Starry Starry Night 2...

Starry starry night...
paint your palette blue and grey
look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils
catch the breeze and the winter chills
in colors on the snowy linen land.
And now I understand what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now...

This post is not a continuation of my previous Starry night post on Van Gogh, actually it's very different topic...

Since a couple of weeks ago, i have started hiking with a group of my colleagues from work every Thursday night after work. It's wonderful, cos the mountains are so close to Geneva, and we go there and hike for about 3hrs.

This week we headed out to Col de Marchairuz part of the Jura mountains. I was so impressed with the hike that I had to blog about it. We started during daylight hrs and climbed upto a peak by which time it was already dark, and we had wine and cheese under the stars it was so lovely...We also had two Border Collies in the group, who seemed to see us like a flock of sheep. It was hilarious, these two dogs kept, going to the front and back of the group to flock us together, pushing the people at the back to move faster!

But even with them, one of my friends and i still managed to get lost! Well not really lost, cos the paths are very clear, just stuck behind, cos we were so impressed with nature and what we saw. There were coloured wild mushrooms, and interesting looking bugs, wild berries, and it was very dark skies full of stars, so we kept stopping to admire nature, and the funny creatures that appeared in front of our flashlights on the way back! We even saw the milky way (or we think we did) which is why i put a pic of the milky way, and were singing 'starry starry night'... No moonlight, city lights or headlights, so we had a wonderful view of the night skies. It was lovely feeling lost in the wilderness, and i was reminded of the famous essay topic that we had to write when we were small, 'I got lost in the jungle'... We were so awe inspired we were actually discussing the meaning of our existance, and the possibility of aliens out there, among the many many stars! How often do you do that with your colleagues? Ofcourse we didn't figure it out...

I was just thinking that i really should make this a more regular outing, atleast when the weather is good, cos it seems that we have lost touch with nature. We are so 'busy' at work, at home, even our form of entertainment is usually technology related like TV. It's nice to get away from it all, during the week, and admire the wonderful nature around us, felt like a kid all over again...

Feedback Control

I’ve been thinking these days, about how we tend to define ourselves and what and who we are and how we should act expecting that it would bring us and others around us happiness (I guess if we try to summarize everything that we want to do and be, from success to family to love, in the end we’re all looking for happiness…true happiness which is not brought by riches or material things, but which is a state of mind, and I think all we do is to achieve that happiness in the end). This brought the analogy of feed back control to my mind (that’s the techy in me :) )…

‘Feedback control is a control mechanism that uses information from measurements to manipulate a variable to achieve the desired result. In feedback control, the variable being controlled is measured and compared with a target value. This difference between the actual and desired value is called the error. Feedback control manipulates an input to the system to minimize this error’ as per Wikipedia.

So comparing with that analogy initially we define ourselves, and think this is how we should be and act at certain situations (input), in order to achieve the desired result of ‘happiness’. But then sometimes, we suddenly come to contact with a completely different point of view or, see that what we thought all along, may not be right, that we will not achieve that ‘desired result’ if we continue in this way, then we have a tendency to overcorrect our ideas and our behaviors in the opposite direction, and go in that way... Just thinking about myself, I can see instances there I think that society or the world is so wrong, that I think I should be or do something in the total opposite way just to balance it.

The major difference between Feedback control and us though, is that we don’t always measure, or question our ideas, and go on in one direction, thinking that it is correct, until something awakens us up and makes us question about our view of the world and our selves.

It just reminded me to actually question myself and see whether I am going in the correct direction... Especially when we grow older, we tend to get set in our ways and stop questioning ourselves or looking at ourselves critically… this analogy just brought me back to remind me that we should always be learning, from life and from each other…

I think we should move like the damped oscillations in the diagram (for the nerds like me :) ) and keep swinging in the two directions, correcting ourselves, and learning along the way till we reach the ‘happy medium and ultimately, our desired result… :) ) Unless ofcourse if we could actually reach the desired result right away without all the oscillations (I guess Saints must be like that), but then that's not me...

The Little Prince

I never thought that a tiny children’s book could have this effect on me. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry was a book that was recommended by a colleague as a lovely children;s story but it has some very interesting observations about human nature.

It is about the lovely innocent world of little children, and how we forget all that imagination, the dreaming, the wonder that you have when you see a star, as we grow older and start thinking of “matters of consequence” as the book puts it…

Just made me think for a while, so what are all these matters of consequence? I guess this was what Jesus Christ meant when he said that you must be like a child to enter the kingdom of God, the simplicity, honesty, satisfaction with the small things, though we have all these fancy toys, most kids would be happy just playing outside with flowers or watching butterflies or birds… We’ve forgotten to see with the heart.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“The men where you live,” said the little prince, “raise five thousand roses in the same garden– and they do not find in it what they are looking for.”
“And yet what they are looking for could be found in one single rose, or in a little water.”
“But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart. . . ”

There were some other lovely quotes from the book.

"When you tell grown-ups that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
If you were to say to the grown-ups: “I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,” they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: “I saw a house that cost $20,000.” Then they would exclaim: “Oh, what a pretty house that is!”

"They are like that. One must not hold it against them. Children shouldalways show great forbearance toward grown-up people. But certainly, for us who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference."
This is sad but true, when it comes to value we often try to put a number on it. And the things are measured on how much they cost…

“I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: ’I am busy with matters of consequence!’ And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man– he is a mushroom!”
How many people like this do you know? Well I was like that myself, you sometimes, keep working hard, morning, noon, night, come home late and happy that you did a lot of work, but is that life? People sometimes say stop wasting your time chatting or fooling around, and do some useful work, but I now come to think of it… the time you “waste” is the time you spend making friends, discovering and so on, so hey can you say it’s a waste of time.

Some more food for thought…
“And what good does it do you to own the stars?”
“It does me the good of making me rich.”
“And what good does it do you to be rich?”
“It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are ever discovered.”
“How is it possible for one to own the stars?”
“To whom do they belong?” the businessman retorted, peevishly.
“I don’t know. To nobody.”
“Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it.”
“Is that all that is necessary?”
“Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours.
When you discover an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else, you take out a patent on it: it is yours. So with me:
I own the stars, because nobody else before me ever thought of owning them.”
“Yes, that is true,” said the little prince. “And what do you do with them?”
“I administer them,” replied the businessman. “I count them and recount them. It is difficult. But I am a man who is naturally interested in matters of
consequence.”

It ended with some lovely lines, which I thought how romantic…when the 2 friends part…
"All men have the stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You– you alone– will have the stars as no one else has them–”
“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing.
And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night. . . you– only you– will have stars that can laugh!”

Loneliness...

Since the day I came here, I kept thinking of Switzerland as the fairy tale country... But today I realised that everyones lives aren't always fairy tales here either.

Just this morning, while waiting for a bus I met this old gent (must have been around 80 years old), I smiled, and he started to talk to me, saying Bonjour and Ca Va, I said Oui Ca Va and he asked me about where I was going, I told him where, and then he asked me if I would like to have a coffee in a near by cafe with him, which took me by surprise, and I said 'no thank you' partly worried about missing my bus. Imagine how lonely he must have been to invite a perfect stranger, less than half his age, who could barely speak his language (I asked if he spoke English and he said no, so i continued the conversation in broken French) for a coffee. Later I wondered what if I just had the coffee with him and got a few mins late, I;m sure that would have brightened his day...but then I didn;t, and he thanked me for the chat and went on his way.

I guess one difference in our cultures is that the old are usually well respected and cared for by their children, but here most are living alone with their dogs to keep them company. As they say 'No man was built as an island to wonder through life alone'. It must be difficult to live alone specially after retirement, when you don;t meet many people, just living from one day to the next, knowing that the best days of your life are gone. I guess loneliness might be one of the sadest feelings, even poverty might sometimes be better, than feeling alone and unloved.

Later I was wondering what his story was, maybe I would have found out, had i joined the coffee...Maybe next time...