Life is a fleeting moment

When contemplating the mysteries of life, the mystery of suffering seems to me the most mystic of all mysteries. Difficulties and challenges seem to be part of the make-up of our world. Few hearts are not afflicted by sorrows and few lives are spared by sufferings. Is there a meaning in this, I often wonder, is this a necessary step in a bigger process? Is there any good in bad?

This physical world is a world of opposites. Thus polarities exist universally: light and darkness, positive and negative, health and disease, yin and yang, life and death… More specifically, there are two opposite forces operating simultaneously upon the world of human being: physical and spiritual, thus creating tension between good and evil, moral and immoral, right and wrong. To make things more complicated, we, humans, are given the free will to choose between the two. No wonder suffering is generated. Suffering, in its essence, is our struggling between our desires to satisfy physical needs and our desire to be good as well as to be near to the source of all good. Thus all forms of unhappiness come from one form or another of attachment to the material world. This is the condition of this physical world and for as long as we live here, no one seems to be able to escape.

Why then do we have to suffer?

This question is closely related to the purpose of life. If life does not have purpose, of course suffering does not have any meaning (This is an awful situation, isn’t it? We have to suffer anyway, but without meaning, we suffer in vain!). But suppose that our purpose of living here on earth is to grow our soul, then this physical world might be the special environment in which our soul can make true progress. That is exactly some have suggested that this physical world is a vast “Soul School”, and everything in the world is but a tool to help human souls to learn.

And the suffering is the one condition under which our soul can be best trained:

“The mind and spirit of man advance when he is tried by suffering. The more the ground is plowed, the better the seed will grow, the better the harvest will be. Just as the plow furrows the earth deeply, purifying it of weeds and thistles, so suffering and tribulation free man from the petty affairs of this worldly life until he arrives at a state of complete detachment.”

Guy Murchie also suggested that “human soul thrives on a challenge or a problem and, once it is stretched by struggling with any sort of adversity, it can never shrink all the way back to its original dimensions. And so it grows bigger. Therefore, one should think of adversity as a kind of growth hormone at the opposite pole from, yet absolutely essential to, spiritual development.”

It might be comforting to know that this special condition of physical world does not exist in the next life. There are no opposite forces in the next world, thus test and suffering do not exist there either. Sound pretty good, but there is trade-off like everything in life: the trade-off is we don’t progress as fast in spiritual world as we do in physical world! We don’t have test, we don’t have opportunity either. So rather than to look at it as vale of tears, this life with its multitude tests and sufferings could also be seen and more correctly seen as an unique opportunity. It is an opportunity to get a jump-start to eternity. By struggling against the resistance of material world, it enables us to make enormous amount of spiritual progress in a very short period of time.

However, understanding the cause and the reason of suffering may make it easier to bear the difficulties of life, but it does not completely erase the pain of suffering (to me at least). At the end of a day, whenever sorrow threatens to overtake me, it is always the words of Baha’u’llah that provide consolation to my heart:

 “Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you…”
 “Live then the days of thy life, that are less than a fleeting moment, with thy mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and thy nature sanctified, so that, free and content, thou mayest put away this mortal frame, and repair unto the mystic paradise and abide in the eternal kingdom for evermore.”

Three barriers between man and God

Baha’u’llah said:

“The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence.”

To this seemingly simple purpose, there are three big obstacles man needs to overcome.
[bellows are taken and edited from “The Revelation of Baha'u'llah” by Adib Taherzadeh, v 2, p. 35-39]:

1. Attachment to this material world:

Man may possess all the good things of the world, live in luxury and yet be detached from earthly things. God has created this world and all it contains for man's use and enjoyment, provided he lives in accordance with the teachings of God.

This world is filled with material bounties from God, that all good and beautiful things are manifestations of His attributes and that to possess them is not attachment. However, the things of this world are all transitory and man should not fix his affection upon them, nor allow himself to be possessed by them.

2. Attachment to the next world and all that is destined for man in the life hereafter.

To understand the significance of the second barrier let us remember that the purpose of life is to know and worship God. This, therefore, is the purpose of creation. Man's deeds are praiseworthy in the sight of God when they are performed solely for His love and for no other reason. If man's motive for his actions is that he may reap a reward for himself in the next world, then this is attachment. To be detached means to do everything for the sake of God and to seek no recompense.

What a contrast between this attitude and that prevailing in human society at the present time, where almost every action is designed to bring forth rewards for the individual. The attitude of expediency and self-interest has so conditioned the mind of man today that even in spiritual matters such as faith and belief in God, man often looks for something that will primarily satisfy his own needs. Many people today join one religion or another in the hope of receiving some spiritual help or other benefit such as peace of mind or salvation. This is not the right motive for following a religion. For the story of every religion is written with the language of love. A true lover has no ulterior motives or self-interest, but only a passionate love for his beloved.

“He who seeks reward for his deeds will be given the Garden of Paradise; and he who seeks God is in no need of paradise.”

3. Attachment to the 'Kingdom of Names'.

God in His own essence is exalted above attributes. However, in all His dominions and within each of His worlds, both spiritual and physical, He reveals the kingdom of His attributes. Every created thing manifests the names and attributes of God. In the human world, these attributes appear within the 'Kingdom of Names' and man often becomes attached to these names.

In this world every one of God's attributes is clad with a name, and every such name reveals the characteristics of its attribute. For instance, generosity is an attribute of God, and it manifests itself in human beings. However, a person who has this attribute often becomes proud of it and loves to be referred to as generous. When his generosity is acknowledged by other people, he becomes happy, and when it is ignored, unhappy. This is one form of attachment to the Kingdom of Names. Although this example concerns the name 'generosity', the same is true of all the names and attributes of God manifested within the individual. Usually, man ascribes these attributes to his own person rather than to God and employs them to exalt his own ego. For instance, a learned man uses the attribute of knowledge to become famous and feels gratified and uplifted when his name is publicized far and wide. Or there is the individual whose heart leaps with feelings of pride and satisfaction when he hears his name mentioned and finds himself admired. These are examples of attachment to the Kingdom of Names.

Human society at present exerts a pernicious influence upon the soul of man. Instead of allowing him to live a life of service and sacrifice, it teaches him to pride himself on his accomplishments. From early childhood he is trained to develop his ego and to seek to exalt himself above others. His ultimate aim is to achieve self-importance, success and power.

The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh aims to reverse this process. The soul of man needs to be adorned with the virtues of humility and self-effacement so that it may become detached from the Kingdom of Names.

Happiness is the quality of our soul

For a few days, I can’t get my mind away from this “happiness” business. After tried to comb through my life and listed out what really makes me happy and my heart singing, I come to the conclusion (at least to me) that happiness is a quality of my soul and anything that will increase the capacities of my soul will make me happy. It is almost like that happiness is an indicator of the state of my soul. If the needs of my soul are satisfied, I am happy. Otherwise I will feel the void in my heart and become increasingly restless and unhappy. Just as physical pain is a sign that something is wrong with my body, unhappiness (we may call it spiritual pain) is a sign that something is wrong with my soul.

Then what are the needs of our soul?

We have discussed this in a previous blog that there are three fundamental capacities of our soul that need to be developed and must be developed in order to achieve inner happiness (contentment):

1.The knowing capacity: our intellect, rational thoughts. It is through this capacity we are able to discover the mysteries of the universe and our self. With the help of this capacity, we are able to discern the truth. Ultimately, the truth we are enabled to know is the truth about God, which is equivalent to the truth about ourselves (remember that we are made in the image of God and able to reflect all the attributes of God).

“Supreme happiness is man’s, and he beholds the signs of God in the world and in the human soul.”

2.The loving capacity: our feelings, our emotions and our desires. Perhaps, nothing has brought human hearts as much happiness as love has done. Love is a relationship that brings happiness to both lover and the beloved. And ultimately all love comes from God. The whole universe exists because the love of God.
“The greatest gift of man is universal love... It attracts realities and diffuses life with infinite joy.”

3. The willing capacity: our ability to take action. When we use this capacity to do what is good, when we know we are contributing to the good of the general society, it brings happiness and fulfillment to our heart. It is our deeds to define who we are, not our words after all.

“That which is truly spiritual must light the path to God, and must result in deeds.”

In conclusion, it is from our striving to know the truth, to love the beautiful and to do what is good, we derive our true and lasting happiness.

One more point, how do we differentiate what is material and what is spiritual? There is, in fact, distinctive and fundamental difference between the two: the material things, when shared, will diminish. So we are always in a position of competition for material things. On the contrary, the spiritual entity, when shared, will multiply (math doesn’t work here). For example, if I have a good idea, when share with you, we both have a good idea. So we will never be short of spiritual thing if we choose to share with each other. This will ultimately make every one happy. So the value of spiritual entity is universal.

What makes you happy?

Yesterday, we read the article (Is Happy Catching?) in which we learned: “that good behaviors — like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy — pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses…And the same was true of bad behaviors — clusters of friends appeared to “infect” each other with obesity, unhappiness and smoking.”

So according to this finding, our own happiness or unhappiness is no longer our own private business. Knowing or not, willing or not, we are spreading our own mood around not only to our family members, but also to our friends, our friends of friends…It’s almost like that we are contributing to a reservoir of happiness/unhappiness of our society, and in turn the net of this reservoir will have impact on each of us. Living really is a serious business.

It is in this context, I found this article published a few years ago of research results by some psychologists that what really makes people happy:
The science of happiness
One of studies showed that the following eight steps that makes one's life more satisfactory:

1. Count your blessings;
2. Practice acts of kindness;
3. Savor life’s joys: pay close attention to momentary pleasures and wonder;
4. Thank a mentor;
5. Learn to forgive;
6. Invest time and energy in friends and family;
7. Take care of your body;
8. Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardships;

To identify what really makes us happy could help us to deliberately do those things more frequently so that we will stay in happy mood more often and in turn we help people around us living a happier life. Just like Fowler, one of the researchers in "Is Happy Catching?" said that their work had inspired him to listen to upbeat music before he arrives home from work so he will be in a good mood when he greets his family. “I try to get myself in a mental space where I’ll be happy,” he says. “Because I know that I’m not just having an impact on my son, I’m potentially having an impact on my son’s best friend’s mother.”

If you don't mind, you may like to share with us what makes you happy so we may learn from each other.

The health of human mind

Let’s look at this question first: what is human and human mind?
It is understandable that there may be many diverse definitions of human beings. After all, one of the definitions of human is that human being is the only creatures whose potentials can not be defined. One notable viewpoint nowadays in part of the world is the materialistic philosophy. That is, there is only one kind of thing in the universe -- matter. And everything else is but a byproduct of the interaction of maters. Thus, human being is equivalent to his body which in turn produced human mind. So according this point of view, if our mind is sick, it must be something wrong with our body. Popping a pill, everything will be cured.

It was in addressing the above monist point of view, ‘Abdu’l-Baha in his letter to Auguste Forel in 1921 proposed a different model of human being. ‘Abdu’l-Baha first pointed out that there are certain phenomena in the world which can only be known relationally.

In order to understand this model, let’s first look at two examples (these examples are not from ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s Tablet). The first example of the relational phenomena is the relationship between pianist and piano. If pianist does not associate himself with a piano, nothing happens. But once the pianist put his hands on a piano (association) and play, a music is produced. Moreover, the quality of the music depends on both the skill of the pianist and the quality of the piano. Another example is the light. We know that light makes physical objects visible. Without light, the world is dark. But seldom do we realize consciously that without physical objects, the world is dark as well even if there is presence of light. It is said that a physicist Arthur Dijon did an experiment on the nature of light: he wants to know how does light look like when it is entirely left to itself? He constructed a box in which there is nothing to reflect light. Then he shone a ray of light into the box. He saw nothing but the blackness of an empty space. The darkness of space exists because there are not sufficient objects against which light can be projected.

Similarly, human being owes its existence to an interrelationship that produces a third phenomenon: when the soul of a human being is associated with a human body, it produces human mind (a relational phenomenon). The properties of human soul can only be known in this physical world through the instrument of human mind. Just as a mirror provides a vehicle to witness the present of light, human body provides the vehicle for the expression of the light of our soul. Whatever the mind imagines, desires, works for, or pursues is the expression of the interplay between the body and the soul. Our mind is a tightly woven fabric in which our soul and our body are inseparable from one another in this physical world.

So, according to this model of human being, the health of our mind is depending on both the health of our body and the health of our soul. Just as our body possesses certain capacities that can be and need to be developed, our soul possesses certain inherent capacities that can be and need to be developed.

It is believed that there are three fundamental capacities (powers) for a human soul, that is:

1. The power to know: the intellect or the capacity for conscious, rational thought;
2. The power to love: the capacity to experience feelings, emotions, desires and longings.
3. The power to will: the capacity to choose, to decide, to initiate and sustain an action.

These three capacities are inseparable from the human soul in the same way that heat and light are inseparable from the sun. At no time a human being is not knowing, not loving and not willing. The only difference is what we are knowing, what we are loving and what we are willing. This is a power that is the bounty of God never withdrawn from us. The refinement, cultivation and development of these three capacities are the goal of all moral striving. Just as there are bodily diseases, there are diseases of a soul as well. Each dimensions of our soul has requirements that must be satisfied. When this is done, all is well. But when it is not, the conditions of disease and disability of our soul begins to set in and will cross the body and the mind.

So when dealing with diseases, it is sometimes useful to look for the cause in the body, and sometimes useful to look for it in the pattern of emotions, thoughts and behaviors. These three powers are closely connected that change in one power will result in a change another.

Religious teachings have provided and will continue to provide means for the development of human souls. The chief goal of Baha’i Faith, as Shoghi Effendi said, “is the development of the individual and society, through the acquisition of spiritual virtues and powers. It is the soul of man that has first to be fed…”

The declining of the influence of the religious force on the individual and our society as is the case in current time, has caused imbalance in the development of our body and our soul, thus increase in the sickness of our mind and society. And when talking about the problems of our society, Shoghi Effendi stated: “Indeed, the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is a lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind, that people in general no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence. There is not sufficient demand for things that we should call spiritual to differentiate them from the needs and requirements of our physical existence. The universal crisis affecting mankind is, therefore, essentially spiritual in its causes.”

And “How to attain spirituality is, indeed, a question to which every young man and woman must sooner or later try to find a satisfactory answer.”

A Matchless Day

Quote for today:

"This is a matchless Day. Matchless must, likewise, be the tongue that celebrateth the praise of the Desire of all nations, and matchless the deed that aspireth to be acceptable in His sight..." --Baha'u'llah

Have A Good Day

Science and Religion: Nature of the conflict(III)

History of the conflict

If we consider the historical beginnings of the opposition between science and religion, as well as some of its contemporary manifestations, the issue seems to be rooted in certain widespread human attitudes towards power.

The broad allegiance which a belief system can command creates a reservoir of power. If the belief system is institutionalized in such a way that this power is easily available to certain individuals or groups (for example, priests, experts of various kinds, or political leaders), the tendency may naturally arise for the favored group to maintain its position of power by resisting new beliefs and theories, however valid, progressive or socially helpful these latter may in fact be. In other words, so-called ideological battles are often not ideological at all but only symbols for a power struggle between people. This is largely what happened in the case of Renaissance science and the religion of the day. Exponents of religion perceived the emerging science as a (latent or overt) challenge to their authority and proceeded to discredit various aspects of the new science, but not from a truly rational point of view.

Following this initial split came the incredible success of the new science, a success which was clearly not attributable to the religion which had so clamorously disowned science. But the spectacular development of this increasingly materialistic science has only served to heighten a general sense of discomfort. For, secularizing science has not provided theories of sufficient depth and breadth to give adequate, satisfactory answers to many of the fundamental questions of everyday life—questions concerning meaning, death, consciousness, self-sacrifice, love, suffering, etc.

At the same time, religion has not been able to provide much comfort since its continued rejection of scientific principles of inquiry renders it incapable of giving any guarantee of the validity of its belief system. People are faced with the unpalatable choice between highly validated scientific theories of limited scope on the one hand, and unsupported metaphysical speculation on the other. Moreover, circumstances have more often than not forced people to make a choice between these extremes and to live their lives accordingly.

The dilemma described in the last sentence continues to characterize the intellectual and spiritual milieu of the late twentieth century… It is astonished to see how uncritically so many theologians and religious-minded thinkers had accepted the positivist description of scientific method. In accepting the exclusion of religion from the domain of scientific method, such religionists thereby acquiesced to their inability ever to give epistemological justification to the content of their belief systems. Perhaps this attitude on their part was a vestige of the reflex of their Renaissance predecessors: their unwillingness to subject their thought to the critical methods of science represented a desire to carve out for themselves an area, however small and devoid of genuine social influence, in which they reigned with unchallenged authority, without the nagging necessity for justification and response to criticism.

Truly appalling was the spectre of the unbridled power of secularized science, a power whose ultimate limits could no longer be discerned. This power, divorced as it largely was and is from any fundamental commitment to a humanistic, much less ethical or spiritual, value system, could not fail in the end to be exploited by the basest and most selfish of human interests.

The systematic application of scientific method in certain specific areas of material development coupled with the continual refusal to apply this same method in the critically important areas of the spiritual, the ethical, the social and the political has led man to the brink of destruction. He now has the certain knowledge of how to destroy himself, but only the vaguest, unsupported speculations about how to prevent such destruction. As Carl Jung once expressed the idea: through science and the use he has thus far made of it, man has conquered nature; but he has not yet understood or conquered his own nature.

It was in this frame of mind that I(Dr.William Hatcher)became acquainted with the Bahá’í Faith through the profound writings of Bahá’u’lláh and the commentaries and interpretations of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. Here was pure religion, unflinchingly addressing itself to the deepest of human questions and yet not only tolerating but inviting critical study. And here was religion one of whose basic principles was the unity of science and religion.

Concerning the relationship between religion and science, the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in particular, forthrightly condemn dogmatic religion for its rejection of science. At the same time, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá lays bare the inadequacies and limitations of the strictly materialistic, positivistic conception of scientific method. It is fair to say that his analysis and observations, made in the decade 1910-1920, anticipate by almost fifty years the general realization of these same limitations on the part of the philosophical and scientific community.

The Bahá’í writings deal trenchantly with another crucial problem involved in the religion-science controversy, namely the lack of any clearly objective content to religion. With the continued development of science, religion has come to be regarded as an activity which deals essentially (and unscientifically) with the irrational, subjective, mythic, and emotional aspects of human life. Viewed in this way, a religious belief system appears as no more than a collective neurotic mechanism for dealing with the difficulties and sufferings of life: such beliefs are illusions which may give some comfort but which have no basis in any reality other than human imagination.

The Bahá’í Faith addresses this problem through its concept of progressive revelation: religion is an objective, periodic phenomenon called “revelation”. The Bahá’í concept of progressive revelation furnishes a theoretical model for human history and social evolution as well as giving objective content to religion, a content independent of the subjectivity of any particular human being. In this view, religion becomes a phenomenon which can be studied, approached, and experienced scientifically without losing any of its multidimensional richness and capacity for emotional enhancement.

(To be continued…)

(All above are excerpts from an article “The Science of Religion” by Dr. William Hatcher which I liked very much so to share it here with you.)

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VIII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VI)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(V)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(IV)"

"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(II)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(I)"

Ref.: The William Hatcher Library

Life on a train

“Do not be content with showing friendship in words alone, let your heart burn with loving kindness for all who may cross your path . . .”--Abdu'l-Baha

A friend we met on pilgrimage sent me this slide show from Europe, where train is the major long distance transportation. This slide show compares our life with a train ride and the people we met in our life as our travel companions. In this regard, I can’t help to think that how incredibly improbable thus precious is every person we met in our life. Think about it, there are about 6 -10 thousand years in human recorded history. And we jump in, live only less than 100 years of it. And within this 100 or so years, there are about 6 billion people coexist with us on this planet. But only 1000 (more or less) of them we come to know by their names and could recognize their faces. And among those 1000ish people, perhaps only a couple dozen of them whom we come to love, like or be agitated with, that is, they caused some type of feeling within us. In another word, somehow they managed to penetrate into our heart and made a heart to heart connection. With such a minimal opportunity, how could we not cherish every encounter, do something to enrich their life as they have enriched our life. Plus, I truly believe, every person we met in our life, provides a unique lessen for us to learn and a unique chance for us to show our genuine kindness, and most of all, with their imperfect character, they help us to develop our capacity to love unconditionally.

Enjoy watching the slide show.

Science and Religion: Nature of the conflict(II)

The outline of the Bahá’í approach to the religion-science conflict now heaves more clearly into view. It is that, when the true purpose and nature of science are understood and when the true purpose and nature of religion are understood, then there is, de facto, no conflict. An essential unity is discovered, a unity which was there all along but which was hidden by the aberrations in the articulation of the two viewpoints.

A notable feature of the religion-science controversy as it has actually existed in our recent history is this: new science came into conflict with old religion. This fact must be borne in mind by anyone honestly seeking to understand the dynamics of the problem. Modern science is, indeed, new in any historical sense of the term. Even to date it from the Renaissance is a mistake. The chief features of contemporary science appear only in the nineteenth century.

But, even to date the “scientific revolution” from the Renaissance does not obscure the glaring fact that the religion with which it came into conflict was already past its prime, atrophied, and sterile. Even though it possessed strong political and social prerogatives, religion had long since assumed a position as champion of the status quo, a disbeliever in the possibility of genuine social evolution and progress in this life. No wonder that “religion” seems to have been so much on the defensive and so easy an adversary to discredit in the eyes of thinking men. Such men simply had no example of a religion which was a dynamic, creative, evolutionary force. There was nothing in their immediate experience, no analogy or example, which could easily allow them to view religion in any light other than that in which its most volatile exponents chose to present it: a reactionary social force.

But the new science also suffered from the decline of religion. Because man was socially and morally atrophied in so many respects, society tended to use science for prejudicial, unscientific, and irrational ends. Science tended to become a tool to obtain desired (but not necessarily justified) social ends, rather than an attitude toward life as a whole which, from the Bahá’í viewpoint, it should have been. Thus, we now see the specter of scientific achievements being used to destroy nations, render the earth uninhabitable, effect mass murder, disgorge a cornucopia of often useless gadgets, and even to bolster dogmatic and puerile political-social or philosophical points of view about life.

As examples of the latter, one might cite the attempt by some modern-day Marxists to use science to establish a religion of “scientific atheism” complete with dogma, rituals, and the rest, or the pseudo-philosophy of logical positivism whose inadequacy has not lessened efforts to popularize it.

(To be continued…)

(All above are excerpts from an article “The Science of Religion” by Dr. William Hatcher which I liked very much so to share it here with you.)

"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VIII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VII)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(VI)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the Conflict(V)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(IV)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(III)"
"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(III)"

"Science and Religion:Nature of the conflict(I)"

More of Dr. Hatcher's works: The William Hatcher Library

Connection is colorful

About a month ago, a friend of mine encouraged me to join facebook in order to share thoughts and life with friends. To my surprise, my friends list grew quickly and I even made some new friends in just a month. Now I really enjoyed visiting it daily and think this is a wonderful tool to connect people. My background is chemistry, so I seem to only think in chemical way. In nature, when two elements, say H and O, are combined into H2O(water), the resulting molecule possesses completely different properties than the two elements alone and can serve to the world different purpose. Water can quench thirst, but neither H nor O could. A world with only elements is very dull and monotonous. It is molecules (combination of elements) make our world colorful and interesting. Same is true to human society, as I perceive it. When individual human beings remain individually, although he/she certainly can serve to the need of the world (society) just like H or O have certain usages, the scope is very limited. It is when individuals are connected, the world starts to become vivid and different achievements can be realized. And this facebook and all other modern tools are such fantastic means to connect people in a way never before seen in human history. I can only imagine what this connection will eventually bring to the development of our society. Let’s keep trying to connect to each other, and see what color we shall bring to the world :-)