Can artifacts give more meaning to your life?

This month, Apple launched iPhone5 and Apple executives claim that iPhone5 comes with capability that gives purpose to previously empty and meaningless lives. Quite a promise, isn't it?

This claim comes from human quality of empathy, a new feature that Apple added to Siri. Now, Siri has the ability to offer human-like responses to complex life questions like "Why didn't my parents love me?"

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO said: "We believe that the iPhone5 will make your current relationship obsolete." Wow.....

Ten Perfections

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of renunciation

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of perseverance

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of loving kindness

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of resolution

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of wisdom

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of moral practice

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of forbearance

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of equanimity

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of truth

Living one's life .... working toward perfection of giving

Christine Lagarde

On being a woman... and the first woman in important roles:

Logan: In a lot of things that you've done, you are the first woman. Does it matter to you? Is it important?
Lagarde: What matter to me is that I am not the last one.

On what is important in life:
Lagarde: When my father passed away and then when later on I gave birth, those are sort of ground-breaking experiences that put everything else into perspective. You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, "Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love." And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

Conan O'Brien's 2011 commencement address at Dartmouth

Conan O'Brien gave commencement address at Dartmouth. I found his speech to have several useful life lessons to teach new graduates, freshmen, as well as everyday individuals on perceived failures, successes, and identity.

Here are some of the excerpts:

• Eleven years ago I gave an address to a graduating class at Harvard. I have not spoken at a graduation since because I thought I had nothing left to say. But then 2010 came. And now I'm here, three thousand miles from my home, because I learned a hard but profound lesson last year and I'd like to share it with you. In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting.
  
  
• Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years. I went from being in the center of the grid to not only off the grid, but underneath the coffee table that the grid sits on, lost in the shag carpeting that is underneath the coffee table supporting the grid. It was the making of a career disaster, and a terrible analogy.
  
  
• There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. ... Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job...
  
  
• It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

• So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

• Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay. Four years ago, many of you had a specific vision of what your college experience was going to be and who you were going to become. And I bet, today, most of you would admit that your time here was very different from what you imagined. Your roommates changed, your major changed, for some of you your sexual orientation changed.
  

Four reliances

Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality;
Rely on the meaning, not just on the words;
Rely on the real meaning, not on the provisional one;
Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgmental mind.

From the Buddha as quoted in the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

Move on

Stop worrying where you're going, move on
If you can know where you're going, you've gone
Just keep moving on.
....

Move on!
Move on!

Stop worrying if your vision is new.
Let others make that decision . . .
they usually do!
You keep moving on.
Look at what you want,
Not at what you are
Not at what you'll be ...

"Move On", From Sunday in the Park with George

The waiting places

This is a follow-up post on Dr. Seuss's "the waiting place". I believe that there are so many waiting places these days.

• School system: Waiting for Superman
• Higher education system: Waiting for meaningful reform
• Financial system: Waiting for moral behaviors
• Economy: Waiting to move beyond wealth accumulation as a measure of progress
• Individual: Waiting for meaningful life experience
  

Words of wisdom from Dr. Seuss

I am re-reading words from "Oh! The Places You'll Go" again. Here are the words/phrases/sentences that jump out to me:

• You'll look up and down streets. Look'em over with care. About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there." With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you're too smart to go down a not-so-good street.
• You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly-perch. And your gang will fly on. You'll be left in a Lurch.
  
• You'll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you'll be in a Slump.
• And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
• The Waiting Place ... for people just waiting.
• Life's a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
• Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So .... get on your way!
  

Being an elder VS. Growing old

A thoughtful distinction between being an elder and growing old for all of us to reflect on from Ms. Maxine Hong Kingston.

" Being an elder is very different from simply growing old and most people are unaware of the distinction... Elders have the wisdom and the ideas and the vision to make a good world... They commit to being leaders and sharing their wisdom with others."

Purpose of life

The purpose of life is not to be happy -- but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

Leo Rosten, 1908 - 1997

I got this quote from kiwanja.net. This life meaning makes a lot of sense. But I still struggle with the question of "what is the meaning of living?"