role models

I’ve disabled my Facebook account a few times by now. And each time I came back, eventually, I got back to re-posting some things that I thought/think are perspectives worth sharing. We seem to share or even re-share things that have some influence on us. This brought me to the realisation of how important it is to ponder on who influenced you, who’s been your so to say, role models. And out of a wide list here are the ones that are worldwide accessible and with the lesser subjectivity embedment.

My favourite: Carl Sagan – bringing about our context in Cosmos, how we’re all made of star-stuff – “a way of the cosmos to know itself” and giving us the Baloney detection kit. Then the bunch of them: Alexander Humboldt, showing us what exploration really is and teaching us that you cannot understand the world from one perspective / through one language – you need to explore multiple perspectives and more then one or two languages; Steve Jobs about how life is not a set of walls which imposes us what to do – and try not to bump into them and that we can change / improve it because there are some pretty messed-up things in the world; Simon Sinek incentivising to focus on the reason we’re doing anything – focusing on the why and becoming aware of what motivates ourselves and those that we work with; there’s Gandhi setting himself as example for non-violence and encouraging us to be the change we want to see in the world – he made me realize a true measure of happiness and genuine-self in the alignment of what one says – thinks and does, there’s Einstein that forever enhances the disinfecting light in our views reminding us how everything is relative – advising the regard for Truth above all no matter if it concerns big or small issues – making it further more easy to realise the more perspectives not just conceptually – imaginary – philosophically but physically – scientifically; there’s also Socrates and Plato which, spite of some deprecated points of view which held us back for quite some time – they also helped us advance until one point – the story of the cave still helps us understand ignorance and ignorant behaviour which unfortunately will always be around; there’s Albert Ellis bringing about how we should realise that things are not necessarily bad but it’s often us that interpret it that way – suggesting, besides that it just might be us that over-blow the interpretation of a situation, to also regard how we react and affect the situation – to become aware of our own cognitive behaviour and of potential irrationality it may be field by; there’s Brené Brown which reminds us of empathy and tells of the importance of embracing vulnerability and of the trials that shame can bring and the armour that we tend to build because of it and how that can make us resort to sympathy rather then empathy and how different these two notions can be; there’s the Buddha which we find in a sutta describing “the middle way as a path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification, this, according to him, was the path of wisdom” suggesting to use this mindset onwards in the eightfold-path towards equanimity and an unbiassed – up-straight and mindful appreciation and relation with everything; there’s David Attenborough that made me feel like I visited and discovered the wondrous and divers nature around the world by strolling alongside him through the jungles and the lands and through the deeps of the waters – seeing how it all exists, some of it stopped existing, how it became and evolved and also how we affect it; there’s Jesus which, although I do not know if he really resurrected or what really is his say or act from the “testaments” as all is written much later by others and it seems it’s a moderated collection – I do believe he lived – and so the incentive of being humble and to not blame before you don’t realize your own blame and do upon others as you’d want them to do upon you – these are wise reminders which I will try to respect as much as I can; there’s Charles Darwin who so patiently brought us the evidence of our evolution and the foundation to which science added so many of the puzzles of how we came to be; there’s also Richard Feynman who reminds us of the beauty that science enhances about the world and not subtracts it and that it’s ok that we don’t know everything yet – that we’ll learn the Truth by being opened in discovering nature and the universe as it is and not by expecting it to be in a certain way or another – that there’s no reason to be afraid of not having a purpose given in the universe; and so many more in different fields like Ellen Lupton reminding of the importance of Typography and realising the rules and braking them in need “from a perspective of knowledge and not ignorance”; Don Tapscott highlights the incentive of collaboration – sharing and transparency in this current era of communication which he so wonderfully encourages us to work together like the birds do in their murmuration phenomenon – calling it the murmuration era; and the piece of resitance: John Lennon who reminds me that I’m not the only dreamer and that it stops being a dream once it’s a shared purpose – so “I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one”; and the list goes on: Charlie Chaplin, Ann Druyan, James Randy, Alan Watts, Sebastião Salgado, Jack Conte, Michio Kaku and more subjective influences like writers / artists and such.

These are people that had done, said or written things that had an influence upon me, that made me consider new points of view or changed existing points of view from the foundation of my belief system.

!Disclaimer
Obviously all these people did / said / wrote more then I so briefly mentioned above, I just tried to set a sample of the awesome perspectives they borough and the magic i found in them.

For some there are aspects that belong to them directly or as association, not specified here – but important aspects that I do not subscribe to. For instance Steve Jobs also had his douchebag moments, I don’t appreciate some Apple policies about service for instance, and in general the technology industry how it uses natural and human resources and how it manages (or doesn’t manage) its waste on their production side or on the user side, and others. Still, all these, including Mr. Jobs, are as mentioned worth considering in a very intimate level.

I’ll try to add a sample in video for some of them below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIomJWLdCc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tijxMHhuwGQ

PS. Here are some more notions that are part of my core way of understanding and relating to the world: