Post by bladefd on Aug 22, 2016 22:04:04 GMT
List your top 5 inspirational/influential figures to you and why (does not need to be in any specific order, just list 5 from the top of your mind in whatever order):
Here is my 5 in no particular order..
1) Carl Sagan: There was something very special about this fellow. He was an astrophysicist who made science more accessible to the average people. Before he came along, the laymen didn't quite understand advanced science, and most scientists didn't try enough to make science open to everyone. Sagan pushed initiatives to open it up to everyone with or without a science degree. He made you feel small by showing you humility and how Earth is simply a pale blue dot in the vastness of the universe. He also made you feel big by showing you that ‘we are made of star stuff’. Our atoms were once a part of some distant star and so the universe is around us as much as it is within us. This man showed how special and great life is through astronomy, and how we should treat each other with respect & humility. He is somebody that is an inspiration to who I’m as a person, my life views, and how I wish more humans were like. He has influenced me and inspired me.
2) Mahatma Gandhi: What was he? A tiny guy with bones sticking out of every part of his body with just enough food to stand upright. Then you look at what he did: he took down the British empire through strictly peaceful means ('ahimsa' they call it in the oldest written language of Sanskrit). He would starve himself for months at a time if any of his people used violence against the British (and the Muslims later on when India was violently split between Hindus/Muslims after British left). People from both Hindu and Islam side would beg him to eat again and stopped violence just for him. He fought for human rights in South Africa, India, even took it to the lion's nest in Great Britain. The person who shot him was a Hindu so he was literally backstabbed by the very people he devoted his life to. After he was shot, he had the largest funeral ever with all of India closing down for days, and it is still a major holiday today. Unbelievable. Arguably the most influential person ever. He inspired Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Llama, John Lennon, many many others. As an Indian, I look up to this man as an inspiration. Even when the odds are against you, you never give up what you believe in.
3) Bruce Lee: Bruce was truly an awesome figure. He was much more than an actor and martial artist. He was a philosopher, a warrior, a man of peace. He changed the image of martial arts globally and also changed how Asians were viewed in the West. He created his own style of fighting called Jeet Kune Do that mixed together different styles of fighting and focused on efficiency to maximize effectiveness. It is a style that continuously evolves in flexibility. As Bruce once said "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. That water can flow, or it can crash. Be water my friend." That is Bruce as a philosopher and a poet. His movies I have seen quite a few times, and I still look up his writings/quotes. He is a legend that lives on.
4) Albert Einstein: He went from a nobody to the man of the century and perhaps the greatest scientist ever. At a young age, people looked down on him and questioned his intelligence in early age and he was pretty socially inept. People did not understand him and saw him as a 'weird' guy. He was not appreciated by his teachers, and they laughed at his ineptitude. Proves everybody wrong starting in college by creating some of the most advanced theories known to humanity that are still pretty widely accepted today + quantum physics field pretty much was started after his research/writings. Quite an accomplishment. People, including top physicists in his day, still laughed at him after he released his paper on special relativity in 1905, but his next paper in 1915 on general relativity made several top physicists look like fools. Crazy guy but just a genius and good high-character guy. He is second in overall impact in science to maybe only Isaac Newton. I'm very familiar with Newton's impacts, but Einstein has moved physics a step forward - people thought physics was starting to become stagnant then Einstein comes along that shatters almost everything.
5) My parents. There is not much I agree with my parents on and our philosophies/personalities are very different, but they are very good people. They are always there when I need them, and they have never said no. My dad was willing to put aside his life savings to get me through college, but I refused (luckily I got good financial aid/scholarship/etc so they didn't have to). My parents are not well-educated and worked blue collar jobs much of their life. Both of them were raised in poverty by my grandparents on both sides of my family who could barely afford shoes to wear while growing up. I may not show emotion, but I'm inspired by what they overcame to be where they are today. My grandparents overcame even bigger odds growing up in extreme poverty. My grandfather had no shoes as a child - he wore used ripped flipflops everywhere and people laughed at him. He worked hard with no college degree and became a IRS inspector later on. He passed away years ago with pancreatic cancer. Other grandfather grew up in similar circumstances (passed from heart failure). Truly powerful stuff.
What about you?
Here is my 5 in no particular order..
1) Carl Sagan: There was something very special about this fellow. He was an astrophysicist who made science more accessible to the average people. Before he came along, the laymen didn't quite understand advanced science, and most scientists didn't try enough to make science open to everyone. Sagan pushed initiatives to open it up to everyone with or without a science degree. He made you feel small by showing you humility and how Earth is simply a pale blue dot in the vastness of the universe. He also made you feel big by showing you that ‘we are made of star stuff’. Our atoms were once a part of some distant star and so the universe is around us as much as it is within us. This man showed how special and great life is through astronomy, and how we should treat each other with respect & humility. He is somebody that is an inspiration to who I’m as a person, my life views, and how I wish more humans were like. He has influenced me and inspired me.
2) Mahatma Gandhi: What was he? A tiny guy with bones sticking out of every part of his body with just enough food to stand upright. Then you look at what he did: he took down the British empire through strictly peaceful means ('ahimsa' they call it in the oldest written language of Sanskrit). He would starve himself for months at a time if any of his people used violence against the British (and the Muslims later on when India was violently split between Hindus/Muslims after British left). People from both Hindu and Islam side would beg him to eat again and stopped violence just for him. He fought for human rights in South Africa, India, even took it to the lion's nest in Great Britain. The person who shot him was a Hindu so he was literally backstabbed by the very people he devoted his life to. After he was shot, he had the largest funeral ever with all of India closing down for days, and it is still a major holiday today. Unbelievable. Arguably the most influential person ever. He inspired Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Dalai Llama, John Lennon, many many others. As an Indian, I look up to this man as an inspiration. Even when the odds are against you, you never give up what you believe in.
3) Bruce Lee: Bruce was truly an awesome figure. He was much more than an actor and martial artist. He was a philosopher, a warrior, a man of peace. He changed the image of martial arts globally and also changed how Asians were viewed in the West. He created his own style of fighting called Jeet Kune Do that mixed together different styles of fighting and focused on efficiency to maximize effectiveness. It is a style that continuously evolves in flexibility. As Bruce once said "Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. That water can flow, or it can crash. Be water my friend." That is Bruce as a philosopher and a poet. His movies I have seen quite a few times, and I still look up his writings/quotes. He is a legend that lives on.
4) Albert Einstein: He went from a nobody to the man of the century and perhaps the greatest scientist ever. At a young age, people looked down on him and questioned his intelligence in early age and he was pretty socially inept. People did not understand him and saw him as a 'weird' guy. He was not appreciated by his teachers, and they laughed at his ineptitude. Proves everybody wrong starting in college by creating some of the most advanced theories known to humanity that are still pretty widely accepted today + quantum physics field pretty much was started after his research/writings. Quite an accomplishment. People, including top physicists in his day, still laughed at him after he released his paper on special relativity in 1905, but his next paper in 1915 on general relativity made several top physicists look like fools. Crazy guy but just a genius and good high-character guy. He is second in overall impact in science to maybe only Isaac Newton. I'm very familiar with Newton's impacts, but Einstein has moved physics a step forward - people thought physics was starting to become stagnant then Einstein comes along that shatters almost everything.
5) My parents. There is not much I agree with my parents on and our philosophies/personalities are very different, but they are very good people. They are always there when I need them, and they have never said no. My dad was willing to put aside his life savings to get me through college, but I refused (luckily I got good financial aid/scholarship/etc so they didn't have to). My parents are not well-educated and worked blue collar jobs much of their life. Both of them were raised in poverty by my grandparents on both sides of my family who could barely afford shoes to wear while growing up. I may not show emotion, but I'm inspired by what they overcame to be where they are today. My grandparents overcame even bigger odds growing up in extreme poverty. My grandfather had no shoes as a child - he wore used ripped flipflops everywhere and people laughed at him. He worked hard with no college degree and became a IRS inspector later on. He passed away years ago with pancreatic cancer. Other grandfather grew up in similar circumstances (passed from heart failure). Truly powerful stuff.
What about you?
