Pewter's Sky, Martyr's Blue...

"Come quickly, I am tasting stars!"
— Dom Perignon (1638-1715), at the moment of his discovery of champagne

Stars fascinate me. They're the illusion of permanence, I think. They're either flaring up or snuffing out. But there after, I can pretend...that things last. I can pretend that life lasts longer than we think. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flash and fade. Morbid worlds collide and crumble into cold and dust. But I can pretend.

We live in a gravitational "froth" where gravity binds stars together to form galaxies, binds galaxies into local groups of galaxies, groups of galaxies into clusters, clusters into superclusters, and superclusters into "walls." Luckily for us, the galaxies, with their strong gravitational attraction, recycle the remants left over from stellar explosions. The number of stars in the universe boggles the mind. And the assemblage is equally staggering—black holes, red giants, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, Cepheid variables, neutron stars, pulsars...ad infinitum. Perhaps the laws work to make the universe as variegated as possible.

So who are we? Where do we come from? The question is not why we were flung at random between the profusion of matter and stars but whether we derive images powerful enough to deny our nothingness ?

God gave us darkness so we could see the stars. And without stars there would be no elements heavier than hydrogen and helium and life would never have evolved. There would be no planets, no microbes, no plants, no tigers, no humans. We watch stars explode at the end of their lives to wash the new elements far into space. Without these supernova explosions, there can be no seagull cries, computer chips, petaflops, Beethovens or even the tears of a little girl. There could be no Jesus to exhort us on the Mount. There would be no one to speak the words, "Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven." Without exploding stars, there would be a heaven but there would be no Earth.

In about five billion years, the hydrogen fuel in our Sun will be exhausted in its core and the Sun will begin to die and dramatically expand, becoming a red giant. At some point, our oceans will boil away. No one on Earth will be alive see a red glow filling most of the sky. In about seven billion years, the Sun's outer atmosphere may engulf the Earth. Due to atmospheric friction, in many scenarios the Earth will spiral into the sun and incinerate. All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius and the whole temple of man's achievement, must they be buried beneath this debris of a planet? Be the deathless boredom of the sidereal calm or the gory descent into chaos, no human will be left to regret a lost Sun. We will have offloaded our minds to super computers, left the solar system in a final exodus and sought salvation in the stars. Rationalists predict that religion would be the first thing to fall when humanity went to the stars and found no Gods. But they were never good at that game. They never even noticed that when we finally went out there every supernatural force known at the time went right with us...for they can't say whose God is stronger, your's or mine ?

Towards the end, life is possible, but not too easy. And in the end we may survive, bent and broken, a better species. Maybe we're making this thing called 'life' much more complicated than it really is.

Our preoccupation of staring up at the stars is old as the hills. It isn't only the beauty of the night sky that thrills. It's the sense that some of those points of light are the home stars of beings not so different from us, daily cares and all, who look across space with wonder, is there anyone there just as we do. Whether they like it or not, they would be downloading Pamela Anderson photos, conspiracy theories, eBay auctions, and things wild and weird. I like to imagine the faint possibility that supercivilizations are making contacts with us even as we speak. If there are superintelligent, technological races in our Galaxy, then their messengers maybe hibernating in our Solar System. But maybe, the surest sign there is intelligent life is they have not contacted us yet.

Three things fill me up with wonder and awe: the starry skies above me, the quintessence of nature around me and the moral law within me. It is while praying I experience my worst doubts about God and it is while looking at the stars I make the best leaps of faith. And I've always cried I'm not that wise as the day I was born.

I, Stardust.

The Lameness Of New Year Resolutions

On New Year’s Eve, many of us make (or consider making) a resolution to achieve a personal goal. This is your opportunity for a new start, you are once again ready to accept a new challenge and achieve something worthwhile. And resolutions fall into one of two things-you either want to start doing something new (exercise, diet, eat better, save money, travel more) or you want to stop doing something (smoking, drinking, watching too much TV, excessive shopping, blowing up debt). The majority of people make their resolutions at the last hour to midnight, often in response to “what's-your-resolution”? By the way, the other thing about resolutions is they do not need to be declared at the stroke of midnight, or on New Year's day. (I know that was bad but I had to put that in). But its customary to kick start the New Year with a lot of enthusiasm and energy to get your goals. Yet habits die hard and when it comes to human behavior, past performance is often the presage to future behavior. So after a while, the excitement goes away and not long after, you suddenly realize you have gone for the last couple of weeks without sticking to your resolution. Perhaps you stopped going to the gym to work out for a few days or you started smoking again or stopped your diet plan because of some stressful situation at work. Or if big, hairy goals are starting to freak you out, you may want to sit back and reassess some of your goals again…

Now I’m a madly optimistic person and I consider lack of motivation or commitment as lame excuses. I imagine goals or resolutions to be the ‘rocks in a pickle jar of gravel and sand’ experiment. If you fill in sand and gravel first, you can't fit all the rocks in the jar. There’s simply isn’t enough space. To fit all the big rocks into the jar, you have to put them in first. Then you can fill in between the rocks. Apply the famous 80/20 rule to your life. Simply put, the relationship between input and output is skewed. When applied to your work it means roughly 20 percent of your efforts translates to 80 percent of results. So once you let go of resolutions based on self chastisement or things you didn't want to do, work becomes play. And in my experience keeping the bar as low as possible is best when making any New Year resolution because unless you’re chagrined with your life, you’re not likely to take drastic steps to improve whatever situation you’re in. Again, the real gold is your experience, not in achieving goals. So quit making resolutions and rather be practical about choices by taking a harder look at your life.

Anthony Robbins says, "There are two things that motivate people toward success: inspiration and desperation." Robbins - a famous motivator and life coach - has struck on an interesting truth in this pithy statement: that there are two different kinds of motivation. There is "away from" motivation, and there is "toward" motivation. People who are "away from" motivated tend to be excellent problem solvers. They usually see the problems in things. They're motivated by the avoidance of unpleasant sensations like pain, stress, and anxiety. For example, to motivate themselves to get a rust patch on their car fixed, they wouldn't think about how great their car would look with a fresh coat of paint. They'd be motivated by how bad it would be if they let the rust spread. They're motivated by a desire to avoid certain things. People who are "toward" motivated are motivated by positive things, like pleasure, goals, and rewards. They tend to respond well to perks and incentives - for example, an office worker who's motivated by 'toward' results would do well in their job if their boss offered bonuses and rewards schemes. Knowing which kind of end result drives you is a BIG part of motivating yourself to achieving what you want and you're just as well off with either type of motivation. NLP practitioner Dr Zweig uses the example of stock forecaster to illustrate the success of an "away from" motivated person. Zweig's desire to not lose money and not "get hurt" by the stock exchange is what has prompted his legendary dynamic caution when managing funds - and is what has prompted his even more legendary multi-billion dollar fortune. Dr Zweig says that other "away from" motivated people need to be aware of 3 important things: That the further away you get from the "threat" that's motivating you, the more your motivation may diminish.

Okay, it's time to figure out how to use this knowledge to motivate yourself, in a way that you JUST CAN'T SAY NO TO, into getting what you really want. I want to get back to how you can overcome your natural discouragement ... your fear of bad things happening as a result of trying to achieve something. The trick to overcoming these discouragers? It's all in the DETAILS. Picture a drop-dead gorgeous woman. Visualize her. Notice how detailed your mental image of her is. This makes perfect sense when you think about it - your brain knows that you like the idea of this woman, so it tries to please you by supplying you with as much detail as possible. Next, I want you to visualize a woman who you find unattractive. Notice how much less detailed this mental image is. This is because the brain visualizes things that are unattractive to it as being very SMALL, DIM, DISTANT, and DULL. In contrast, the woman you found attractive was seen by your brain as being BIG, BRIGHT, DETAILED, and CLOSE UP to you. In other words, you can trick your brain into being attracted to an idea, simply by changing the way your brain looks at it! Your brain will naturally be drawn towards that which is close, detailed, and high-resolution and your motivation to achieve this result gets stronger.

Think while laying a rock wall, many small stones are needed to support the fewer big stones, to hold them in place. If you leave out the small stones, the big ones would have no support and will fall. Finishing touches are in the small details. And without details, perfection is not possible. You are expected to dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’. Paradoxically, paying too much attention to the small things lead to friction in relationships. So why not leave out the small things? Better, how to resolve this paradox? Easy…when it comes to yourself and your work, give attention to the smallest of details. When it comes to relationship, don't sweat the stuff. But if you feel the other is not living up to the fullest, say it. Do it tenderly and with love, but be sure to do it. And don't ever settle for less than the best. The same people will be left speechless at your promotion and to the secret of your enviable relationship !