An uplifting news item, poem, thought or quotation each day.
Archive of past entries

15 May 2005

Buddhists seek a quenching of the ego's flame. Hindus speak of ending the cycles of birth and death in which we work out our karma. To me, enlightenment is of this world, and fully integrated with a life of good works. I imagine being passionately engaged in a worldwide quest for cooperation, resolution of conflict, and amelioration of suffering; at the same time there is no need to take credit or seek acclaim. No despair attends the inevitable setbacks, no triumphalism when enemies are vanquished. I shall be not the protagonist but the witness, observing the self who is engaged in these works.

-Josh Mitteldorf

14 May 2005

"The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work."

- Agha Hasan Abedi, born this day in 1922

Abedi was both a Pakistani banker and Sufi mystic, "revered as a man with a quixotic mission to make the profits of banking work for the world’s poor."

13 May 2005


"Paul Cézanne strongly believed that he was discovering and painting a new form of space which would radically influence the future of art, yet he was at the same time filled with painful and ever-present doubts. The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt."

- Rollo May, The Courage to Create

12 May 2005

Biologists seeking to understand the aging process are a step closer to creating drugs that can extend our healthy life span.

Our cells’ energy factories, called mitochondria, are constantly creating peroxide as a biproduct. Peroxide not only wreaks havoc on the delicate chemistry of the cell; in excess quantity it is actually a signal that can cause cells to destroy themselves.

An enzyme called catalase is able to quench peroxide and turn it back into water. Peter Rabinovitch of the University of Washington reports he has genetically engineered mice to live 15% longer simply by giving their mitochondria more catalase.

This only works when genes in the mice can be manipulated while they are still embryos. The next step is to find ways to accomplish the same thing with catalase-containing medicines administered orally.

Science News article

11 May 2005

He who bends to himself a Joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

~ William Blake, Gnomic Verses

10 May 2005

Better to trust too much and suffer myself sometimes to be cheated 
than risk souring the milk that I share with the poison of cynicism.

-Josh Mitteldorf, born this day in 1949

9 May 2005

"What is genius?- It is the power to be a child again at will"

-James M Barrie, born this day in 1860