Korzybski asks poignant question. He dedicated his life to finding an answer. What are your thoughts about the question he poised?
Pied Beauty
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim:
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and
plough;
And àll tràdes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
It’s Sunday. I went for a long walk in a nearby park. A walking, jogging, bike riding paved trail runs through miles of south Texas landscape. The former ranch is now covered with prickly pear cactus, yucca, cedar trees, and live oak trees. A sign at the trail head warns travelers to watch out for mountain lions, feral hogs, rattlesnakes, coyotes, and dangerous insects. The warning does not stop people from using the trail.
At the midpoint of my walk, I spotted a father and his two children, one boy, one girl stooping near the edge of the trail. Their three bicycles lay nearby just off the path. The children appeared to be between eight to ten years old. The boy was the younger child.
As I approached them, the boy turned and looked up at me. He said, “This baby bird is hurt. Do you know how to help him?”
The boy’s father and his sister looked at me. In front of the small boy was an open water bottle and straw. He was using the straw to transfer water from his bottle to the bird’s mouth. I told them them they were doing the best they could and making the baby bird feel comfortable.
I walked on filled with renewed hope for the future. When young children care deeply for the environment and its living creatures, there is hope for the future. I promised myself to learn from them and practice the lessons they taught me.
Have you ever felt that other people are doing something much greater than you? Have you wondered why they got the break and you didn’t? I know I have.
Helen Keller gives us a path through as does Mother Teresa – whatever you do, do it with great love and passion and the world and those around will be better for it.
Whatever you’re doing, no task is too small, too trivial, or insignifcant. You are important.
