Wanna be a writer?

How to be a prolific writer?

Leo Babauta, shares in Learn from the Greats: 7 Writing Habits of Amazing Writers:

Stephen King is most prolific -writing 10 pages a day. Ernest Hemingway competes with 500 words a day.

Hard working writers are Vladimir Nabokov & Philip Roth.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote standing up, and all on index cards (to re-arrange later). Philip Roth works standing up, pacing around as he thinks and writes in an isolated studio.

Hardly working Truman Capote wrote lying down, in bed or on a couch.

James Joyce displays amazing freedom - A friend asked him if he’d had a good day writing. Yes, Joyce replied happily. How much had he written? Three sentences, Joyce told him.

My vote goes to James Joyce, though Truman Capote is close!

What would you vote for?

But, what will you REALLY TEACH & IMPART?

Teach India | News and Features :You must be familiar with the street children who stare at you blankly (mostly, hopelessly, but, a few rare ones, mischievously!) at traffic signals, while you comfortably wait for the light to turn green! There was an interesting Hindi Movie on these 'special' children of our society: Traffic Signal (2007).

Now, you have a chance to contribute - Times of India has launched a social initiative that invites you to take out a few hours from your leisure to teach underprivileged children. Initially, this is only for the metros, but TOI assures us "that once the programme is up and running in the four metros, we will extend it to our other editions as well".

Over sixty NGOs, corporates, schools and social organizations have committed to this cause to target "a population of over 287 million illiterate Indians".

More that 10,00 have joined up - Delhi has shown the largest response, followed Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

So, we have all happily signed-up and WAITING for that CALL from Teach India Cell!

NOW, imagine you are in presence of, say, 20 underprivileged children, and you have started teaching a SUBJECT to them.

BUT, ARE YOU REALLY AWARE OF THEIR WORLD? WHAT ARE THEIR REAL ISSUES? Back home OR back on the streets WHAT ARE THEY UP AGAINST? A hostile world? Scared Parents (or, worse, abusive parents) ? How can they experience freedom from such severe conditioning?

WHAT DO THEY REALLY NEED?

Self Esteem? A glimpse towards a world of exciting possibilities? A concrete evidence that that they can CREATE an enriching life for themselves?

PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!

LET US GIVE OUR BEST TO THESE KIDS!
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Anyone interested in participating can visit the Teach India website at www.teach.timesofindia.com. Alternatively you can also fill out the Volunteer Registration form submit it to The Times of India office in your city. To receive the form on email, SMS TEACH to 58888.

Thank God It is Sunday!

Today is Sunday.

I can't enjoy it TOTALLY, because I am scared to wake up EARLY MORNING tomorrow!

Society allows us to rest today, so that we can run tomorrow.

If you are in a similar space, try the following tomorrow!
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Once, a colleague reached very late to our office on a Monday morning.

Someone taunted him, "You were expected here at 9 AM!"

He replied, "Why? What happened at 9 AM?"
....................................................................................

But, you may disagree and say that you have to RUN and complete a ton of things!

In that case, try the following!
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I was astonished to see a stream people RUNNING running on a SUNDAY.

I asked a volunteer, "What are these people up to?"

He said, "This a marathon."

I said, "So, what will they ACHIEVE from this marathon?"

He said, "The one who comes FIRST will be REWARDED".

I said, "But, why are the OTHERS running?
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Let me know how it turned out:-)

Gandhi's 10 Commandments

How big a factor was Gandhi's philosophy in enabling India's freedom? How do you practice your Philosophy? How does your self-expression impact your society and world?

Inspired by Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi's thoughts, Henrik Edberg posted Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World:

1. Change yourself.
2. You are in control.
3. Forgive and let it go.
4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere. More tips on this at How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips.
5. Take care of this moment. More at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment.
6. Everyone is human.
7. Persist.
8. See the good in people and help them. More at Do You Make These 10 Mistakes in a Conversation?
9. Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self.
10. Continue to grow and evolve.

The last one quotes Gandhi:

”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to
maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false
position.”

The fourth one quotes : “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Hmm..let us get some practice on the above ten points now....

Which ones are you planning to practice?

Freedom From Pain!

In her latest post, Sirensongs shares, "I am having "problems" (mostly health related....horrible migraines and backaches)."

Come to think of it, many of us have been in this place and it is NOT always "easy" to "BE AT EASE" all the time! You have 'internal' dilemmas, relationship conflicts, pressures from 'society', and so on!

So, here is some help. There is an online "The Pain Relief Center", which is not-for-profit and invites everyone to "Use the power of the mind to eliminate pain regardless of the cause, heal the body, and improve your quality of life".

They use an integrated psycho-spiritual-physical approach to help you free yourself from pain.
Apart from other products, they offer free pain lessons. An excerpt from "Using Meditation for Pain Relief / Variations":

• At the first sign of pain, say a migraine attack or back spasm, try to relax and bring yourself back to a meditative state. The more you practice relaxation and meditation training, the easier it is to do this. Pain naturally causes us to fight and struggle, or try to escape. This is itself unpleasant, and it also causes physiological effects that make pain worse, particularly headache and backache. Our fight or flight defensive reaction creates changes in hormones, blood flow, and muscle tension that make headache and backache much worse.
  
• If we can relax and stop struggling, fighting, or trying to escape, we can break this "spiral of agony" and defuse the pain. You must experience for yourself that trying to fight the pain or to escape from it makes the pain worse. You can also experience that the pain changes when you stop fighting or trying to escape.
• One of the best ways to stop fighting or trying to escape is to turn your attention TOWARD the feeling of pain in your body, and to stay with it. This works particularly well with headache, backache, gastrointestinal pain, and other types of pain that are especially made worse by the emotional component.
  
• When you learn to turn your attention toward the pain, to examine the sensation of the pain, and to examine the emotion associated with the sensation, you will experience a most extraordinary thing. The pain will change in quality, move around, or abate entirely. Most people continue the fight -- they never stop struggling with the pain, so they never see what happens when they stop fighting.
• A variation of the above technique is to try to locate the pain precisely, and to determine its size, shape, and quality. For example, when your back hurts, try to describe exactly where the pain is in your back. Imagine a picture of your back and try to localize it exactly on the picture. How spread out is it? What kind of pain is it? Is it burning, crushing, dull, or prickly? Pay attention and make sure you are right, particularly about location and extent. This forces you to bring your awareness to the pain.
  
• A related technique is to use imagery. For example, if you have a headache, you might imagine a window opening in your head and the pain leaving through the window. Or you might imagine cool water flowing over the pain. This also forces you to bring your attention to the pain.
  
• If you do any of these exercises while remaining relaxed it will counteract the emotional component of pain -- the tendency to fight or escape. In many cases the results are dramatic. Some people find they cannot localize the pain at all, because when they pay attention to it, the pain moves away. They find themselves chasing the pain around, and it eventually dissolves.

TRY IT OUT and share your experiences.

Say "YES" to freedom from pain.

Feringhee: The India Diaries

Feringhee: The India Diaries

Checkout photos of monks from Tibet expressing themselves: photos by Sirensongs who lives "somewhere on the Great Asian Road between Kathmandu, Kailash, & Kashmir, India".

Her disillusionment and childhood memories of "Tintin In Tibet" have led her to adventures throughout India, Nepal and Sri Lanka (Tibet and Bhutan are next on the list).

Sirensongs is "inordinately proud of her ability to read street signs and argue (successfully) with taxi drivers in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, French and Nepali languages. Her Tibetan, however, is still a total disgrace. She's working on it."

Quote: "Why do people go to India to find themselves? India is where you go to LOSE yourself."

Amen.

Don't hesitate! Go out, express yourself FULLY!

Dan Kretschmer, is the author of a book called “Masters of the Renaissance,” which takes a look at 18 of the most important artists of the Renaissance in Europe.

He has talked about "What is Art"?

The wiki entry puts it as "The term art is used to describe a particular type of creative production generated by human beings, and the term usually implies some degree of aesthetic value. An artist makes a work of art for various purposes, such as creating an experience for others or as part of a ritual. ..."

Dan says:

To understand the art of the world we must first define “culture.”

Culture, anthropologically speaking, is everything about humanity that hasn’t been inherited biologically.

In short, it is our human expression.
... ...

Ever since man became a cognitive entity, homo sapiens sapiens, or “Thinking thinking man,” he has needed to express himself in one way or another. The origins of language could have been a series of grunts and gestures, a way of communicating thoughts and ideas in tangible ways. Long before alphabets and writing came into play, symbols were created to represent ideas, and were painted on the walls and other surfaces to convey messages. This early way of putting ideas into visible cues is the origin of art.

Art, therefore, is and has always been a means of self expression.

The power to ponder and associate thoughts and ideas, the ability to differentiate dreams from reality, and the assigning of perceived value and significance to real objects are what separates us from our chimpanzee cousins.

Since the beginnings of humanity, our feelings and ways to express them have been a staple for our survival as a species. Once the basics of communication have been established, ways of showing others a higher form of feeling must be achieved.

This is art as we know it. Individuals with their own unique thoughts are expressing it in ways their fellow people can understand.

...

The leaps and bounds of art throughout history, however, have been a challenging of such readily accepted ideals. Society as a whole has their own set of values of what is acceptable and many pioneering artists who were ahead of their time were shunned.

...

So, in a nutshell, art is what you make of it. You, as an individual, have the power to decipher art, and to express your own art in any way you see fit. Art can exist anywhere.... ....Artists of all ages, skill levels, and backgrounds produce their art in their own way. Not all art is going to be as great as Michelangelo‘s David, and this is important in your critiques of what art actually is. Good art, crummy art, corporate art, scribble drawings, advertisements, finger paintings, rug designs, body painting, found art, digital paintings, you name it- it’s all art. So it is unfair to the artist to say that something simply isn’t “Art” because you don’t understand it, and it may not smile back at you like the Mona Lisa.

He concludes:

One thing is for sure, no one can predict the future, therefore it is impossible to say where the art of tomorrow can be headed.

I say:
One thing is for sure, no matter who and where you are, ART is about WHO YOU ARE!

In a survey conducted in schools, kids were asked to raise hands if they thought they were artistic. RESULTS OF SURVEY: With every progressive class, number of hands went down and hesitation in raising the hand increased!

Someone has said, "Hesitation is sin". Now, we know why there are so many sinners:-)

So, don't hesitate! Go out, express yourself FULLY!

And, raise your hand (by commenting) IF YOU THINK YOU ARE ARTISTIC;-)

[Check Dan's articles about how learning art doesn’t have to be boring, and how you don’t need TV when there’s art.]