Thursday, March 29, 2012

Taste and See


It is better to see it, then to hear about it
It is far better to experience it then to believe in it.

If you have never tasted a piece of chocolate cake, and I am holding a piece in front of you, no matter what I say to you I can’t explain the experience of the chocolate cake. Some people don’t taste foods, they say they don’t like sushi but they never tasted it. You must taste it for yourself.- Rabbi Osdaba

You can’t explain color to a blind man.

When listening to a good public speaker, we hear a story we believe in, when listening to a great speaker we see the story and experience it personally.

Some things in life can’t be fully explained, they must be experienced.
God is one of these things.  

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A lesson from Lost

                        Mieux vaut faire, et se repentir / Que se repentir, et rien faire

The 99th episode of the series Lost is titled Some like it Hoth. The title comes from the hit comedy film Some like it hot and the ice planet in Empire Strikes Back, Hoth. In the episode Hurley is  back in the 70’s and decides to write Empire strikes back and show it to George Lucas because star wars has just come out and he wants to save him some time.

We see Miles back story in this episode. Miles has a special gift, he can communicate with dead people if he is near the body. In the episode a father wishes to tell his dead son that he loves him. He contracts Miles to speak to his dead son, however because the son was cremated he cannot speak to him. Miles lies and tells the father that he told his son he loves him and collects his fee.

A few years ago I wrote a letter to my Aunt to thank her for the cookies she baked me in camp. My Aunt passed away surprisingly in her 50’s.  I never got a chance to give her the letter. I don’t know why, maybe I was shy or I did not think it was a priority. 20 years ago I was waiting in the hallway in school for class to begin. A Rabbi walked by and a bill fell out of his pocket, again I am not sure why but I said nothing, a minute latter someone else came in and picked up the bill.

In life  we cannot be shy and we can not hesitate when we have something to say. We should always share our positive feelings of love and appreciation to everyone we see. You never know what can happen. Life is finite, people and opportunities will not be around forever.

At 17 years old Lilo Brancato was spotted swimming at Jones beach by a talent scout. He landed his breakout role in the directorial debut of Robert Deniro in the film A Bronx Tale. He also appeared in several Sopronos episodes.

Twelve years later at the age of twenty nine he was arrested in the Bronx for attempted robbery and he is currently in jail. Another tale of a child star whos life spun out of control because of money and drugs. The twist is the line he himself uttered in his breakout film.

Lilo Brancato in the film a Bronx tale says:
I learned to give love and get love unconditionally. You just have to accept people for what they are, and I learned the greatest gift of all. The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will make your life forever.”

Lilo is sitting in prison now, maybe going over what could have been and what he could have done, he has time to think.

The book the Diving bell and the butterfly was written entirely by a man confined to his bed , blinking one letter at a time . Jean-Dominique Bauby is the author and he suffered from locked in syndrome.  He could only move his left eye the rest of his body was paralyzed. He was the former Editor and chief of Elle magazine and because of his condition he had nothing but time to think about.

The book is stories about Bauby before he has a stroke and suffers from his condition. In one story he is told about a fix in a horse race and he tries to make it to the track to place a bet on Mithra-granchamp. He missed placing the bet for his entire office.

“The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.”― Jean-Dominique Bauby

At the end of the episode Some like it Hoth, Miles returns to the father who he ripped off. He gives him his money back and tells him the truth that he was unable to speak to his son. Then Miles tells him, “If you wanted your son to know that you loved him, you should have told him when he was alive.”

Never miss a chance to tell someone you love them. Never miss a chance to try something new or tell someone thank you, or to step in and do what’s right .

                         It's better to act and to regret / Than to regret not to have acted.