Fragile

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow’s rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay

Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime’s argument
That nothing comes from violence
And nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star. Like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are How fragile we are

---Sting in "all this time" which he recorded on Sept 11, 2001.

As troubling news of violence continues to come in from around the world - violence at a personal level, community level, and at a national level - I sometimes despair if we are incapable of learning from 5000 years of human history that nothing comes from violence and how fragile we really are as human beings. But then I continue to dream on as a hopeless romantic that we will heal as people and come together in one spirit on this lonely planet we live on.

I first came across BLOGs in an article by Chris Taylor in TIME (Feb 11,2002). Four months later, I was sitting in a train station in Hong Kong, when I came across another article in TIME that mentioned how BLOGS were spreading like wildfire across the web. I knew then that I would be hooked before long.

This then is my BLOG, a vehicle for me to share with friends and interested travelers through this planet the richness of life on our lonely planet as I experience it.

I just returned from a three month trip through India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. During this trip I joined a group from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania on a trek to Kanchenchunga in Sikkim in the Eastern Himalayas. The trek was part of a leadership program led by Wharton Professor Mike Useem and took us to 17,000 feet in the neighborhood of Kanchenchunga which at 28,168 feet is the third highest peak in the world.
More details of the trek...
Photos from the trek....

During the trip I also finished reading a fascinating book, "Dot.con, The Greatest Story Ever Sold" by John Cassidy, a staff writer at the New Yorker. In a lively and entertaining narrative, Cassidy describes the creation, inflation, and deflation of the Internet bubble. In a well researched account, full of interesting anecdotes, the book takes you through a history of the nationwide epizootic that was fed fuel by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, investment bankers, the financial press, the fed, and the investing public.