Amateurs built the ark.. Professionals built the Titanic.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20.00 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,Who would like this $20 bill? Hands started going up. He said, I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this. He proceeded to crumple the $20 dollar bill up. He then asked, Who still wants it? Still the hands were up in the air. Well, he replied, What if I do this. And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled, and dirty. Now who still wants it? Still the hands went into the air. My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or whom we know, but by WHO WE ARE. You are special - Don't EVER forget it. If you do not pass this on, you may never know the lives it touches the hurting hearts it speaks to, or the hope that it can bring. Count your blessings, not your problems. Never be afraid to try something new. And remember.. Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

No One Falls In Love By Choice

No one falls in love by choice, it is by chance.
No one stays in love by chance, it is by work.
No one falls out of love by chance, it is by choice.

we see the truth and forget it.
more love poems here

The Universe Within

Having immense fun reading John D. Barrow's The Infinite Book. A sampler in which Barrow borrows from Frank Morgan (yes, you've heard versions of this before, tis a classic, but none so cunningly put):

Three guys go into a hotel, each with $10 in his pocket. They book one room at $30 a night. A short while later a fax from the headquarters directs the hotel to charge $25 a night. So the receptionist gives the bellhop $5 to take to the three guys sharing the room. Since the bellhop never got a tip from them and because he can't split $5 three ways, he decides to pocket $2 and give them each one dollar back. So each of the three guys has now spent $9 and the bellhop has $2 for a total of $29. Where's the extra dollar?"

Woo-hoo! (Yes, I can be a nerd.)

Ok, I'm throwing this in for Joseph who mentioned it. It's the case of the terminator 0, 1/2 and 1:

We begin with the infinite series S = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 ...
which we can rewrite as: S = (1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) +.. meaning S = 0

but grouped differently: S = 1 + (-1 + 1) + (-1 + 1) +.. or S = 1 + 0 + 0 + .. thus S = 1
so we have proved that S = 0 and S = 1 thus if S = S then 0 = 1 !

not only that, S = 1 - (1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1...) or S = 1-S or 2S = 1 meaning S = 1/2!

We have thus proven that when dealing with infinity, S can be any number.

What we have here is a beautiful mathematical explanation to the philosophical and metaphysical presumption that ultimately, we are all one and the same, and that, just as we are part of the universe, the universe is within us.

May My Heart Be Always Open

For R:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over her with one smile

by E.E. Cummings

There are Sadder Things But This is SAD

I got this factoid from Life Statistics's blog entry entitled: "How Many People Read"?:

58% of the US adult population never read another book after high school.