PersEternity

Today was the beginning of GOP (Republican National Convention) in NYC for nomination of president Bush for 2004 election. I do not know much about politics! But a lot of friends want my opinion that in case Bush or Kerry being elected which one is better for the US-Iran relations!!! Maybe it's because of my philosophological ideas that people think I am an expert in politics! Anyways I don't think it doesn't make much difference for Iran's mullahs that who become the next president of the United States as John McCain said both Republicans and democrat's have shown their sincere to "Land of the free and home of the brave"! Thus the conclusion is it makes difference on domestic issues but not on foreign policy of the united states. I merely would say that God bless both Iran and America!

Today there was a fair in Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge; in all of my life I have never seen this much black folks in Cambrdige as I could see today. It was just amazing as I entered to the crowd until I got to the Central Sq. I was the only white person!!! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures!!

And the bad news is I can't post this much anymore, it is true that I took this semester off to go to Iran but I have to do plenty of studying for spring semester so I will lessen my posts probably to one or two for every week or so.

As you folks may know today was the closing ceremony of the XXXVIII Olympiad. In this olympics I was a fan of Micheal Phelps, he won eight medals in swimming in just one games. He was an amazing swimmer.

Unfortunately I didn't go to the museum of Fine Arts today because of that unexpected promise that I made! Here I have put the picture of an object from Iran (My sister took this picture when she was here during Christmas and she went to visit the museum with her Korean friend but I didn't go with them at that time!!!) and it just look extremely beautiful. Why this is not in a museum in Persia where it actually belongs to?!!! I'll be glad to hear your opinions about the statement which I made.

I am going to leave Boston for Los Angeles on Friday morning!! I am so excited. We are going to Torrance county near Los Angeles metropolitan. It is about twenty minutes walk to the beach and it has a fabulous sight. I am so, so excited and ...! And it is also the first time that I am going to fly America West Airlines and I am going to ride on an Air Bus Industry A-319 plane!! I will leave Boston Lawrence Logan Int' Airport (BOS) at 9:00 AM and will arrive at Los Angeles Int' Airport (LAX) on 12:15 PM local time (It is a 6:15 flight quite identical with a flight from Boston to Zurich! and because California has the Pacific time so there's -3:00 difference). I want to have a lot of fun there.

This one goes back to the Christmas break (Old huh?!!). This is one of the old, old, old, ... Buildings of Harvard; probably goes back to the time of John Harvard! We just took the picture I am not at Harvard anymore but this building in Harvard campus is one of my favorites. Can you see me?!!

I did everything to put this "Post" feature of Blogger on my web log but it seems that Blogger has some problems! One of the best features which Blogger has recently added to the web logs is replacing the advertisement logo with Blogger toolbar, I really like it.

Once you have been born and God, the alimighty has given you the gift of life. God is the most merciful then why there is such a thing called death?!! I would say" The life which God has given to the mankind is a gift that he never wants it back; we are looking to hunt the death". I'd be glad if you leave me your comments about it.

Isn't it terrible that sometimes you've got to make some unexpected promises to your friends?!! It did happened to me today. I was doing my own job and taking care of what I had to do but my friend Matt called me and asked me to help him out with some Calculus problems. So, what I said was that, ok! I'll help you out when? He said over the weekend and I had a lot of plans for the weekend. I planned to go Boston Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday and I bought tickets and paid almost 15 bucks each. Now I have to cancel all the plan because I made promise before I take a look at my schedule. Fortunately I can have the tickets. They are valid for about two months.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. is one of the most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world today. Below you can find a brief biography about Dr. Nasr and his academic achievements.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on April 7, 1933 (19 Farvadin 1312 A.H. solar) in Tehran into a family of distinguished scholars and physicians. His father, Seyyed Valiallah, a man of great learning and piety, was a physician to the Iranian royal family, as was his father before him. The name "Nasr" which means "victory" was conferred on Professor Nasr's grandfather by the King of Persia. Nasr also comes from a family of Sufis. One of his ancestors was Mulla Seyyed Muhammad Taqi Poshtmashhad, who was a famous saint of Kashan, and his mausoleum which is located next to the tomb of the Safavid king Shah Abbas, is still visited by pilgrims to this day.
As a young boy, Nasr attended one of the schools near his home. His early formal education included the usual Persian curriculum at school with an extra concentration in Islamic and Persian subjects at home, as well as tutorial in French. However for Nasr, it was the long hours of discussion with his father, mostly on philosophical and theological issues, complemented by both reading and reaction to the discourses carried on by those who came to his father's house, that constituted an essential aspect of his early education and which in many ways set the pattern and tone of his intellectual development. This was the situation for the first twelve years of Nasr's life.
Nasr's arrival in America at the young age of twelve marked the beginning of a new period in his life which was totally different and therefore, discontinuous from his early life in Iran. He attended The Peddie School in Highstown, New Jersey and in 1950 graduated as the valedictorian of his class and also winner of the Wyclifte Award which was the school's highest honor given to the most outstanding all-round student. It was during the four years at Peddie that Nasr acquired his knowledge of the English language, as well as studying the sciences, American history, Western culture and Christianity.
Nasr chose to go to M.I.T. for college. He was offered a scholarship and was the first Iranian student to be admitted as an undergraduate at M.I.T. He began his studies at M.I.T in the Physics Department with some of the most gifted students in the country and outstanding professors of physics. His decision to study physics was motivated by the desire to gain knowledge of the nature of things, at least at the level of physical reality. However, at the end of his freshman year, although he was the top student in his class, he began to feel oppressed by the overbearingly scientific atmosphere with its implicit positivism. Furthermore, he discovered that many of the metaphysical questions which he had been concerned with were not being asked, much less answered. Thus, he began to have serious doubts as to whether physics would lead him to an understanding of the nature of physical reality. His doubt was confirmed when the leading British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in a small group discussion with the students following a lecture he had given at M.I.T, stated that physics does not concern itself with the nature of physical reality per se but with mathematical structures related to pointer readings.

At sixty-six, Seyyed Hossein Nasr leads an extremely active intellectual life with a very busy schedule of teaching at the university and lecturing at many institutions in America and around the world, writing scholarly works, being involved in several intellectual projects simultaneously and meeting individuals who are interested in traditional thought. At the same time, he leads a very intense spiritual life spent in prayer, meditation and contemplation and also providing spiritual counsel for those who seek his advice and guidance. Exiled from his homeland, Seyyed Hossein Nasr has found his home in the inviolable and sacred Center which is neither in the East nor the West.

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* To Read the complete biography of Prof. Nasr Click Here

**Copyright © The Seyyed Hossein Nasr Foundation.

mm!! Can you figure out the presence of one special individual in this picture! Well, obviously that fellow would be me. My sister left her tag at the bottom of the picture. Those little guys (on the stand!) are a couple of friends on the way to my high school. I don't go to high school anymore but this picture reminds me all the good and bad which I had in my short high school period (I did my high school in less than 2 years). Fortunately! I don't live my memories I live my dreams and will do everything necessary to reach them.

I. You too might step into a puddle of fire,or splash through a stream of glowing lava where only moments before you were barefoot in your kitchen after a late night of too much wine and, nearly naked, frying bacon at the stove.

A burn like this is a different thing the doctor said and I can believe it. I was a different thing.

I was a man with an unquenchable oil well fire on his feet that would blaze up as the medicine ebbed. And the skin curled over, brown-red,too much like the meat I was cooking in the pan that I dropped—an irony not lost on even the youngest of nurses drinking and bacon don't mixshe kidded as I healed.

Yet had my wounds burned like Vulcan's forge they'd be a distant fire in light of the child behind the glass in the opposite bed.

II. Where were you saints when the fire first licked his hands? Hadn't he in living prayed to you?
I want the saint of ice cream trucksto turn off the carnival, climb down, and explain it all— account for all the betrayers—The saints of reachable branches and bank envelope lollipops,the saints of his mother's cool arms, of new basketball shoes, and professional wrestling.The saints of tree forts, pocket knives, and stadium food.The saints of waffles and eyebrows and box turtles.The saint of jam.The saint of his own bed.Where were you saints of wheelies and rodeo clowns and rockets?

III. I was at home when the sepsis took himand they wheeled him to that all-light roomand when they covered his face.

Yet I had seen his grafts and debridements,the twice daily baths and dressings,and the shock at that last turn of gauze—how the fire bit at his summer legs and arms—black skin, blacker still, and red.

I was there to see the lost motherwho would live in fire for the child she had known.There to see all who entered shake their headsas if wondering as I wonderedhow so small a thing can carry such pain—pain that pushed through the morphine push——pain that conquered even those numbing Nordic gods—Vicodin, Ativan, and Tylox.

It is not my place.He was not my child,and I could never speak to him,but hold him out of the fire.I would not have him burned again.

Give him back to rocking water,to pendulum down through the fingers of the sun.Let the ocean run his veins and heart— full, then empty, then full again.

Or return him to the folding ground,face up to the sky.A boon for dreamlessness,this petty thief of time.

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Elegy for the Saint of Letting Small Fish Go by Eliot Khalil Wilson, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA

Listen to Eliot Khalil Wilson reading this poem.

Why does the whole freaken' world suck? I can't live it any more, no one cares, all the people are drawn in their stupid lives, I don't want to lose; I am determined to win.

Today there were a breath taking storm all around the east coast and specially New England. It was horrible, the result was no power for a couple of neighborhoods. It was like a small flood just in the middle of town. Wow! It was also beautiful it reminded me how great is the nature and still wild for human beings. One of my favorite books is "Problems of Philosophy" by Bertron Russel. It is a tough book. It's been taught in England for more than seventy years which shows its importance; but anyways that was the most important thing that I taught it does worth to mention here.

These are Bill Gates famous buildings at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This side is just on the other side of Main St., on the cross of Main St and Vassar St. These structures are really fabulous. Can you see me anywhere?

This is me in Carbondale, Illinois; it was really a great trip though. Isn't it strange that I am putting pictures here now huh?!! Well, it took a while for me to get used to with Hello. Here I am in a parking lot waiting for my dad, my mom has taken the picture.

This is a place in Cambridge, Massachusetts; I took this picture with my Canon power shot. It was just a quick click but fortunately I didn't make a mess and it came out to be fine!

One of my friends sent this to me over Orkut and I just thought it would be fun if I put it here!!! This orkut!!!

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The man discovered COLORS and invented PAINT
The woman discovered PAINT and invented MAKEUP
The man discovered the WORD and invented CONVERSATION
The woman discovered CONVERSATION and invented GOSSIP
The man discovered GAMBLING and invented CARDS
The woman discovered CARDS and invented WITCHERY
The man discovered AGRICULTURE and invented FOOD
The woman discovered FOOD and invented DIET
The man discovered FRIENDSHIP and invented LOVE
The woman discovered LOVE and invented MARRIAGE
The man discovered TRADING and invented MONEY
The woman discovered MONEY and invented SHOPPING
Thereafter man has discovered and invented a lot of things...While the women STUCK to shopping ...... lolz !!

Have you ever imagined that when you are exhausted it pretty tough to make a distinct decision about important things in your life? In my case I am actually facing that! Maybe because I have not faced the real taste of life or thousands of other possibilities; who knows!?

I was thinking about my days at CSV (Cambridge School Volunteers, Inc.) where I used to stay about 2-3 hours a day after school in order to work with my students or go to one of my teachers same as my times in Iran and asking questions and discussing my revolutionary ideas in science or philosophy. It was a good time. Now, in a more expanded environment (University) it is getting more interesting for a sixteen years old student. I am sure that I will satisfy my individual in graduate school much more than now, where I'll be able to feel in my blanks myself.

Today was the Athens 2004 Olympics Games opening. It was a great ceremony, I really enjoyed that. The US team was huge, their delegation had almost 500 members. The Iranian team was quite small but it seemed to be a nice team. The only problem was they were too much serious, almost no smile on their faces! mmm!! and I didn't went out of our house today and it's late at night so I am going to wrap it up here.

I finally got back home last night after eight days of cool trip to the state of Illinois. The Chicago O'Hare International Airport is always crowded but it was fine. The flight back home was a Boeing 737-200 despite the flight to Chicago which was a Boeing Super S80! Well, it was the journey, I will write some more later on.

Definition: This is an analogy that Plato uses to distinguish among different forms of knowledge and truth. Plato's basic division is between what is visible and what is intelligible (i.e., knowable, but not seen), with the visible portion smaller than the intelligible portion. The visible portion of knowledge is further divided. At the lowest end of the visible are mere images of objects, but above this is understanding of visible objects. Above this in turn is knowledge of abstract mathematical principles, then knowledge of forms. At this highest level is knowledge of good as a form and knowledge of the forms and how they are organized. Understanding the analogy of the divided line requires an understanding of Plato's theory of forms and his allegory of the cave.

Background: As a Pythagorean theorist, Plato makes a good deal of the idea that the empirical world is but a pale reflection of the true world of enduring and ideal forms. The analogy of the divided line is essentially an elaboration of the distinction between the vulgar visible world and the ideal world that is not directly seen. In the analogy of the divided line Plato further subdivided the visible and invisible worlds further.

I am now in Carbondale, Illinois and having some fun! Today we went to a place called "Little Grand Canyon" it was like famous grand canyons but there were a lot of woods and bushes so I just made imbecile of my individual for this canyon but it was amazing. I'll be back home (Boston) by Wednesday this week. Thus I'll try to catch up!!

I just want to write something for one person who taught me how I can be what I want to be, a teacher whom I will never forget to the end of my life. I might write about that later but for tonight, mmm!! I am reading the rhetoric of Aristotle again I might have not understood the whole content yet, after two times reading! I just recommend it to you if you want to speak with inspiration.