Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

Real Life?

2010-02-11T23:23:00.001-07:00

Is this for real? In this millennium of victorious consumerism and comfort feelings arising from accumulating of wealth and power, who in the "right mind" can relinquish all those pounds for pounds of heaps of money to charity? If this story holds true, Australian millionaire Karl Rabeder may prove to be residing in the extreme spectrum of our lost humanity.

Here are a few of his memorable quotes:

"My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,.....Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.....For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness,......I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years,.....More and more I heard the words: 'Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life..........I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need..........I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing.............The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to islands of Hawaii.
"It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is," he said. "In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real."
He had similar feelings of guilt while on gliding trips in South America and Africa. "I increasingly got the sensation that there is a connection between our wealth and their poverty," he said.
Suddenly, he realised that "if I don't do it now I won't do it for the rest of my life"

Link to this story that seems so unbelievable in our time of restless tap dance of money and misery, perhaps the twin brothers: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/7190750/Millionaire-gives-away-fortune-which-made-him-miserable.html

Earthquake in Haiti

2010-01-13T22:37:00.001-07:00

The earthquake news from Haiti is very distressing. I was watching the evening news and it was heartbreaking. My native country Bangladesh is also in a severe earthquake prone zone along with its yearly flood and devastating hurricanes, and many buildings there are not made to withstand large earthquake like this. In front of unpredictable nature, we human beings still remain so much vulnerable. When the terrible news like this resurfaces the memories, so insignificant the life of mine feels, wish I could help more the distressed many around the world.

The information on donations that can be sent to Haiti found from the following locations:

http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-sk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=haiti%20relief

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/haiti-disaster-relief-how-to-contribute/

A tearful statement from Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean on Hati's earthquake is a must see in the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Sl7LP5NDc

Olive Kitteridge is a great book

2010-01-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Olive Kitteridge is a great book! The writer Elizabeth Strout's mastery on the language, plots and the sheer artistry displayed through 13 stories linked by a few unforgettable characters, especially Olive and Henry, is highly recommended to devour. Read it slow, each word and each sentence, rewards seem other worldly. 

Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home

2010-01-03T15:52:00.001-07:00

Are the impacts of Climate Change irreversible? Have we crossed the threshold point from which no point of return is possible anymore? For millions and millions of people of our world, Climate Change is not an arbitrary abstract concept that only can be heard occasionally from global pulpit of endless summits or from march of protesters' suppressed slogans around the globe. This is the painful reality for countless many. Where would the displaced millions go? The world should not just wait for the inevitable to happen in just mere years or months away. If we are really the most intelligent species with humanity as the core of our moral norm, a sustainable migration plan and action need to be in place for displaced human being like Mahe Noor and her family.

in reference to: Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Education Life

2010-01-03T13:58:00.001-07:00

"...can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?

As it happens, yes."

Here is the trick: "The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them..............for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own,"

in reference to:

"for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own,"
- Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Blue Moon - a Poem

2010-01-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

Blue Moon
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
2010-01-01

Once in a blue moon
Wind howls through chilling freeze
Stopping growling hyenas on tracks
Of murderous sneeze

Once in a blue moon
Eagles soar above fogs and clouds
And treacherous fox hides
Behind displayed shrouds

By gone year and memories
Real and embedded
Sparkle flashes of neurons
Synaptic threaded

Sweeping away the chill and frill of night
The renewed sunlight bristles snowy trees and awn
Obliterating the shimmering blue moon
With shining rays of fulsome dawn

The 'Rain Man' Dies

2009-12-30T21:54:00.002-07:00

We born. We die. That's the nature of this mortal existence. Some deaths stir emotions as did Kim Peek's death. The 'Rain Man' movie was loosely based on this extraordinary man's life.

"When Kim was 9 months old, a doctor said that he was so severely retarded that he would never walk or talk and that he should be institutionalized. When Kim was 6, another doctor recommended a lobotomy. By then, however, Kim had read and memorized the first eight volumes of a set of family encyclopedias, his father said. He received part-time tutoring from the age of 7 and completed a high school curriculum by 14. He spent great swaths of time absorbing volumes in the Salt Lake City Public Library."

When asked "Kim, are you happy?", Kim Peek answered, "I'm happy just to look at you."

The 'Rain Man' dies.
The 'Rain Man' dies.

But the memory and the inspiration live on.
in reference to: Kim Peek, Inspiration for ‘Rain Man,’ Dies at 58 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Vegan and Plant Life

2009-12-21T20:34:00.002-07:00

What to eat then? Killing animal is murder. And the plants have sophisticated system in place, like talking through chemical signals, "Their roots ride the underground “rhizosphere” and engage in cross-cultural and microbial trade."

Here is an interesting extract from Natalie Angier's article in The New York Times, "Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within."

Plant the trickster, the survivor, "Plants are the ethical autotrophs here, the ones that wrest their meals from the sun. Don’t expect them to boast: they’re too busy fighting to survive."

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html

Naive? - a Poem

2009-11-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

Naive? – A Poem
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
November 9, 2009

Hear me out
Oh beauty and truth!
May I stand as cool
Or utterly uncouth
Hear me out
Oh deceived!
Oh dishevelled brute!
Your bullets and bombs
Blast bones, cut veins
And arteries
Open like flowing river
Of blood
Splattered on the wall
Of concrete or straws
Where trail of hands
Smear the last thread
Of yearn
Hear me out
Oh fantastic!
Oh clever prick!
Staged killings
Even shed real blood
Snuff out life of real
Someone’s brother, husband
Son and daughter
Rest in the coffin, in open graves
Or strapped in hospital bed
In the name of piety
Or is it flagging false
Of dying dread?

God, Allah, Adonai, Bhagwan,
Jesus Christ and eternal Buddha
Hear me out!
Oh the all mighty!
Lord of the universe
The creator of animals and serpents
In abundance, in treachery
Bring down your wrath
Bring down
Monster pollute
Stop staging
The very real death

Hear me out
Oh naive idiot!
Begging you
Don’t shoot!
Don’t shoot!

Boden's Mate

2009-10-25T00:22:00.002-06:00

For a relatively novice player like me, the following chess moves looked really wonderful. Look at the board setting above.

1.....d5
The above moves by black piece was done so that black bishop in f8 has clear access to a3 in later move that shows an example of thinking a few moves ahead.

The above seemingly careless move by black entices white to take the un-protected pawn in d5 by its bishop in c4.

2. Bc4xd5

Now look at the next move by black.

2......Qf6xc3

3. bxc3

3. ......Ba3 and check mate!

In the above, white King does not have any move because it cannot move in c2, b1 or b2 as these were all covered by black bishops, and nor there any other white pieces that can protect the king. I find these few steps shows an excellent example of planning a few move ahead in chess.

The above technique was first applied by Samuel Standidge Boden in 1853 in a game against Schulder, though there was a variation of it played in Horwitzh-Popert game in 1844. Wiki has nice examples of variations in Boden's mate. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boden%27s_Mate

More Reference: Build Up Your Chess, The Fundamentals by Artur Yusupov (2007), Page 12.

Buffy Sainte Marie - "Now that the Buffalo's Gone"

2009-10-12T16:06:00.000-06:00

Another song by Buffy Sainte-Marie.

'Universal Soldier' by Buffy Sainte-Marie

2009-10-12T15:57:00.000-06:00

A song written many years ago but rings true to these days.

The sunflower boy's smile

2009-10-04T12:36:00.002-06:00

This a heart breaking story of a boy who believed that he could do anything.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/04/greene.wyatt.sunflower/index.html

You and Your Friend’s Friend’s Friends

2009-10-04T10:27:00.001-06:00

"...we are part of a superorganism, a hivelike network that shapes our decisions. “A smoker may have as much control over quitting as a bird has to stop a flock from flying in a particular direction...."

Here is one more excerpt:
"How does network contagion work?.....Partly, it’s a kind of peer pressure, or norming, effect, in which certain behaviors, or the social acceptance of certain behaviors, get transmitted across a network of acquaintances."

And there is explanation using evolution, "During the early stages of human evolution, selective advantage was probably conferred on those individuals who lived in social networks and could share information about food or predators. The primatologist Robin Dunbar has argued that the human brain evolved to its present size to keep track of a network of 150 people..........As among primates, those humans who are best able to manipulate social networks to their advantage thrive, and that ability may be genetically encoded........."

Though it has plenty of assumptions, this is an article to read.

Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/books/review/Stossel-t.html

No One - a Poem

2009-09-27T01:32:00.000-06:00

No One
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
September 27, 2009

He built the largest building
Pyramid of concrete and granite
Middle of envious kryptonite
No limit and no holding

She traveled the world in eighty days
And nights like Jules Verne’s story
Getting love, endless glory
Her passion weathers rebuke, dismays

The group of four astronauts
Gone and returned from landing moon
Walking the vast empty space swoon
Conspicuously bail outs

Lifted their souls from purgatory
Of economic depression
Right into wilful oppression
Hell fire in Friedmanite gory

No one was spared from judgement
Of threshing laughter and jeer
Economics voodoo’s clear
Acceptance, sheer fraudulent

No one spared!
No one dared
To croak words
Of sanguine flare

Market goes up
Market goes down
The gloomiest clown
Drowned in speculative burp

Science Fiction or Historical Fiction?

2009-09-18T23:49:00.001-06:00

This article published in the New Scientist this week is engaging. I have not read any of the writings by Kim Stanley Robinson before. The Guardian writes that "Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the greatest science fiction authors writing today", therefore giving the writer's name a respectable meaning to me. Robinson attached the Booker Prize juries for not selecting any science fiction novels, and especially this year, when five short listed novels are all historical fiction. Here is a snippet of Robinson's argument from this article, "This is important, because you need the literature of your time. You can't get the meaning of our life in 2009 from historical fiction, nor from science alone. Novels serve us, and are treasured, because we want meaning, and fiction is where meaning is created. Scientifically minded people could perhaps conceptualise novels as case studies or thought experiments, both finer grained and wider ranging in their approach to meaning than cruder genres such as religion, psychology or common sense. A literary life is an ongoing moral education, a complete geography of the human world."

Robinson's arguments have good points. Doesn't it seem too bias seeing all the short listed novels are historical fictions? Aren't there any good writers in any other genres' in modern world?

The Guardian quoted the chair of this year's Booker judges, James Naughtie, "There has always been a debate about whether the prize is sufficiently sensitive to all the forms of contemporary writing. He may well have a point," he said. "We judge books that are submitted. The fact is that the science fiction component this year was very, very thin. If it is the best contemporary fiction in this country then most publishers haven't yet tumbled to the fact."

Perhaps, that is it. Good science fiction novels were never submitted to Booker Judges', perhaps because of perceived notion that submission would not serve any purpose, judging by historical trend in Booker selections.

Reflection on Harmonium – a Prose Poem

2009-09-12T17:23:00.002-06:00

Reflection on Harmonium – a Prose Poem

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

September 12, 2009

Once it used to be the lifeblood of a musical lore. Once it used to lighten up the room with impeccable tune playing the auditory dance with a classical voice of a singer. Pumping the below in one hand, and the other to play the plastic covered black and white keys, harmonium player raced the musical field like a man in a battle. Striking the keys with force, pulling and pushing the below with vigour, matching the tabla player’s fierce tempo in bayan while leading the singer’s vocal to crescendo perfecto. Now as it lies abandoned, replaced by glittery synthesizers and digital gizmo, harmonium’s last breath extends: not giving up! Not giving up! Unlike its brethren accordion, you don’t have to strap it on your chest. Unlike the cousin violin, you don’t have to place it on your shoulder. No bow is needed. No feet pump is required. Harmonium, the maestro, sits in a forgotten corner of locked up closet. Too majestic, humble dislocation. One day as the evening was quietly slipping into glimmering twilight, a seasoned inferno raged the storm on its keys, jolting the dozing listeners, ushering in old memories, tune of distant past, poetic credulous and luminescent flare, as if the promised divinity is resurrected, as if all the bombs and disguised hatreds metamorphosed into poetry virtuoso.

Inspired by poet Al Zolynas' beautiful prose poem Considering the Accordion.

Classroom - a Poem

2009-09-12T15:46:00.005-06:00

Classroom

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

September 12, 2009

A rainy and cold morning

Of waning summer. Boys and girls

Wearing the blue sky uniforms

Reading the poetry of Tagore.

The classroom looks serene. In the blackboard

Imprint of white chalks

Measuring the rhymes and similes

Dissected stanza’s rustic glamour.

The teacher with neatly parted receding hair

And large spectacle hanging from nose

Is pacing from one corner to another

Reciting the pleasing poem in soothing voice.

The boys and girls are following the teacher

Each word, each pause and tribulation

Bouncing off the rhythmic lyric

Shouting and murmuring the opening words:

“It’s the morning! Open the Door!”

(Bhor Holo! Dor Kholo!)

A rainy and cold morning

Of waning summer. Boys and girls

Wearing the blue sky uniforms

Reading the poetry of Tagore.

Dedicated to the Bangla and English literature teachers of University Laboratory School at Dhaka. Inspired by poem Memory from Childhood by poet Antonio Machado, translated in English by Robert Bly.

Slippery, Silvery Fish - a Poem

2009-09-11T22:09:00.007-06:00

Slippery, Silvery Fish

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

September 11, 2009

I had no sense of dying

I had no sense of the God divine

Or the screechy scream of a slaughtered

Negated swine

Water was filling up my lungs

Was I wheezing?

Coughing?

Can one cough while drowning?

Silvery fish were swimming by,

But the river, down there

Cold and shady

Impish bungs

A boy of year two

Even death seemed an escapade

My flailing fingers grasping thru

Water charade

The swarming fish

Slippery as they were

Sinking as I was

In the depth of that murky swish

Of waves looked jovial

While water filling up my lungs

Twirled tongue, not trivial

I looked up

Splintered rays from heaven

Slicing the shadow of a dingy boat

No stethoscope, no white coat

Someone grabbed my shoulder

The right one,

Trembled, deaden

And pulled me up

There I was

On the boat

In cradle of patriarch

Beside sobbing matriarch

Coughing and wheezing

All the river water from my sinking lungs

Impish bungs

At once, taking deep breath

As if that was an exploration

This drowning

And saved acclimation

From the river of

Silvery death

The old tin suitcase

Was floating away

Or perhaps sinking

Abandoned

To save his son

Unlike the patriarch Abraham

The tattering machine gun from the river bank said

Tat tat tat tat tat

“Kill the infidel! Kill the heathen! Kill the rat!”

Flashes of light could be seen, water rippled more

As the bullets swerved and flayed

We were clinging on that dingy boat’s floor

While he was gasping for air

Propped up on a bed

Many years and an ocean apart

He looked at me, misty glare

Pleading

With silent depart

While my stooped struggle sunk

Before that tall, lanky doctor of white coat

And unwilling stethoscope

Rebuffed the life of a terminal

Invalid? Expendable?

Like the slippery silvery fish

I slipped away

In the depth of a murky river

Uncharted sway

The Mosquito Coast By Paul Theroux – a Book Review

2009-07-25T15:56:00.003-06:00

The Mosquito Coast By Paul Theroux – a Book Review

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

July 25, 2009

How paranoia can grip and strangle the lives of a family, where imposed fear, albeit hyperbolic, but made real sounding with constant uttering, are deftly told by the author Paul Theroux in this story of adventure, inventions, pain and scavengers. Tones are dramatic in the Mosquito Coast, especially, the grim episodes surrounding the demise of ice maker, are unforgettable.

When facing the invasion by the “city boys” with guns, the “fadder”, Allie Fox, the chattering and towering central character of this marvellous book, tries to protect his sanctuary built in jungle of Honduras. Here is an excerpt:

“See, around here, if there’s no rain, there’s nothing to eat. Ask anyone. We’re down to our last provisions. The ants are all over the place. Our river’s turned into a creek. The next time you come, things will be different.”

“Where are your Zambus?”

Father wrinkled his nose. “Probably thought you were soldiers. They saw your ruckbooses.”

“We do not understand.”

“Arquebuses – guns. You’re in Mosquitia now,” Father said. “I didn’t have time to tell them you were friendly. I imagine they are out dripping their arrows in poison, aren’t they, Charlie?”

He was casual in the way he said this. And I knew from his voice what he wanted me to reply. I said, “Yes.”

“You sure had them fooled!” He had become jolly.”

And here is an excerpt describing the protagonist’s one of many reasons to take this journey: “We eat when we're not hungry, drink when we are not thirsty, buy what we don't need, and throw away everything that's useful. Don't sell a man what he wants - sell him what he doesn't want. Pretend he's got eight feet and two stomachs and money to burn. That's not illogical - it's evil.”

For Allie Fox, the inventor, “Revealing something's use, and magnifying it; discovering its imperfections, improving it, and putting it to work for you. God had left the world incomplete, he said, and it was man's job to understand how it worked, to tinker with it, and to finish it. I think that was why he hated missionaries so much - because they taught people to put up with their earthly burdens. For father, there were no burdens that couldn't be fitted with a set of wheels, or rudders, or a system of pulleys.”

One man’s heart out efforts in building a civilization in the middle of a jungle for his family, denying the reality, even concocting his own reality by proclaiming the entire world was destroyed, and his is the last family in the world, always conquering obstacles by going against the current, to the “upriver”, withstanding droughts, mosquito bites, circling scavengers, men with guns, starvations, storms, and sour wabool, while bringing “Ice” to indigenous people in deep recess of thickened trees, mountains and valleys, building a “Fat Boy”, the ice maker, without any moving parts, in the hope of uplifting the forgotten Zambus and Indians in their mud and vine knotted huts. He had caustic words toward anything related to religions and God, but in his delusional progressions, making his own rigid rules in the form of commandments, proclaiming him the “Captain” of the ship resembling the omnipotence of a deity that he so fervently is against.

His family became despondent. Their tears and pleas for reasoning turned into conflicting surrender to this endless paranoia. His wife, sometimes arguing, but mostly complacent, knowing that her “Allie” left his homeland because “he hated it the way it was. That’s why he left. That’s why we’re here. He’ll never go back.” Her paralyzing dependence on “Allie” made her respond to her sons’ pleas to leave, “What about me?” she said. “Don’t you think I’d jump at the chance to go? But look how dark it is. Dad’s not here. I’m always so frightened when he’s away.”

Allie Fox knew it. And his selfish but inventive mind utilized this weakness to its fullest, depriving his loved ones the truth with his domineering personality and seemingly all encompassing knowledge and skills. The slowly but surely building tensions among his sons, culminating into horrifying end, makes one ponder of the wasted opportunities of this endless energy emanating from this creative fictional persona, amid “monkey howls in this pit of unspeakable darkness. Googn! Googn! Googn! Googn!”

Paul Theroux’s The Mosquito Coast is a must read and I am very thankful to a friend from British Columbia who gave this book to me as a gift last month, and quite possibly I wouldn’t have read it otherwise. It was indeed, in Mr. Haddy’s words, an “eesperience”!

Toast - a Poem

2009-07-05T23:52:00.001-06:00

Toast

By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

July 5, 2009-07-05

Here is a toast, burnt and toasted

Crumbled edges

Look like granular hedges

Here is a toast, charred and boasted

Silence brings half empty glass

Meandering hobo’s pointless return

To crumbled edges

Look like granular hedges

Here is a toast, charred and boasted

Burnt and toasted

Morning cacophony, glaring alarm clock

Bring back half filled glass

Mineral of fluid

Rancid exodus

From flocking crass

In the greenest of the greenest grass

Heaps of dying beetles

In morbid warfare

With robust ants and bugs of fiddles

Here is a toast, burnt and toasted

Crumbled edges

Look like secular pledges

Here is a toast, charred and boasted

Before galloping molars

Disintegrate granules of toast

Into mashed and muddy coast

Here is a toast

No more

Rest in Peace - Poem

2009-06-25T23:58:00.001-06:00

Rest in Peace
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
June 25, 2009

Neda, rest in peace.
Michael Jackson, rest in peace.
Farah Fawcett, rest in peace.
Ali Akbar Khan, rest in peace.
Ed Mcmahon, rest in peace.

Rest in peace
In tranquil unknown of hollow “seventh” sky
Or heaven
Where bullets or bombs do not strike the innocents
Moon like crescents
And sun of oblivion
Dangle in wrangling flare
In other dimensional singularity

Deaths do us apart
From world of nostalgia
And horror
Too specific
Too corroding
To sing or muse
For brick by brick laid out
And choreographed abuse
From hellish junta
And diffused freedom
Neatly branded
As grail holy

Holy moly!

“Beat It” like it is the end
“Beat It” like “Time to Pretend”
Rest in Peace
In wholesome, glorious abyss

Rock - a Poem

2009-06-21T17:15:00.001-06:00

Rock
By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
June 21, 2009

As if the earth weren’t round
The ocean weren’t blue
As if the sky has changed
Into pale greyish hue

Tumbling once
Tumbling twice
Tumbling so many times
Like scurried mice

Walking into thunder
Splattered drops of rain
Deafening blast of silence
Brings in zodiac chain

As if the Mayan Calendar ends
In prophecy foretold
As if doomsayers’ 2012 doom
Secrecy too bold

Ticking clock
Freedom knock
Sea of protests in Persia
Guns and bullets,
Useless
For raging rock

"All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time"

2009-06-04T12:21:00.007-06:00

What makes Obama different is his ability to speak truth, acknowledging history, but the urgency to moving forward:

"All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort – a sustained effort – to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings..

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward.

The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth."

Link to full text speech:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?ref=middleeast

Finding the right balance between optimism and realism

2009-05-17T14:30:00.002-06:00

Here are a few excerpts from an Interview with Steve A. Balmer (CEO of Microsoft) published on New York Times:

"....if you really want to accomplish anything, you have to be committed, motivated, tenacious and smart about what you do.

I’ve come to believe that to be a great leader, you have to combine thought leadership, business leadership and great people management. I think most people tend to focus more on one of those three. I used to think it was all about thought leadership. Some people think it’s all about your ability to manage people. But the truth is, great leaders have to have a mix of those things.

if you really want to get the best out of people, you have to really hear them and they have to feel like they’ve been really heard.

Finding the right balance between optimism and realism. I’m an optimist by nature, and I start from the belief that you can always succeed if you have the right amount of focus combined with the right amount of hard work. So I can get frustrated when progress runs up against issues that should have been anticipated or that simply couldn’t have been foreseen. A realist knows that a certain amount of that is inevitable, but the optimist in me always struggles when progress doesn’t match my expectations."

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/business/17corner.html