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Trees etc.

 Trees have Character. They have Courage. They stand there their whole Lives from Beginning to End, withstanding all that happens to them as long as they can. They don't leave their Posts, no Matter what. Don't and can't. Science is now showing Things we never knew about them, eg that they also have Intelligence, despite not having Brains! We've underestimated the Trees. They're silent. What they do is subtle, not obvious, but they've always been doing it anyway. Hidden away under the Ground, they've been communicating with each other through Fungus on their Roots. The Plants are Mathematicians. They do Mathematics from Basic eg Symmetry, Number of Petals in Flowers through Fibonacci Numbers and the Logarithmic Spiral to advanced eg Fractals. Mathematics requires Intelligence. The Trees have Beauty. They have Soul. They have Mystery. They're a Manifestation of Something. Great Nature, we could call it.

https://www.planetdolan.com/15-beautiful-examples-of-mathematics-in-nature/
2 years ago • Share • 1 Comment • Report 5

The Lamplighter

 The Lamplighter is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson contained within his 1885 collection A Child's Garden of Verses. His poem may be autobiographical. Stevenson was sickly growing up (probably tuberculosis), thus "when I am stronger" may refer to his hope of recovery. Further, his illness isolated him, so the loneliness expressed in the poem would fit well with his own childhood.

Stevenson's poem also makes reference to the divide that exists between children and adults. This is seen when the speaker says that his father is a banker and rejects following in his footsteps into a similar career. Instead the child wishes to go gallivanting around the streets as the lamplighter does. The speaker in the poem makes his desire for adventure clear and seeks an escape from the normality of his life:

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more

The lamplighter is reimagined by Stevenson into a wondrous and almost magical figure as seen through the speaker's description. While the job of lighting lamps would be seen as banal by people at the time, it is instead seen as extraordinary by the speaker. The child sees the presence of lights at nighttime to be special and wishes to follow the Lamplighter into the same profession.

Childhood is also represented as a time where choice does not really exist. The speaker believes that he is not able to choose what he wants to do because of his age. The poem explores choice and goes on to state that a person gains the ability to choose as they grow older and stronger which furthers the theme of maturation.

There may also be some nostalgia reflected in the poem. In 1881, Stevenson published the essay, "A Plea For Gas Lamps," in "Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers." In this essay, he sentimentally upholds gas lamps against electric lights, describing electric light as "that ugly blinding glare" and "a lamp for a nightmare." In the same essay, he describes the lamplighter as one punching holes in the night and as one worthy of being immortalized in a Greek myth, but one whose task has been overtaken by automatic electric ignition of the gas lights. Because Penny Whistles was published four years later, The Lamplighter may represent a similar theme.


The Lamplighter, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)


My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;

It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;

For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,

With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,

And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;

But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,

O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,

And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;

And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,

O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!
2 years ago • Share • 0 Comments • Report 2

New Invention

 Few recent inventions... are more remarkable than M. Gramme's electric light. Frequently, during the past Session of Parliament its wonderful beam has been seen in mid-air, cast from the noble clock-tower of the New Palace at Westminster. This beautiful light, which shone conspicuously from its eyrie 260ft. above the streets, illuminating them far and wide, was supplied by the electric current from a small machine requiring only 2½ horse power to drive it ... It is possible that all our streets in a few years hence may be nightly bathed in the glorious light of electricity, and the thousands of gaslights may then be replaced by two or three magneto-electric points set high above the housetops of London.

Illustrated London News, August 16th, 1873
2 years ago • Share • 8 Comments • Report 2

Racism

 People can't help the ethnic Group they belong to.

Nobody gets to choose their own Parents!

Therefore, it's wrong to give People a hard Time about that.
2 years ago • Share • 2 Comments • Report 3

Life

 Good or bad, it changes!

Soon or late, it ends!

We dwell in a Dream of the Gods.

How could we understand it?
2 years ago • Share • 9 Comments • Report 3

Our Glorious Leader

 Surely the Right Honourable Boris Johnson, MP, is one of this Country's greatest ever Conservative Prime Ministers. Not only great but good: honourable he is indeed, as is by now plain to all. It is his Morals principally that command Respect. Not only those, of Course, but also, his quite exceptional Competence. We are most certainly in good Hands with him.
2 years ago • Share • 9 Comments • Report 2

Wisdom from Ancient India

 Some blind Followers of certain Groups might like to consider these Words:

Do not be led by others,
awaken your own Mind,
amass your own Experience,
and decide for yourself your own Path.

-- Atharva Veda
2 years ago • Share • 0 Comments • Report 3