faces, sweet, shy, and bold;

I see children going to school, housewives to market,

people of all walks of life, always on the move.

I see the hills and mountains, to me they're the same,

but where have the forests gone, the pasture?

I see the rivers, the lakes and ponds old as they are,

I have always loved all of these as I love nature.

Ihave seen enough, let me return, Mother Earth,

to my home, sweet home, on the farm, to my family;

and tell them of what I've seen in my short sojourn;

down below I saw my friends, my neighbors, and me. ~

↧

Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall (Article in Progress)

May 6, 2016, 8:41 pm

≫ Next: Pose with Nature

≪ Previous: Meditation in the Air (Greater Lagro Gazette April-June 2016 Issue)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Details of Nature Wall Mural

↧

Pose with Nature

May 6, 2016, 10:57 pm

≫ Next: Respite with Nature on the Wall

≪ Previous: Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall (Article in Progress)

Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Lagro QC, 2016

Pose with Nature

when you are tired and weary

before the day is gone;

on your way home from school

as the sun goes down;

before greeting your folks

and friends around,

in praise and thanksgiving

for your work is done.

↧

Respite with Nature on the Wall

May 6, 2016, 11:07 pm

≫ Next: Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall

≪ Previous: Pose with Nature

Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Lagro QC, 2016

Take the road from school to home

to where a river idly flows,

the sun streaming among the trees,

where a waterfall glows;

It’s a moment with nature to say,

“all is well at the end of the day.” ~

↧

Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall

May 8, 2016, 2:30 pm

≫ Next: I am looking for an honest man. - Diogenes

≪ Previous: Respite with Nature on the Wall

Dr Abe V Rotor
Details of Nature Wall Mural

When life is bigger than you,
take it like a big fish;
don't let it go away,
for no one will believe you.

The sun never sets, goes the adage

of a once powerful empire;

it did.

The sun never sets in the deep blue sea,

phosphorescence the secret,

indeed.

Creatures communicate in many ways,

including man;

dolphins and birds think sailboats

are of their kind.

Believe in sea monsters,

giants, grotesque, fearful,

as they think also of man,

the biggest monster of all!

Once thought extinct millions of years ago,

the Coelacanth rose from the deep,

exactly the same as its fossil in the museum,

challenging science of its feat.

Camouflaged juvenile shark is safe

from its enemies,

while it lurks for some unwary prey

in dual existence.

A school of fish of two kinds

traveling and hunting

in a treatise beyond science,

and folk understanding,

Banded groupers like three musketeers,

adventure the name of their game;

Dumas could have been more delighted

to have met this triumvirate in action.

On the craggy sea floor life is barely perceptible,

the tenants are better when left alone;

if survival to others is transience and agression ,

here a fish can be mistaken for a stone.

Not all big fish is an enemy,

it may be a guardian, too,

leading a school in its care,

like the teacher we know.

A niche is defined by species, boundary, and time,

by common friends and enemies;

yet in times of plenty niches are open and free,

to form wholesome communities.

The rainbow is Cathedral in the sky,

it matters not if incomplete,

or its colors dim, to lovers of Nature,

who pause in prayer and retreat.

Swarming means danger, sensing enemies down below;

the school forms a circle like the pioneers of the Old West;

the young and fecund in the center, the bold on the guard,

collective survival is universal to evolutionary success.

↧