Windmills of My Mind: Has anything changed in 15 years?

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Monday, April 24, 2006

Has anything changed in 15 years?

I Will Not

[by a Grade-5 Student of Karachi High School on Earth Day 1991]

Today on Earth Day we are celebrating by making promises
But I will not

I will not stop throwing paper on the ground
I will not stop using plastic bags
I will not go to clean the beaches
I will not stop polluting
I will not do all these things because
I am not polluting the world
It is the grown-ups who are dropping bombs
It is the grown-ups who have to stop
One bomb destroys more than all the paper & plastic
   that I can throw in all my life
It is the grown-ups who should get together
   and talk to each other
They should solve problems and stop fighting
   and stop wars
They are making acid rain and a hole in the ozone layer.

I will not listen to the grown-ups!

Labels: Education, Poetry, Politics, Science, Technology

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Hats of to this bright spunky 5th grader from Karachi High School who had the understanding of what was really going wrong with us grown ups 15 years ago. Surely it must have been part of a regimented school assignment where he was told all about how youngsters must do all the right things vis a vis the environment. thank you young man (anon) for telling us what we adults should be doing.
No not only has anything changed in 15 years - its gotten worse, and yes we are to blame.
If 5% of the world's population continues to use more than 56% of the world's resourses, and is the only continent that has produced the hole in the ozone layer and all the wars in the last 15 years, then do we have an option but to wait for the day after tomorrow?

26 April, 2006 12:42

Anonymous said...

dear zak,
your blog is definitely something to visit again and again. who is the grade-5-student? i want to give him or her a tight hug. thankyou for publishing this!

a bunch of kids at lums have started a political and literary magazine for inciting debate & cultivating a social consciousness called Sha'oor. i was wondering if maybe this piece could be re-published there.

always,
hira (hiranabi@gmai.com)
ps. hope you and ummi are well.

28 April, 2006 21:37

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: Name: Zakintosh; Location: Karachi, Pakistan

They laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at them because they are all the same.

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Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Noam Chomsky

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Albert Einstein

Each century seems to take on a particular character as we view it in retrospect. How will the 20th Century be remembered? My guess is that this dramatic span of 100 years will ultimately be marked not by computers or the Internet, but by the drive toward individual freedom, the breaking of human barriers of prejudice, and the opening of society to include all people.

John S. Spong

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

Windmills of My Mind

Monday, April 24, 2006

Has anything changed in 15 years?

2 Comments:

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