builds stuff
On the 14th of February 1990, just as the Voyager 1 probe was leaving the Solar System, some 3.7 billion miles away from Earth, Carl Sagan asked NASA to turn it around to snap a photograph of our home.
The resulting photograph showed the Earth as a pale blue dot, less than a pixel in size. A speck of dust in a seemingly infinite universe…
Continue reading “A Speck of Dust in a Seemingly Infinite Universe”Some five hundred years ago, a 26-year-old sculptor was given the task of turning a leftover slab of marble into a work of art. Other artists had tried to give life to the stone and had failed, but the young artist took on the contract, determined to shape the marble that others had discarded.
Early in the morning on September 13, 1501, the young artist began to work in order to extract his vision from the piece of stone. He carved and carved until he set his dream free.
Later, artist Giorgio Vasari would describe the process as, “bringing back to life of one who was dead.”
Continue reading “The Beauty of Doing What You Can With What You Have”During the Roman Republic, the river Rubicon acted as a sort of frontier line between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul to the northeast and Italy proper, controlled directly by Rome, to the south.
In 49 BC, perhaps on January 10, Julius Caesar led a single legion, Legio XIII Gemina, south over the Rubicon from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy. In doing so, he deliberately broke the law limiting his imperium, his authority to control his army.
As he led his army across the Rubicon river into Central Italy, Julius Caesar is credited to having said the following words, “Alea iacta est”.
“The die has been cast.”
Continue reading “The Rubicon Paradox”Defined as a person’s sense of self-esteem, the ego has become a sort of villain in the personal development community.
Your ego is not your enemy. Your ego is not an excuse for being obnoxious, arrogant, or self-centered.
Your ego is simply who you think you are. Your ego is either the reason you are walking through hell or the reason you often catch a glimpse of heaven.
If you look within, you are able to venture in the center of your fears and confront them. If you look around, you are often told that those fears are who you truly are.
Continue reading “Your Ego Is Not Your Enemy”Some two and a half millennia ago, in what is now Southern Italy, there lived a legendary wrestler by the name of Milo of Croton.
A six-time Olympic Champion, Milo’s career spanned 24 years, during which he was undoubtedly the best wrestler of his generation. He is said to have been able to carry a bull on his shoulders and to have burst a band about his brow by simply inflating the veins on his temples.
Continue reading “Little by Little, a Little Becomes a Lot”
