All 3 entries tagged Personal

About brothers, wars, humans…

I was thinking about the discussion in Abdul Blog, the one about the Gaza situation. I wrote on my comments that I believe Palestinians and Jews are brothers. It sounded very religious specially from someone who is not religious like myself. But I`d like to talk a bit more about why do I think we are all brothers and I have two kinds of justifications. First a set that I classify as the "scientific" set:

- We all came from the evolved from monkeys that used to walk around in Africa-Middle East somewhere. Same origin.

- The 3 major religions (Jews, Muslims and Christians) came from the same "father"  Abraham and were born in the same region of the world.

- It is genetically proven by DNA tests that Palestines and Jews came from a same common tribe thousands of years ago.

I could put some other scentific reasons but those are enough.

The second set of reasons is a bit more philosofical and if you wish poetical. It doesn`t matter if you are talking about Hitler, Gandhy, Churchill, Jesus, Plato, Pele, James Brown, Bush, Stalin, Mao, Penelope Cruz, Bobby Moore, Madre Teresa,  Sir Edmund Hilary, Fidel Castro, Onassis, Nietzsche, Beethoven, John Lennon, Gardel, Mandela, Steven Spielberg, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X. Simon Perez, Cristiano Ronaldo all those people just like any other one of us:

-Have fear

-Have been a baby someday

-Will (or have already) die

-Had a mother

-Fell pain

-Have hopes

-Have dreams

-Loved someone

-Need to eat, to sleep

-Are able to think and to create things

-Are able to feel

I know a feel people would argue some of those points for the most extreme names I listed (Jesus and Hitler, for instance) but I believe in that, I believe we are all made of the same material, we are only a little community living on a huge and mysterious universe and mysteriously being able to question ourselves therefore there's no sense in not considering someone my brother, my own for some minor differences such as the colour of the skin, languages or beliefs. What brings us together is much much much bigger then what keeps us apart. And I hope we all will understand that some day. Its hard and I`m just as guilty as the next man for not having achieved that. But I`ll always work out trying to do my bit.

So that`s why even though I do not like everything that comes from everyone I still think we are all brothers.

: 06 Feb 2009 16:11 |  Tags: Beliefs Genetics Personal Religion Wars |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Showing appreciation for some people that deserve it…

A quick personal entry to show appreciation for 4 people that are really helping the class (or at least me) by using their blogs or feedbacks:

Sue:

Our mysterious commentator. Sue you have not answered my question about who you are andhow we could find a way to make you able to write your own thoughts. If you rather discuss that by email, please write me: f.abreu@warwick.ac.uk . Anyway, thanks for your participation and comments.

Abdul:

The master of the software/technical tips. Besides being a very nice fellow (and not wanting to kill me when I keep asking questions about his culture/religion...I`m glad he understood I`m just someone trying not to be so ignorant and not to have opinions without knowledge!). Not just a nice chap...

Louis (Kang):

Best blog user I know. Sometimes I disagree with some of his comments and just out of poor laziness don`t answer them. Fantastic comments and posts on everyone`s blogs. And I learned to admire people who really put effort into things the way he does. And besides that he is a Kiwi, and I so thankful with what I have, what I learned from Kiwiland...

Paul (Roberts):

I`ve studied 90% of my life. I`ve not attended some kind of formal education about 4 years in my life (being 2 of them the first two). So I met quite a lot of so called "teachers" . But two things I really admire in Paul are very hard to find around. 1st, as I said before, he walks the talk. He does what he says and believes, he is someone in which the word you can trust. Not suited for politics I guess.....2nd the quality of his work, how serious he does it, the quality of his effort. I really enjoyed his comments on my CBE PMA, I`ve found them mostly very fair and helpful and it is clear he really treated it seriously even though he read thousands of similar reports before. Fantastic example.

So, to the four of you, thanks for helping me (and some other I think) to improve.

: 03 Feb 2009 16:01 |  Tags: Appreciation Colleagues Mbe Personal |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Thoughts on a train

Long time no writing. Shame on me. Currently on train from Leamington to London. Missing the sun, going for it. I don`t know if the fact that I was born in a hot, sea-side, touristic sunny city has anything to do with it, but I miss the sun more than anything else. I have lived in 5 different cities of 3 different countries in my life. I always thought that the thing I`d really miss was the sea (my home town is a peninsula, therefore it is almost impossible not to be close to the sea), but the thing I really miss is the sun. When I lived in New Zealand we had a quite hard winter (well a Norwegian would perhaps say that it was quite mild, but I`m no Norwegian am I?) but I can not remember missing the sun that much. Perhaps we had more sun, perhaps I was sunnier, perhaps the fantastic family I lived with (and that I`m very glad to say I love as much as my own – biological -  family and I was able to show that this year. Miss them a lot, would not be here without them!) gave me that extra sun light I needed. Ironically enough today, as I`m leaving England for a few days in the sun, the sun is shining beautifully. And when it shines it is a beautiful view. I like the English landscape, the little hills, the green fields…I must say that I think the houses could be a bit more creative (and I think the British are very creative people), not being so similar. But I still like the landscape (especially when is sunny!).

: 22 Dec 2008 06:16 |  Tags: Britain England New Personal Train Zealand |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem