The Invitation-Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“I want to live with deep intimacy every day of my life. I am guided, sometimes driven, by an ache to take the necessary risks that will let me live close to what is within and around me. And I am sometimes afraid that it will be too much, that I will not have, or be connected to, whatever it takes to be with it all, to bear the exquisite beauty and bone-wrenching sorrow of being fully alive.” 
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Invitation 

http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com

Good morning winter ... Imagine what it would be like to live so alive ... 

The Invitation is a prose poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Many years after the poem was written and had become famous, the author wrote a book based on the poem, The Invitation (1999), by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Oriah is a spiritual counselor and story teller, among other things. This poem offers an invitation to every single one of us to "show up" in the universe. She reminds us that we do not serve the universe by being small. Rather, we serve the universe by making the most out of our lives.

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesnt interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn't interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-invitation-by-oriah-mountain-dreamer

TED Talks; Chris Anderson quote and story

“Your number-one mission as a speaker is to take something that matters deeply to you and to rebuild it inside the minds of your listeners. We’ll call that something an idea.” 
Chris J. Anderson, TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

What a cool way to think about sharing an idea! I love Ted talks, and this book is great reading for anyone to help learn to share their ideas and build empathy.

Cheers

Jeanne

from: https://www.ted.com/speakers/chris_anderson_ted

After a long career in journalism and publishing, Chris Anderson became the curator of the TED Conference in 2002 and has developed it as a platform for identifying and disseminating ideas worth spreading.

Why you should listen

Chris Anderson is the Curator of TED, a nonprofit devoted to sharing valuable ideas, primarily through the medium of 'TED Talks' -- short talks that are offered free online to a global audience.

Chris was born in a remote village in Pakistan in 1957. He spent his early years in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where his parents worked as medical missionaries, and he attended an American school in the Himalayas for his early education. After boarding school in Bath, England, he went on to Oxford University, graduating in 1978 with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Chris then trained as a journalist, working in newspapers and radio, including two years producing a world news service in the Seychelles Islands.

Back in the UK in 1984, Chris was captivated by the personal computer revolution and became an editor at one of the UK's early computer magazines. A year later he founded Future Publishing with a $25,000 bank loan. The new company initially focused on specialist computer publications but eventually expanded into other areas such as cycling, music, video games, technology and design, doubling in size every year for seven years. In 1994, Chris moved to the United States where he built Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0 magazine and creator of the popular video game users website IGN. Chris eventually merged Imagine and Future, taking the combined entity public in London in 1999, under the Future name. At its peak, it published 150 magazines and websites and employed 2,000 people.

This success allowed Chris to create a private nonprofit organization, the Sapling Foundation, with the hope of finding new ways to tackle tough global issues through media, technology, entrepreneurship and, most of all, ideas. In 2001, the foundation acquired the TED Conference, then an annual meeting of luminaries in the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design held in Monterey, California, and Chris left Future to work full time on TED.

He expanded the conference's remit to cover all topics, including science, business and key global issues, while adding a Fellows program, which now has some 300 alumni, and the TED Prize, which grants its recipients "one wish to change the world." The TED stage has become a place for thinkers and doers from all fields to share their ideas and their work, capturing imaginations, sparking conversation and encouraging discovery along the way.

In 2006, TED experimented with posting some of its talks on the Internet. Their viral success encouraged Chris to begin positioning the organization as a global media initiative devoted to 'ideas worth spreading,' part of a new era of information dissemination using the power of online video. In June 2015, the organization posted its 2,000th talk online. The talks are free to view, and they have been translated into more than 100 languages with the help of volunteers from around the world. Viewership has grown to approximately one billion views per year.

Continuing a strategy of 'radical openness,' in 2009 Chris introduced the TEDx initiative, allowing free licenses to local organizers who wished to organize their own TED-like events. More than 8,000 such events have been held, generating an archive of 60,000 TEDx talks. And three years later, the TED-Ed program was launched, offering free educational videos and tools to students and teachers.

Dumbledor Wisdom

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

Albus Dumbledor

Cynicism from The Great Dictator: Charlie Chaplin movie

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

Charlie Chaplin from the Great Dictator

The Great Dictator

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The Great Dictator
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Charlie Chaplin
Produced by	Charlie Chaplin
Written by	Charlie Chaplin
Starring	Charlie Chaplin Paulette Goddard Jack Oakie Henry Daniell Reginald Gardiner Billy Gilbert Maurice Moscovich
Music by	Charlie Chaplin Meredith Willson
Cinematography	Karl Struss Roland Totheroh
Edited by	Willard Nico Harold Rice
Production company	Charles Chaplin Film Corporation
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	October 15, 1940 (New York) March 7, 1941 (London)
Running time	124 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million (US$36,023,923 in 2018 dollars[2])
Box office	$5 million (US$89,418,052 in 2018 dollars[2])[3]

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British comedian Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true sound film.

Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial^[4] condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin plays both leading roles: a ruthless fascist dictator and a persecuted Jewish barber.

The Great Dictator was popular with audiences, becoming Chaplin's most commercially successful film.^[5] Modern critics have also praised it as a historically significant film and an important work of satire, and in 1997, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[6] The Great Dictator was nominated for five Academy Awards – Outstanding Production, Best Actor, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Supporting Actor for Jack Oakie, and Best Music (Original Score).

In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he would not have made the film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at the time.^[7]

and from:

https://livelearnevolve.com/message-humanity-charlie-chaplin-dictator

Samuel Austin·2 min read

IS

Undeniably one of the most powerful speeches in recorded history. What’s most remarkable about the above is that Chaplin’s speech about fascism in The Great Dictator nearly 75 years ago is as, if not more, relevant today then it was back then. In addition, as Chaplin was demonized for telling the truth back then, administrations worldwide today, like the current White House administration, persecuting truth tellers after pledging to protect them. It is for these reasons, in an ever nearing Orwellian type age when telling the truth is a revolutionary act, that we must spread “The Greatest Speech Ever” far and wide. The humanity speech.

THE GREAT DICTATOR’S SPEECH TRANSCRIPT:

“We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…. Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure."

*I looked up several definitions of cynicism because it seems to be a interesting subject these days... and found myself going down a rabbit hole. Its meaning has changed greatly from the original ...

Cynicism is a term which originally referred to the ancient Greek philosophy of the Cynics, often considered to have been founded by Antisthenes. Currently, the word "cynicism" generally refers to the opinions of those who are inclined to reject appearances of sincerity, human virtue, or altruism, and maintain that self-interest is the primary motive of human behaviour. The most extreme forms of cynicism can lead to anomie and nihilism.

anomie

 noun

an·o·mie | \ ˈa-nə-mē  \

variants: or less commonly anomy

Definition of anomie

: social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and valuesThe reforms of a ruined economy, under these conditions, brought about social anomie, desperation and poverty rather than relief and prosperity.— T. Mastnakalso : personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or idealsIn the face of these prevailing values, many workers experience a kind of anomie. Their jobs become empty, meaningless, and intrinsically unsatisfying.— Robert Straus