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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?
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chi stabilisce il sapere del calabrone,chi ci da la certezza di quanto viene affermato.Penso lo stesso valga per ognuno di noi, quando veniamo fermati da giudizi che volgono a fermare il nostro crescere e sapere.Siamo sempre noi a determinare i limiti per noi e chi, quanto ci circonda.
Is it funny how the younger you are the amount of limitations you aren’t aware of.
It seems like everyday there will be a limitation placed upon you by someone. I am sure that we hear more limitations during our normal everyday existence that we hear positive affirmations.
Imagine the difference if this was to be reversed!!!
In my everyday job, a Melbourne lawyer, we are constantly surrounded by negativity and attempting to portray things and situations in a negative light. That unfortunately is our industry.
los humanos, nacemos con muchas facultades congnitivas, pero al hechar raices, nuestra sociedades y naturaleza la neutralizan con el tiempo, esto no sucede con otros seres en la naturaleza, ellos, sus codigos son muy sencilos, son vivir a su forma y condiciones, y no tienen otras formas al cambios, su existencia esta programada de una generacion a otra por el factor de la evolucion, es posible que cada tiempo hay un cambio generado por el entorno y el abejorro lo sufrio, vuela por que hubo una oportunidad de cambio a sus condiciones, por ello es excepcionar lo que hace, sus condiciones fisicas cambiaron para mejorar y hasta la fecha les ha sido beneficioso.
por ello vuelan, en cambio nosotros no aferramos a concepto e ideas que nos atan a la tierra, y nuestro espirito no vuela, aunque las condiciones indiquen lo contrario, por ello, al nacer y morir mutamos a unas condiciones mejores a las anteriores.
While the question is valid, how many times be decide beforehand that something is impossible, ahh!1 how would one know unless one gives a try, allow me to fly off on an important tangent regarding your mathematician freind.
he said “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.” Sir M must have been taking a dig at technical jargon; otherwise even he would have surely known thata humble ( not arrogant ) scientific conclusion would point towards INADEQUACY OF THE LAWS IN QUESTION.
To get the honey.
I´m in confusion. Twelve years I had this girl in mind. She´s a flirt of holydays 1998. She was very pretty, nice and laughed with me. I loved her.
Eleven years later I saw a video from theatre group on youtube. I made videos on youtube with my guitar at the same time she does. Now twelve years later I was in contact with her on skype. The first she said: your words are very strange and many years have passed, many things have changed.
She told me she´s married.
But I had this feelings, I only can do something wrong, when she came online on 25/5/2010 in the Morning. Then I wrote: Lars: hobbys: …, further hobbys: …! She didn´t liked that and went offline.
So.
I feel stupid, because I always hoped. But how can it work together. She´s in Italy, I´m in Germany. I think that the distance made all so difficult.
I´m going on. There´s no comeback possible. Oh nevermore.
Don´t give up on it. If it is meant to be it will happen. I fell in love with a woman 3 years ago as she started to work at my workplace. She is married with 3 kids but that didnt stop me from finally telling her about my feelings after 3 years and she told me that she felt the same. As the quote says: The brick walls are not there to keep you out. The brick walls are there to show how bad you want something!
Yeah, somebody told me once–Is life! everything can happens! even if u dont want or u think that it cant!
So far, was right…
U can think that maybe u cant but if u belive that u are able to fly,u will do it!!! like a bumblebee, no matter the technicalities
… Although is easier speak about than do it, but when ur feelings are strong enough and support ur belives,be sure that ur going to fly..
the bee, is a woman
with all possibilities before her
while she lays sleeping;
Depending upon the whims
or the judgement of divine
she either becomes a queen and wingless
or a duchess of the air and hive.
And we do not know the ways or the whys
she knows all she knows
within the confines of her world
but she works until work
no more will suit her;
giving birth to a coloney
or flying in the face of all things
grim,
then let the world fall away
to the cold outside fray
ending the journey
as so many have before.
Sp why does a bee fly?
why do any of us do what we do?
In finding the answer to the second
perhaps the first will more easily
be revealed and understood.
Coz, that is was it is supposed to do and even if it wants to walk or run, it can never be able to do that. So, don’t waste your energy in doing foolish things. Think before you act.
the bumblebee flies because he can
not because he should
not because others said he could
It all depends on our attitude plus a bit of luck too
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
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
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.
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!…..
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!
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.
I agree!!!
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
você tem a RESPONSABILIDADE de escrever só o que ajuda o leitor.
seja SÉRIO.
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!
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.
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!
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!
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?
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.
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.
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 ?
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).
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 !!
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
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?
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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