"An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. " - Mahatma Gandhi

       

         When traveling through the underground train system of London one summer, I came across a poster proclaiming "An ounce of practice is worth more that tons of preaching." The picture underlying the words was a picture of a earth revolving clockwise with three hand surrounding it; it's a crystal clear image imprinted in my brain. I remember just standing there pondering on what the image meant. Standing there for so long in deep thought made me almost missed my train. Now that I think about it, it didn't only make me almost miss my train but I don't really remember anything about the subway ride but I do remember almost everything before coming across the poster: the summer rain showers pattering on my red umbrella, the subway sign that had a red circle surrounding the word underground, a crowd surrounding a street performer, a women sitting alone with headphones crying by herself , and then blank. Throughout the whole day I couldn't find the meaning behind the picture and to this day it still bugs me in the back of my head.

       Sitting there I thought of how Gandhi was saying that teaching verbally only gets you partially there, but what takes you most of the way there is yourself through whole hearted practice. It made me think of my dance rehearsals where my instructor would demonstrate and tell us how to do it and teach us but then she would tells us that being able to do whatever she taught us, only 2% of the ability to do it came from her instruction, the remaining 98% came from ourselves mentally being able to have the strength and confidence to practice it and master it adjusting to our own problems. I think throughout my life so far has been one of the best pieces of advice because it shows that the ability to do something comes from within oneself and it may become harder but if you can push through, you can do it! I realized then that everything that we do applies to Gandhi's quote when it comes to university professors lecturing to sports to the very first things we learn when growing up, would be nothing if we just sat there and took in lectures without actually experiencing things by ourselves.

         Many rebelling teenagers might respond to their nagging parents lectures about not making idiotic mistakes and to learn from their mistakes by saying "Let me learn from my own mistakes!" Yes that is partially true because that is how we grow but taking their warning in consideration won't hurt but rather benefit someone from making a disastrous mistake. Just like Gandhi says a little bit of practice outweighs a bucnh of preaching but he doesn't say that preaching is entirely useless, it's just that we learn more from experience, which is true when you think about it. Many of these teens that don't take their parents warning seriously make that mistake and end up learning the hard way.
      

      Still to this day I don't think I'll ever understand that meaning of that picture but maybe, one day when I return to England I'll go back to that underground railroad station in London and stare at that picture once again (hopefully it's still there); maybe with more life experiences as I age I will finally figure it out.

If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub.
-Japanese Proverb

      From either making a decision to sacrifice a piece in chess or sacrificing one life to save others, either big or small, the descion of sacrifice in order to gain for the greater good must be made. Yet often, human greed prevents people from grasping the whole concept of sacrifice and only wish to gain with no loss. It is our choice to follow the path of loss in order to gain or the path of refusal to loose just to gain which will cause the follower to stay stagnant and not progress to their desires. In order to progress farther one of the Japanese pearl of wisdom tells us "If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub."
      The Japanese are showing how in order to get something you must take a risk and a chance of sacrifice in order to gain a reward. Since ancient history we have seen this proven valid. The Great Roman Empire grew to be am all-mighty country by taking risks in expansion but ,as the saying goes all great things must come to an end, it ended up falling due to over expansion and not being able to control the vast lands and mans greatest weakness, greed. The Japanese were right to say that we must take risks but there also must be a point to where we must come to a stop in our risk taking.
      Since ancient times we have played the game of risks to feed our greeds' desires for more. One of mankind's oldest activities is gambling and has become one of the modern worlds most common game. Common gambling games like roulette, blackjack,poker, pai , ect. originated from ancient china and Europe and still exist today, why? Because man desire for more money = more power = more respect, many will risk everything to feed their overpowering desires. Due to this natural human desire these games still exist today causing plenty to risk everything leaving their lives in complete disaster; therefore there must be a point where we learn to stop. While greed for more money blinds our reasoning skills allowing us to blindly take risks, risking things becomes a lot more difficult when money and power is absent.

       When I was really young and learning how to play chess I would always play defense and never wanted to approach the opponents side ( the tiger's cave) but as I continued to play I realized that if I never pushed forward I would never be able to succeed and win the game (catch the cub). Just like this game of chess, in order to continue forward in life we must take those risks or how are we suppose to grow? The way I see it is that this games sole purpose is to teach us this lesson of life. As a high school student, in order to progress to my next level of education, I must take academic risks to get high score on exams and qualify for certain universities, like adding your own voice in papers and taking harder courses, not knowing if you'll be able to handle it.

      Just as the Japanese word of advice says we must take take risks and possibly have to sacrifice something there also must be a point to where we must call it quits on the game of risk taking. Without taking chances we won't move forwards or backwards in our paths but instead just stay still. Some may say isn't it better to stay still rather than that chance of moving backwards, but whats the point of staying still if that comes at a cost of not being able to push on forward? Wouldn't you be not living your life to its fullest?

"There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see. "
- Leonardo da Vinci

     Humans have a tendency to feel the need to categorize everything, but why? This sense of belonging may have to do with the ego's desire to become something more greater, enlarging our identity beyond individualism; it's something that can't be done by a mere individual alone but rather a group that will make an impact. After analyzing the society that surrounded him, Leonardo da Vinci concluded that humans are classified into three categories: people who see, those who see once shown and those who don't see at all. Basically he places individuals into three categories of people who are artistic, anxious and average.
     The artistic ones are people with a goal, focused on that goal and having the confidence to pursue that goal due to their acceptance of themselves, a clear vision and drive of where they are headed. Those who must be shown in order to see are the anxious people. These are the types of people who have trouble expressing their own wishes due to inner and external conflict. Leonardo's blind category consists of those who conform their will to external forces, the majority of people. When encountering people through life we constantly run into people who fit under these categories depending on the circumstances. For instance if I'm given a assignment to draw a still life I would easily would be a person who sees who has a full vision of what to draw and where the source of light is coming from , I would be able to visualize it all, but as soon as the assignment shifts to using three watercolors to create an entire photo that confidence level I once had will begin to decrease and my the inner conflict of doubting myself will appear. Probably causing me to need someone to show me in order for me to see.
    
     And then there's the interpretation of humans classified into three categories of people's level of ignorance. Starting from the people who see( those of us that are intuitive) to people who see once shown (open minded) and then there's those who don't see( ignorant people).Unlike the previous interpretation these are generally fixed trait of a person's personality and their perception of the world.
     For example there are gurus (Sanskrit for master) who are beacons of spiritual light in our world eliminating the darkness of ignorance and bringing light with knowledge. Through this understanding of extinguishing this darkness with light they go through a realization that god is knowledge which is within themselves. These people would be the ones who see then spreading their newly found knowledge to those who must be shown in order to see, in this case would be their followers. Eventhough these people must be shown, their willingness to be open minded allows them to obtain knowledge, they are equally wise. Through perseverance they to can reach this state because they were willing to give something a chance and experience for themselves based on whether or not they believed the knowledge they attained. And then we come to those who see their teachings as complete ludicrous, the ignorant ones; the ones who are closed minded, the ones who lack the general knowledge of other teachings, the ones who based on no understanding make a conclusion, the ones who refuse to hear the other side out. At the same time religion is something that can be the complete opposite when dealing with the fanatics of a religion; those who see only their religion as the only way and refusing to hear others out.
      Da vinci made an peerless assessment of the human race's tendencies because no mater the way the reader perceives his assessment he classifies humans perfectly relating it to all; not a single person left out.

the universal language of mankind

   Most people, when asked what the most beautiful language is to them, respond saying French, Italian, ect, but do they realize that there are other forms of language to the human race? The most beautiful language in my opinion is music;a language created by the whole human race. Henery Wadswoth Longfellow once said that "Music is the universal language of mankind." Lonfellow use of "universal language" trys to convey that music is something that can be comprehended effortlessly. But at the same time, he can also mean that there is not a single word to define music; it is just something that is universally known automatically. That way, allowing people to interpret and infuse their own understanding to the piece.
　 Music surpasses the language barrier due to the connection it makes with human emotions. Japanese, Portugese or Finnish , no mater what nationality or language they speak, they will all sense the same feelings of anger and frustration from Beethovens' 5th symphony to the playfullness of Mozart's Flute Concerto No.2. But why is it that both pieces contains no words yet we all feel the same emotions as the music floods our eardrums? It all has to do with the relation betweeen the tone and language.When ever someone is happy they tend to have a higher pitch allowing the mind to relate the high note with the high pitch of happiness, and likewise with sadnness equalling a low pitch. This, of course, is what allows the musician to enter a studio and start of with the basic C chord following it with an array of relative minor chords on the piano and, then without a word a guitarist begins to strum an A chord and so on building on and on all off of impov and sensing the emotion through the tone the piano created. No matter the language difference both musicians can come together and make people feel alive through their art work because "Music is a universal language of makind."
   As a musician, I interpret Longfellow's quote as saying that music as a universal language allows all musicians of the world to come together but, as an average listener of music I see it as language doesn't create a barrier for my music preference to expand beyond the English language. The truth is, I have been listening to Hindi music ever since young and recently gained a liking to K-pop; eventhough I may not understand what they are saying, that does not prevent me from liking a song. The music doesn't even necesserily have to be a different language, it can be scremo or lyrics that sound like othere words where it may be hard to make out what they are saying.We all know that time where a friend was singing a song and they were saying the wrong lyrics. But the truth is the majority people don't even like a song for the lyrics but rather the music composed behind them. If that was the case where music preference was based on lyrics, then foreign music would not be such a big hit in America or other English speaking countries.
  Music has become a language that every person on the Earth's surface can understand,and just might be the most beautiful creation of the human race. Allowing us to paint an image in our mind just based on a tune being played and communicate with each other what is in our souls without uttering a word, music can bring a sense of living to a person.