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Dear readers,
I’m back from Milan and on Thursday I had a conference at the Teatro Dal Verme with the mathematician Michael Atiyah. This very important matematician made a very interesting speech in which he mentions the bumblebee. Indeed, according to the laws of aerodynamics and of physics, the bumbleblee should not fly. Yet, as Sir Michael Atyiah said : “the bumblebee flies because it doesn’t know about the technicalities of aerodynamics.”
That leads us to the question of the week:
How many things we don’t do in life because we think beforehand that they are impossible? Like everybody says that the bulblebee is incapable of flying?
It all depends on our attitude plus a bit of luck too
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The bumblebee flies because knows how to do that, loves doing that and listens to no one who says the opposite. Flying is in its nature, it doesn’t pretend to be something else than it is already!
I have seen and talked to people who were in wheelchairs and were more joyful and wise than more with two healthy legs I’ve ever seen, so it is possible. I have seen and talked to some poor people, even beggars but who were more dignified, humble and spiritual than many others who benefited of better conditions in life. So it is possible!
I have seen and talked to God and never ever believed before that it would be possible in this life. But it is possible, everything is possible as long as you allow impossibility to become possibility.
In fact, there are more chances for a good thing to happen than not to happen.
Love, belief, joy, enlightment are all possible blessings in one’s life as long as we manifest the pure desire to evolve! :-)
Everyday I try to have an introspection and try to switch on the “positive” button, to put an emphasis only on good parts of everything and most of the time I feel like flying. Who says that it is not possible to enjoy life, to enjoy God’s blessing most of the time? And who says that it is not possible, they have their way, I have mine. It is a matter of choice after all.
The bumblebee flies anyway, why shouldn’t we do that too, even if it is only in the interior?
Infinite, divine, unconditional love makes everything possible and where there is no apparent possibility it is created one sooner or later! ;-)
All my appreciation and love,
Carmen Larisa
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Good Day!
I am an avid reader of paulo coelho’s book.I am Neil Rusia from the Philippines.The first book I’ve read was the Eleven Minutes and recently, I just finished reading Brida.You are really a genius Paulo.We do not have a bookstore here where we can buy and read your books, so I just borrow books bought by some of my classmates and schoolmates.You are really God’s instrument.You really inspired me.You are amazing.Hoping that you read this comment.I’m looking forward to read your other books.God Bless Paulo.
Neil Rusia
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What does my last post have to do with the “Bumblebee”? Quote “by allowing my child the freedom to grow” Unquote. I’m convinced that it is purely the freedom which allows something to transpire which is, according to man, seemingly impossible or unattainable. The Bumblebee flies because it was blessed with the freedom to do what it wants.
Love & Freedom, Paul
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I was considering the same type of question yesterday before I came today to your blog. My one-and-a-half year ambiguous, unidentified relationship with someone far away in the other part of the world, has just ended a few days ago, when I was becoming a reality, was going to be there (though for a short period). There could be thousand reasons for that.. It is perhaps because he is no longer in love, or he simply thinks it is impossible for us, thus, he, according to his wording, is fear of ‘having the same farewell scene as last time’.
I will never be able to find from him the very real reason(s).
However, I told him, through an indirect story of myself, which has nothing to do with our relationship, that one has to take the risk sometimes to get what one really wants, no matter how impossible it seems. Those all-time play safe wouldn’t even have a chance, while those following their hearts get the 50-50% one. Of course, it is not all the time that people will get what they want, but if everybody on this planet are so less-imaginative and do the same as what the others have been doing, we wouldn’t have an airplane to take today.. and someone already stepped on the moon.
he was telling me that I was right…
I have no idea whether he would link this conversation to the way our relationship could be, nor why do I post in your blog.
Just to thank you for all your books. I am now reading again, for how many times I don’t remember, o zahir.
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a response to the bumblebee…. my bumblebee has been hiding under the layers of my past only to be encouraged to fly by You today! and she is learning how to fly…
“The Encounter”
The wind catches up with her
Lifting her hair to the sky
As she stands by the edge of the cliff
Waiting on a word from God!
She opens her eyes to see the sunset of her dream hiding away
She turns around with dissappoinment looking into the next day
She walks down the hill with an empty mind
To see infront a small being staring right into her eyes
She didn’t know what it was
It could have been a rabbit
It could have been a fox
For all she know she saw Himself and that was enough!…..
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thank you Paulo Pear-Brownlow for the story. i was just working and need a break, and your last 3 sentences ring true for me too. and thank you Paulo very much for this website and for your interpretation of song. love.
Energize!
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Dear Paula P B, thank you for your wonderful story. I share the same goal as your father did, and I am convinced that through love, subtle guidance and by allowing my child the freedom to grow, that I have succeeded in achieving just that. I have no expectations of her, but if I did have, she has have exceeded them all ;) A major part of (if not all) my destiny is to see to it that my child has all the necessary preparation she needs to make the most of her life in this world. I live for & would die for her if necessary, and this gives me such a warm comfortable feeling in my heart. I think it is important that we reach our goal with no regrets… not having missed a single opportunity to make a difference.
Love & humility to all parents, Paul
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The bumblebee flies because it believes it can. This reminds human beings that thoughts create experience. Regardless what people tell you is imminent, possible or impossible, you have the will and power to come to your own conclusions.
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Desculpe…
Mas não vou responder sobre o tópico acima e sim sobre uma parte do Livro O Mago que acabei de ler…diante de toda sua história uma coisa que você fez quando criança ficou muito fixa em meus pensamentos…
Foi a história de ser o último a pular do trampolim…para mim ali você começou sua jormada, pois superou o MEDO DE TER MEDO…que ao meu ver é o pior dos Medos…
Ps.: Dúvido que seja vc que leia este blog…rs devem ser seus acessores, mas se forem repsassem se puder para o Paulo esta obeservação.
beijo
Andrea
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você tem a RESPONSABILIDADE de escrever só o que ajuda o leitor.
seja SÉRIO.
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My comment earlier was of course supposed to read “…the bumble bee DOES fly…” - a slip.
Paula Pear-Brownlow, thank you for sharing the touching story of your son Erich — amazing!
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I discovered your novel, The Alchemist, a book I read a week before I gave a eulogy for my mother-in-law, Marge, from my first marriage. Her son, my husband Phil, died in an auto accident in 1977. I read The Alchemist on June 15, 2008. The Alchemist seemed to draw me to it, as if my husband Phil, and Marge, too, intended for me to read it and use it to share in my eulogy with family members and friends and as a message to me, as well, to remember and not give up my dreams. A psychologist and drug counselor, my husband Phil was also a follower of Carlos Castaneda. That you posted Carlos Castaneda’s reflections the day before my mother-in-law died, she died on May 29 and was in delusions on May 28, seemed surreal. I discovered your Warrior of Light website only by accident, and used the Castaneda reflections you posted in my eulogy for family members and friends. My mother-in-law fought her last battle with a rare form of breast cancer that was discovered inadvertently by a visiting doctor in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Marge decided to undergo chemotherapy at 83, even though she knew this would only give her a few months more to live. Her message to all of us, as would be a message Phil would also want to tell us, was to fight the good fight as if every fight is your last, that it is not whether you win or lose but that you fight the fight that matters. A service was held for Marge in Los Alamos and again on June 20 in Bakersfield, California, for friends and family in California. Her ashes were buried in the grave of my husband Phil.
“…the bumblebee flies because it does not know about the technicalities of aerodynamics.” I married again, and gave birth to my son Erich in 1984. Erich would have an adverse reaction to the pertussis shot shortly after birth. I was told by his neurologist from UCLA that my son would be a vegetable and would need to be institutionalized. I did not see what the CAT and, new for the time, MRI scans and neurologist saw, nor did I understand these scans, though I decided I needed to study math, too, my goal to eventually understand the electrical activity of the human brain, my intent to challenge the neurologist from UCLA who told me “a little knowledge is dangerous, Mrs. Brownlow.” The neurologist from UCLA later changed his mind, but at the time he chastised me for pursuing alternatives to his institutionalization for my son. After completing 60 semester hours in math, I never did master an understanding of the electrical activity of the brain, but enough is enough. This training became useful for me in other ways. As for my son, fortunately for me, at the time my son was diagnosed as a vegetable, my father was very wise and brilliant, he wrote nationally validated reading and math programs,proved IQ is dynamic and not static in the early 1970s, was an educator who connected me to many people with alternative approaches to learning, including Mary Meeker of the SOI Institute, a Godsend who also agreed with my father. My father told me that neurologists just give you information, you take the information for what it is, information, and move on from there. I did lots of things with my son when he was young, whether this mattered or not I do not know. Erich would go on to play football in high school, was not the best player, but he was noted for being the most determined player, a “killer” on the field, and with his team went on to get two CIF rings, he ran track, did boxing in college, always scored highest on state tests, was in honor’s classes in high school, but he was an A/B student, not really trying to be the best. He wrote stories when he was in elementary school. One of these stories was about me, a struggling math student trying to understand but never quite understanding, yet trying. What a gift from a son!! :) He argued so much with his religion teachers at his Catholic schools that his senior year, I paid the non-Catholic tuition so that he would just get thru his high school his last year and not be required to go to mass and take communion. Erich made clear to me that he loved the people but did not agree with the Catholic faith, even though he was baptised Catholic. To make a long story short, my son graduated this past December, 2007, from GA Tech with honors in discrete math. Like his wise grandfather before him, my son is left handed and gifted, Erich is gifted in both literature and in math. Erich is now enrolled in a master’s program in applied statistics. My father, his grandfather, would be proud of him because my father found statistics to be very hard but worthy of respect. My dad was a grad of NYU and an artist, photographer and journalist on the side, while he made a living for his family as an educator. He was also a WWII Disabled Vet who struggled his whole life but made very significant contributions in his lifetime. His goal was to make his children better than he was. I can’t say that I met up to my father’s expectations, but his grandchildren, my children Suzanne and Erich and my nieces and nephews, have made up for the lacking in my father’s hopes for his own children.
As for me, I am inspired by the novel The Alchemist and believe that I have been diverted from my own goals and dreams along the way for a purpose I will discover later. I am now on a path to re-discover what was my original dream? Time will tell. Thank you so much for your novel and this website.
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The reason the bumble bee doesn’t fly is his innocence, not ignorance. He does not know science or regulations set up by the society. He lives his life to the full, enjoys it and has a blast. The bumble bee is like a child, who faces life with an open heart and open eyes. Why do we lose the innocence of just living, enjoying life and taking it as an adventure? Our upbringing, the environment, rules and regulations & norms given to us by those around us and the society at large: all these set up limits for us in our hearts and minds. Any spiritual or religious discovery or bliss is a result of letting go of those limitations and daring to live, breathe, experience and try our limits; or rather, to abandon them. We are to thrust ourselves to the experience called life with reckless abandon, to be open to whatever comes our way and then enjoy the freedom. Love happens when we are open. Miracles and discoveries are there for the taking. Happiness is there. We walk on waters and we fly.
Dear Author, thank you for this interesting and enlightening forum to discuss matters that matter!
I just recently discovered these pages — great place to exchange views! Everyone, enjoy your day!
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We are constraint to think so … Not everyone can dare to think beyond because not everyone has the mind for it , so the jumps we make against all odds are not possible all the time.Why ? Because instead of thinking beyond we can’t do we simply refuse to do … and lose time as being ordinary and with the fear to try … We are submissive to the rest and get the same mentality , we are afraid to think differently because we may be mocked , we don’t dare to dream or we don’t have the time … in this fast paced world we live in dreaming is a thing we do when we sleep.We can’t be blamed for not succeding but mostly for agreeing with the fact that we can’t do more … Trying , hoping , wishing , daring … that breaks all the laws of phisics or science … mind over matter!
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Hello Mr. Coelho,
Do bumblebees fly intuitively? They can fly and don’t care why they can, they just enjoy flying and use it in their advantage? We should follow their example. Every day we give up dreams because they don’t have an logical explanation or they are too unreal, or we restrain us of talking with others, even family or close friends, because what we have to say may not have a scientific explanation or a clear logic, or because we can’t anticipate what others will think about, and we are afraid of repeating evident facts and things, be ridiculized or judged. Is the obsession of logic, reason and significance preventing some or many of us to enjoy our freedom, experience life with intensity?
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I have taken the better part of this week to really think about this. It is a big issue with me and I seemed to have been confronted with it a lot over the past few weeks.
Seems everywhere I turn I am told something can not be done, something can not be fixed, and of course the age old excuse that it is the way it has always been done.
I have a difficult time with this because it seems so many people have just bought into this. And no matter what you say, what you do, or what you can show them, there is just no convincing them that things can change.
Some people fear change, so they cling to what is going on because it gives them comfort. Most, don’t want to beleive something can be done becuase they were unable to do it, and thus don’t want to see someone else do it as well.
However, personally I have seen to much accomplished over the years to beleive that much of anything can not be done. We just need people willing to do it.
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dos finales diferentes:
Mirando a la cuchara, el joven se dio cuenta de que las había derramado.
-Pues este es el único consejo que puedo darte – dijo el más Sabio de los Sabios-. El secreto de la felicidad está en saber mirar todas las maravillas del mundo, sin olvidarse nunca de las dos gotas de aceite de la cucharilla.
/
Mirando a la cuchara, el joven se dio cuenta de que las había derramado y se mostró preocupado. Las gotas de aceite ya no estaban en la cuchara y habían manchado su ropa. Rápidamente pidió disculpas al maestro y pidió una nueva oportunidad.
-Este es el único consejo que puedo darte – dijo el más Sabio de los Sabios-. El secreto de la felicidad está en que andes por el mundo sin que te importe lo que le pase a dos estúpidas gotas de aceite.
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Mr.Coelho, let us to try answer this Q other way.
B’coz I think there is others technicalities theories which we don’t discovered yet.
what do toy think ?
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hmm… i seldom think about things i can’t do. if i think about it i usually try to do it or else not think about it at all (or for the time being).
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How many things we don’t do in life because we think beforehand that they are impossible?”"
mmmmmmmmm
if you ask “How many things we do in life that they are not impossible??
it will be easyer..
So the thing what i say impossible to do is:
To be good person
because i don’t believe i am
a good one :(
***
i believe inside of me i can change the world
but in the same time i believe i can’t change it
by using the easier way
every thing in this world is hard and impossible .
some times even dreams is impossible..
what a world !!
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Hi every body ,
I just wanted to say that one’s imagination is the only boundry, to me, age, colour, gender, disabilities and all such stuff is just a thing for us to make ourselves feel better after failure.
When you try harder next time ,you can always overcome your biggest incapabilities, to achive what ever you desire.Sadly , the only thing that keeps us away from this is our impatient behaviour and sometimes ,the conventional way of thinking.
Thanks!
Hamza Iqbal, 13
Pakistan
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And so we live by and with the myths
which nourishes our souls.
“Impossible” is only something which
takes a bit longer time to make possible.
Humans couldn’t fly,
they do now.
The moon was a place for fantastic stories
by Jules Verne - we have walked there now.
Electricity was an unknown power… until some
people started making experiements. Teylers
museum in Haarlem (NL) have a nice collection
from the childhood of electrical engineering.
and soon there will be a movie made
by several readers of a book…
“Science” and visions go hand in hand,
how could there ever be any research made
if the researcher isn’t curious?
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Obstacles crumble in the shadow of death.
No matter what path I take, I will always end up at the same event.
Death allows you to make mistakes without paying for them forever.
That is why I do what I please.
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Hi I don’t think this is the right place but is it all true ?Your writing leaves me spell bound:)Btu I want to know what is fictiona nd what is not…confused!
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. . . there is always a scientific theory for everything. . . (sometiems these theories evolve, sometimes they are abandoned, but there is always a theory)
however for me the real mystery of the bumblebee is why he is so perfect (like all creatures of this world). He is so wonderful to watch and gives me such joy when he visits my garden. I love their furry coats, their stocky bodies and their buzz buzzing, they are so dedicated to their job and enjoy the rewards of their collecting pollen by drinking sweet nectar.
Pure perfection, in a furry coat.
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I do not care for the scientific explanations recently found out about how the bumblebee flies or if they are true. I do care however that the idea behind Paulo’s statement is that fear and limiting thoughts need to be banished if you are to do anything worthwile in your life.
I forgot how to dream for some time thinking it was better to be cynical and ‘realistic’-but if that means banishing all notions of falling in love, using the universe to attract goodness into my life, if that means all humans are evil and that nothing good exists in this world-then I’d rather not be realistic.
I’d much rather live instead of exist chase my dreams with passion and great abandon, leave ego aside and take the proverbial leap into the unknown…because when I lie on my deathbed I am not going to care whether or not the mathematician was correct….I’m going to remember that everything I ever wanted to do..I did, I ceased to exist and I started to live.
“Dream big and dare to fail”
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uhhhh well, actually wikipedia has a scientific explanation on how the Bumblebee flies!
it seems that the knowledge available then could not explain the flight, but scientists working backwards have actually found out!
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