This space is for you to share your ideas on anything that you consider relevant today.
You can publish here excerpts from your blogs or news and articles in general that you think make a difference to the world today. Try to make a bit of editing on what you post here – try to highlight passages with copy-paste, rather than simply giving links.
Please keep in mind that this blog is currently viewed by 230.000 unique visitors a month, and chances are that many of them are going to read your thoughts.
{ 66 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
… As I tread along the path halfway,
I do wonder if my heart shall cure or never it may.
But before dusk i hope to find a mead,
Where I can rest until again the sun leads…..
Never lose hope..
Wishing that everybody finds that his true wishes in life come true..
This is an essay I wrote for my english class about Veils and its meaning. It just my opinion:
HIDDEN FACES, HIDDEN THINGS
Making a web search for definitions of the word Veil, I found that in a general way a veil is a sing, a symbol… an article of clothing, worn almost exclusively by women, that is intended to cover some part of the head or face. As a religious item a veil is a sing that intend to show honor to an object or space. But, as a sing or a symbol, its meaning goes beyond. Covering faces with a piece of clothes, for me it’s a sing of hidden things, maybe feelings or beliefs. Perhaps, it is a way for not to show people the person you really are.
In Muslims countries, women are forced by religion and culture to wear a veil. But, the question is: Why only women must wear it? Why they are punished and discredited if they don’t follow this prescription? In these countries, a veil has become in a symbol of the women’s lack of education and submissiveness. It’s the mark of the victims who don’t even have the right to appear in the figures or statistics. The veil they wear and the rules it supposed to them has ruined their lives, has turned them into invisible people, as if this should happen in this century.
In the article, the author says “Those who wear the veil deliberately set themselves apart”. She is talking about a group of woman who had made the choice of wearing a veil as a voluntary sing of their religion, their faith, their way of life and their roots, in my point of view. However the author’s view is different because she thinks the veil is a sing of intimidation and provocation. In her words “they are being immodest and invasive”. I think this is a very judgmental, negative, condemnatory and extreme appreciation. Maybe these literate and independent women want to give to the veil another meaning. Perhaps they want to use the veil as a sing of their own choices not the imposed ones. They want to think about the veil as an allied not as an enemy in the fight against the preservation of the human’s and women’s rights.
I’m sure that countries like France, one of the most out loud opponent of this kind of insignias, are right when they say they don’t want marks of separations in their societies and inequality between men and women. They want to preserve the fundamentals of modern civil society. As countries, they can use the law to exercise sovereignty and autonomy. I agree with that too. But, what’s the limit between a person’s right to exercise his religion and a country’s sovereignty?. I think it’s not that simple but if you live in somebody else’s country you have to follow the letter of the law. However, this kind of so extreme judgement, like the author’s, shouldn’t be made, not at all.
HEIDY GUERRERO FONTALVO
I think we have to stop being apathetic. We have to stop relying and assuming the government, or some one else will do something. If you want something to change. Take a step – do something.
From the minute we are conceived we have an impact on this world through our parents. After we are born our impact becomes either negative or positive. We have a choice as to the type of impact we have. Lets make it a positive one.
I think we can all learn something from what you do, not just from your books, but from what you do with this blog – you give. You give food for thought, you give people an opportunity to have a voice, you give people opportunity to turn negative into positive, you give love.
Thank you Paulo.
Marie christine , Marie-Christine
merveilleux !! merveilleux !!
tout cela est si vrai
que j’ai envie de vous embrasser
tant de réjouissance pour moi de voir tout cela sur ce blog
j’avais tant attendu , mais aujourd’hui je ne regrette pas d’avoir patienter , pour remplir mes yeux de bonheur , et aussi mon âme
merci , merci à tous
WONDERFULL!! WONDERFULL !!
All this is so true
That I want to kiss you
So much rejoicing for me to see all this on this blog
I had long-awaited, but today I do not regret having to wait, to fill my eyes of happiness, and also my soul
Thank you, thanks to all
On russian Cristmas, on 7. janary, Europe is frosing. Serbia, on her Cristmas, too. Bicose of Ukraine.
Material interess or morality, it is the question now. Choice, again.
Oh, my Zaratustra…
hello!
i want to post here the 8 principles i found to be the most useful for a happier life.A good friend of mine showed them at a conference and i am still grateful she did.They are called “The 8 Irresistible Principles of Fun”(these are the links you can find the video:http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=37339314220&oid=34832314653 or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB43N0v7Eh4 ):
1.Get focused. Stop hiding who you really are.take time to figure out what makes up your DNA.When it comes down to it,what do YOU stand for? “Always be a first-rate version of yourself,instead of being a second rate version of someone else”J.Garland
2.Start being intensely selfish.Get hungry for the things that are truly important to you.Think of the people you respect and love, the moments you relish,the impact you want to have,the legacy you want to leave.Don’t waste your time on anything else.
3.Be creative! Stop following the rules.With the exception of gravity,all the rules are negotiable,someone just makes them up. “If you obey all the rules,you will miss out on a lot of fun” K.Hepburn
4.Be Creative! Start scaring yourself. Explore your edges,dip your toe in the bold,the outrageous,and the unthinkable.Seek out and have adventures.
5.Use your wisdom.Stop taking all so damn seriously.In this moment,is it a life or death decision?In 10 years,will you remember what you were fretting about? In 100 years,will anyone care?So lighten up,this too will pass.” Don’t take life too seriously.You won’t get out of it alive” E.Hubbard.
6.Use your wisdom. Start getting rid of the crap.Think of all the stuff that’s weighting you down and getting in the way.Not just the things,the habits,the people,the memories,the attitudes.Get rid of that clutter. “Knowledge is the process of piling up facts.Wisdom lies in their simplification.”M.L.King.
7.Take action. Stop being busy. Being busy is seductive just because you are going flat out.Doesn’t mean you are on the right track.If it’s the wrong hole,stop digging. “We are lost,but we are making good time” Y.Berra
8.Take action. Start something.Don’t wait any longer for permission to do what you want to do.There are always reasons to procrastinate just a bit longer. Enough! Just start! “When all is said and done,there is a lot more said then done”L.Holtz.
These is just a relative transcript of the video. There are a lot more good things in the video,so you just have to watch it. Enjoy!
Source: http://www.roxanap.blogspot.com
My dear Paulo Coelho, thank you for … dreaming and putting your dreams into action. This ‘place’ here, you have just created, is the heart of your Blog. Every one’s heart beating with the same rhythm, LOVE. This is the … Hive!
Thank you all, and Chryssa from Greece fot the beautiful poem.
Thank you Paul from Austria you made me smile again. Reading your post about not ‘allowing’ our men rule us, I remembered “Lysistrata” the famous, ancient comedy by Aristophanes.
Love,
Thelma
an excerpt from my blog…
And so it goes. We meet someone in life, someone we thought we’d spend the rest of our lives with, someone whom we trusted our deepest and darkest secrets with without the fear of being judged, someone who we thought would accept us for our being imperfect. Then all of a sudden they will break us into pieces, they will judge us for the secrets we have shared with them and use it against us. It’s funny how someone can love us because of a million things about us, then hate us just because of a single mistake. What’s worse is that these people won’t even bother to leave the pieces for us to put back together, we have to find them first before we can put it all back.
The great thing about this is that once we are whole again, we get to appreciate ourselves more. With the hardwork we put in finding and putting back the pieces together, the finished product is much more rewarding. And along the way of finding those shattered pieces of us, we meet someone, we experience something, and we continue to learn. When we’re finally whole again, we are still the same as what we were once before, only with a few added pieces to us.
It’s 5:30 in the morning and it’s pretty much an early day for blogging since everyone in the house woke up early and they attended their daily routines so as to leaving me all alone here until I go to school.. Nope it’s not creepy to be alone even when it’s still dawn..
Anyways I got these three amazing books gifted to me over Christmas but I jut got ‘em yesterday because they wanted it to be a surprise and obviously I was really surprised it took them long to give me but Yeah! I’m so loving the books.. I got THe Last Lecture, Icy Sparks and another title I forgot about Christmas..
I just can’t help fussing about The Last Lecture after I got home and really read it because it’s awesomely good. Damn! It is! It made me cry from the first pages until maybe the 20 plus succeeding parts.. It made my eyes chink at this very hour. It’s basically about a computer professor in the Carnegie Mellon University who’s dying because of pancreatic cancer and he’s only got three months to live when he wrote the book and gave his last lecture in that university.And he was leaving his adorable wife, three very young kids and the oldest is three, how crappy is that?.. Putting my feet in his shoes, It was really hard to absorb knowing that your kids would grow up and forevermore you’ll become estranged to them and how unfair is that to live a life and just be jolted with a border line which says you’re just until there whatever things you need to accomplish, it’s never going to happen because you’re almost the end. Very gripping. Not that I really felt every inch of what he’s trying and meaning to say because I had that fear of being there or maybe having cancer because at some point God just gave me something very humbling that slowed me down, totally, imagining that hello! Im just 16 years old and I’ve got too much to live for not that Im dying but because I was just unlucky like that professor in Carnegie Mellon who’s an injured lion and still wants to roar..=(
And by the swooshing of 2009, classes just started yesterday and we’ll be making a research paper and we’re pretty much free to choose any topic we wanted and I just realized that I’ve been really wanting to study, I mean deeply study about this thing although it could really be sensitive but I just think it’s a way of understanding people, love and life. So if I’m going to research on that, my topic would probably be The Effects of A Manly Presence in the Growth of a Child. I mean the difference when kids have a father and the others who don’t. I have this friend who didn’t experience to have that manly presence and there were times when she’s really hard to understand and her character was very puzzling and very hard to figure out. And I asked if it’s cool with her that that would be my study and she said Yes, apart from my resources would just be around the corner because of close friends. Not to mention that there are other factors why kids never experience to have a father just like that professor who’s about to die and literally just months ago he died and that story is non-fiction.
But I also have another topic that’s in my mind, the difference between kids who are raised by a hands-on-mom or a career-oriented mom, I mean which mom raises the better kid..
I’m still making up my mind which is which..
But I have to go since it’s almost 6..
Hay Paulo. Thanks to give us the chance to post my personal writings. I like to write very much. Many of my writings are poems, some are short stories for adult n children, n others are about interesting issue of children, specially in psychological point of view (for I’m a child psychologist).
Here are a poem that recently I made.
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time
I had a place that I called home
It filled with people I knew
People that had same interest as I
Its the place where my soul grew
The place to share with
The place of love
As I grew
I learn that I have many homes of interests
That made me realize that the world is larger than I had been imagined before
As I grew
I learn to see things differently as the people, once I called my family
I learn to see things differently
I learn to set priorities
Learn to let go
Learn to see&accept that some stays
some must go
As I grew
I learn to see things in many aspects
through different point of view
As I grew
I have different opinions about many things
Things that I once loved n be my most of all above anything
became the last priority of life
I learn to put many things that once I adored so much
Learn to live realistically
Cos life change
That’s the only thing constant in life
Change
There will another ‘Once upon a time…’ in the future
When I’ll see over my shoulder
n maybe give a big grin
or teared apart
I dont know yet
But
I learn
My “Once upon a time…”
Has mold me into who I am now
A question I have asked so
Many times…
What is “Peace”?
And I get the same answers…
Absence of war, lack of violence
Not fearing for your safety,
And not just because you survived this time
you are lucky.
Peace is something we all want,
But we are not sure what it means…
We all try to define it, but it lies
somewhere in between.
Peace of mind, Peace of heart…
Or just the absence of the fear
That is threatening to tear you apart.
A word everyone is demanding,
But no one knows how to achieve it.
May it be through protests, riots or war.
But is that really what we are looking for?
I dare to say no.
———————————————————-
For more, go to walaahamdan.wordpress.com
a very simple thought, early that morning…
as i´m watching some clowds passing by, while having breakfast, i just thought – those clowds are not just part of the wind, they ARE the wind. so if life is the wind, i´d like to be the clowd.
WOW!!! GREAT IDEA I’M LOVING IT. AWESOME ;)
Thank you for offering this space Paulo!
Hello Everyone,
Please join the Facebook Event: ‘The Daily Peace Ripple’ being hosted by ‘The Happiest Day of Your Life’ group at:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=113031875570
Would you like to participate in an effort to raise the consciousness of our planet?
We have heard the saying that “world peace begins with inner peace”. Would you like to apply this knowledge in your daily life, along with thousands of others around the world?
There is now scientific evidence that supports the theory that the square root of 1% of a population has an effect on the consciousness of the whole. The square root of 1% of the population of the world is 8,000 people.
This is an invitation to consciously MAKE YOURSELF PEACEFUL FOR 3 – 5 MINUTES EVERYDAY at precisely 3:00 pm and/or 9:00 pm GMT. The intention is that before April 6th 2009 (three months from today) a minimum of 8,000 people will be a part of the “Daily Peace Ripple” at exactly the same time.
Please sign up ONLY if you really intend to participate, NOT just because you like the idea. Take the pledge seriously and honestly try to do it daily. It might also help to make a note in your dairy or set an alarm in your watch or phone that reminds you to be peaceful at these times.
How to be peaceful? You can use a gentle smile, silent prayer, breath meditation, feelings of love and gratitude, a guided meditation, uplifting music or any other process that works to calm and center yourself.
Each of us is like a living cell of our living Mother Planet. As we become peaceful, the world also becomes peaceful.
Please invite your friends to attend this worthy cause!
Convert Daily Peace Ripple Time # 1 (3:00pm GMT) to your local time here:
http://www.snipurl.com/dailyripple1
Convert Daily Peace Ripple Time # 2 (9:00pm GMT) to your time zone here:
http://www.snipurl.com/dailyripple2
“Daily Peace Ripple” Meditation (6 mins):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIvMgbXooVg
A compelling video on the Science of Miracles (9 mins):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw_mDZiJQlI
Summary of Research on Square Root of One Percent:
http://www.dubrovnik-peace-project.cro.net/sci/maharishi_effect.htm
The ONLY way to reach 8,000 people is if YOU take a few minutes to
INVITE ALL YOUR FRIENDS:
http://www.facebook.com/editevent.php?guests&eid=113031875570
Peace,
Administrator
‘The Happiest Day of Your Life’
Thank you, Paulo.
Whenever there has been total chaos I have been drawn there. As if led on a string that’s been pulled in. The last time was right after 9/11, I remember. Something leading one to the worn stone, the serenity, the “removed from this world” pace at the Prince of Wales (POWales) Museum.
I take the local train, second class. The girl sitting by has a letter from the Economic Offences Wing, someone has taken away their power of attorney and taken a loan on their flat. The girl sitting opposite commutes for an hour and half all 365 days, or something close to it- she’s a cook at four homes. Nothing like a train trip to shake me out of my ivory tower existence in a hurry.
I loiter. I am drawn, as I knew I’d be, to the Indian sculpture gallery, the displays from Taxila and Mirpur-khas in particular, mostly 2-5 C AD. I spend an hour there, easily. I find what I’m looking for.
Read more: http://austereseeker.blogspot.com
That’s a pleasure to write/respond here. Anyway, a small passage from my blog:
One’s prayer can never be answered with keeping the fear and surrounded by cruel thoughts – which are being ignored.
Pretending of being spiritual and praying for happiness; and at same time keeping oneself wrapped by greed, revenge, fear and evil wishes is the height of stupidity. Those people have hundred of reasons to say themselves that they are right, while they are not. And, in turn without knowing the reason they loose something of their own and get trapped in sorrow and unhappiness. The prayers went to evil when someone has desire to harm and disgrace anyone, just because they believe.
The big truth of universe is: You are what you wanted to be, you feared from love, you will be cursed, you hate life and life will hate you. And, you give love without fear, you will be loved back! You are the only reason where you are, what you are and what do you have!
Aamen!!
http://nourishpeace.blogspot.com/
← Previous Comments
{ 6 trackbacks }