The Dash Poem by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke of the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,
The cars, the house, the cash,
What matters is how we live and love
And how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard;
Are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
To consider what’s true and real
And always try to understand
The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
And show appreciation more
And love the people in our lives
Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
And more often wear a smile,
Remembering that this special dash
Might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
With your life’s actions to rehash
Would you be proud of the things they say
About how you spent your dash?

© 1996 Linda Ellis

TEDx Script

Few excited people on facebook connected

Passionate about watching videos on TED

Lets have some real face time, they all said

Glugged Cafe Latte, the time they wasted

And one good evening, WTF they all said

Instead of watching lets do it instead

They got the license to organize TEDx

They got excited as it rhymed with sex

13842 mails, 7673 tweets clearly expressed

The motivation of 20 freaks who adored TED

They glugged more lattes and went late to bed

And woke up every morn with a groggy head

Now that all talks are shot on camera RED

They plan to do a ‘V Camp’ next and hit the bed

TEDxChennai Planning meet up

TEDx Meet on Nov20 at CCD Ispahani

On liberty

This little poem by my fried Prakash Savariappa,  so crisp and to the point, I really think its wonderful…  Prakash if you are reading this can I assume that you were inspired to do so after the training program?  It really should not matter solutions are important certainly not the channels…

PROCRASTINATION

My old friend
That made me bend
To its ways of deferment.
My aspirations I had lent!

In challenging my brain
Consistency, I refrain.
When is my awakening?
I waited for enlightening.

Then a voice came so strong
“Guilt will add to the wrong.
Don’t do those anymore,
Future has joy in its core”

The Planning meet for TEDxChennai

Venue CCD

I 'butter' tell you this

The wait at the maternity ward
Nail bits scattered on the floor
The beady eyes
Of joy and fear
The ignorance of the speech sounds
Around

The matron appears
Utters words incomprehensible
Mirth overwhelms
As I inquire within!!!
Do they feed new born with ‘butter’?
My son had his mouth tasting
Honey

Years have rolled on
My failures masquerades as follies
The ‘butter’ were
Ragged clothes indeed
If this day is tucked secure in minds vault
Wishes cannot open ones
Heart

For a ritual of wishing
Are for the ones who live to handle
The Black and White realm
But true love my dear
Straddles the stratosphere and is near
Within you
IN ME

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Life flowing the right direction

I connected with this dear old friend of mine after many many years… Was surprised to realize how life can actually handle you with opportunities to serve the people and the society.  Working with the abused and marginalized may not be job that many would like to do. But somebody just have to do that.

This morning Charles called me up and we chatted about Training.  We are planning to team together.  Both of us beleive that we need to stand on the training ground with a open and blank mind, hence we don’t believe in PPTs,  we believe in heart training.  Charles is phenomenal guy, he his always chatting up with the participants before the training trying to understand concerns and needs….

I do the same.. But Iam little more organized should I say.  Exactly 10 mts before I start my module I do a flow chart on what Iam going to cover….

Its very stressful, but fulfilling

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Untitled

The discovery that new neurons are born in the adult brain overturned decades-old dogma in neuroscience.  Now the authors of a new study suggest that the newcomers clear away the remnants of old memories to make room for new ones.

To investigate whether newly born neurons play a role in memory transfer to the neocortex, researchers led by Kaoru Inokuchi of the University of Toyama in Japan examined rats and mice with impaired hippocampal neurogenesis. The researchers trained the rodents to associate a particular chamber with a mild shock. Like normal animals, they remembered the association for weeks, freezing up any time they were placed in the chamber. This type of memory usually hangs out in the hippocampus for less than a month: When the researchers injected the brains of normal rodents with a drug that essentially turned off the hippocampus after 28 days, it had little to no effect on their freezing behavior–presumably because the memory had already moved on to the neocortex. But in the rats and mice with impaired neurogenesis, the same treatment substantially reduced freezing behavior, suggesting that the fearful memory had lingered longer than usual in the hippocampus instead of being transferred to the neocortex. A similar set of experiments with mice that exercised on a running wheel–an activity previously shown to boost neurogenesis–bolstered the idea that neurogenesis plays a role in transferring memories. In that case, memories appeared to shift from the hippocampus to the neocortex faster than usual.

Finally, recordings of neural activity indicated that that long-term potentiation, a physiological strengthening of neural connections thought to underlie this type of learning and memory, persists longer than usual in the hippocampus of the neurogenesis-impaired rodents. Altogether, the findings—reported tomorrow in Cell–suggest that new neurons act like an efficient secretary, making sure the physiological traces of old memories are promptly removed from the hippocampus inbox to make room for new ones.

source science now

“The authors went through a lot of experiments to prove their case,” says Gerd Kempermann, an expert on neurogenesis at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden in Germany. But Kempermann is not quite convinced that the specific job of new neurons is to clear the hippocampus for new information. An alternative explanation, he says, is that new neurons simply enable the hippocampus to work more quickly. “But their conclusion is certainly interesting and great food for thought.”

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OCD and the email

There are too many things happening in life, the only contact point being the mail.. And this Facebook group, TEDx Chennai action in mounting… Now sometimes I wonder if the regularity in which I check for the mails make me suffer from the classical obsessive compulsive disorder …maybe, and I hope not…. Its time for a long overdue web sabbath…  Want to just get of this and hit the books and start writing with the pen….

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Muffs and muffins

Soft shells and hard nuts
Food for the guts
Mind of leather texture
Simple architecture
Lil' jokes, lil' scenes
On their laptop screens
Silly scenes, from silly flicks
Gives them lotsa kicks

When confronted with sense
They sneer like peasants
"You are chosen" they parrot
You should go the abbot
They dust me away
Then they call me to pray
The elders in the church
Muffs & Muffins and not much

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