The universe is made of stories, not atoms - Muriel Rukeyser

Chipmunks are gathering berries. A chipmunk is a large squirrel without stripes. An immigrant is an exile whose stripes slowly vanish. I am one.

New replaces old. Squirrels with chipmunks, gulmohars with magnolias and old faces in the mirror with constant new ones.

Fables remain.

Squirrels had a fable to tell of how they got their stripes, when a human god caressed them as they laboured to build a bridge of rocks across an ocean for his monkey army to cross and vanquish an island bound demon king.

So I invent fables for chipmunks and new words for home.

2002:07:28 17:30 Atlanta

Note: The fable in the poem comes from one of the two great Sanskrit epics, Ramayana. You can find the whole text of it, as retold by C. Rajagopalachari, here. The other epic, Mahabharatha can be found here.

They have been often compared to the Classical Greek Epic "Illiad", but IMHO these are both, a thousand times more brilliant and timeless!

The Washington Post had a front-page article last week reporting that a significantly higher percentage of American college graduates are women and quoting experts saying that would make it harder for women to find suitably smart mates.

And a new study from Rutgers about why more men are putting off marriage suggests that moms who warned daughters that guys would think, "Why buy the cow if you can get the milk free?" may have been right: women have sex to get men to marry them, but men think they don't need to marry because they're already having sex.

Which brings us back to the dread findings of Sylvia Ann Hewlett: Women having trouble finding husbands get better educations and bigger jobs to support themselves, which ends up scaring away possible husbands. Catch-2002.

• "Makin' Us Dizzy - MAUREEN DOWD NYT Editorial"

This was a further take on the long interesting talk I had with Doc two nights ago, especially the part in bold. We were trying to build a theory on the freaknik scene. The theory was women, who allow guys to grind their pelvises into their behinds, in the context of a dance floor, are trading pseudo sexual favours for attention. And that can be a heavy duty shortsell because as we all know that human attention spans have dropped to the levels of a goldfish! Boy o Boy.

"The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish." - BBC

So does this lack of patience bode statistics like the following?

Median age at divorce: (1997) Males: 35.6 Females: 33.2
Median duration of marriage: (1997) 7.2 years
Likelihood of new marriages ending in divorce in 1997: 43% Percentage of all householders who are unmarried: 48% Percentage of weddings which are remarriages for at least one partner in 1997: 43% Percentage of first marriages that end in divorce in 1997: 50% Percentage of remarriages that end in divorce in 1997: 60%

from Divocre Magazine. Very Interesting that US even has a divorce magazine!!

A Simple Solution:

We need to do as Dalai Lama suggests, consicously work towards patience. So here is some food for thought.

"Generally speaking, all the major religions of the world emphasize the importance of the practice of love, compassion, and tolerance. This is particularly the case in all the traditions of Buddhism, including the Theravada, Mahayana, and Tantrayana (the esoteric tradition of Buddhism). They all state that compassion and love are the foundation of all the spiritual paths.

In order to enhance one's development of compassion and cultivate the potential for compassion and love inherent within oneself, what is crucial is to counteract their opposing forces. It is in this context that the practice of patience or tolerance becomes very important, because only through patience is one able to overcome the obstacles to compassion. 

When we talk about patience or tolerance, we should understand that there are many degrees, starting from a simple tolerance, such as being able to bear a certain amount of heat and cold, progressing toward the highest level of patience, which is the type of patience and tolerance found in the great practitioners, the Bodhisattvas on the high levels of the Buddhist path. Since patience or tolerance comes from a certain ability to remain firm and steadfast, to not be overwhelmed by the adverse situations or conditions that one faces, one should not see tolerance or patience as a sign of weakness, but rather as a sign of strength coming from a deep ability to remain steadfast and firm. We can generally define patience or tolerance in these terms. We find that even in being able to tolerate a certain degreeof physical hardship, like a hot or cold climate, our attitude makes a big difference. If we have the realization that tolerating immediate hardship can have long-term beneficial consequences, we are more likely to be able to tolerate everyday hardships. Similarly, in the case of those on the Bodhisattva levels of the path practicing high levels of tolerance and patience, intelligence also plays a very important role as a complementary factor. 

In addition to the value of the practice of tolerance and patience from the Dharma point of view, even in our day-to-day life experiences tolerance and patience have great benefits, such as being able to sustain and maintain our calmness of mind, peace of mind, and presence of mind. So if an individual possesses this capacity of tolerance and patience, then even if the person lives in a very tense environment, one that is frantic and stressful, the person's calmness and presence of mind will not be disturbed." 

from : Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective

Dhamma

You too can learn a non sectarian, non religious, as scientific as science can get and a zero dogma technique to work on those bad things, best of all for FREE!

Enjoy.

Beautiful, you're beautiful, as beautiful as the sun Wonderful, you're wonderful, as wonderful as they come And I can't help but feel attached To the feelings I can't even match With my face pressed up to the glass, wanting you Beautiful, you're beautiful, as beautiful as the sky Wonderful, it's wonderful, to know that you're just like I And I'm sure you know me well, as I'm sure you don't But you just can't tell Who you'll love and who you won't And I love you, as you love me So let the clouds roll by your face We'll let the world spin on to another place We'll climb the tallest tree above it all To look down on you and me and them And I'm sure you know me well, as I'm sure you don't But you just can't tell, who you'll love and who you won't Don't let your life wrap up around you Don't forget to call, whenever I'll be here just waiting for you I'll be under your stars forever Neither here nor there just right beside you I'll be under the stairs forever Neither here nor there just right beside you