A Sensitivity to Things

A video and news story from ABC on the passing of Sri Chinmoy on Thursday, 11th October, 2007.

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Oct 12, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Spiritual guru Sri Chinmoy, a peace activist who inspired his followers to feats of extreme physical endurance, has died at the age of 76 at his home in New York, a statement from his organization said on Friday.

Chinmoy, who suffered a heart attack, died on Thursday.

Chinmoy was born in India and in 1964 immigrated to New York, working in the Indian Consulate. He later started a meditation center that eventually spread around the world.

A statement issued on behalf of Chinmoy’s followers said he had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Friday. He was a strong supporter of the United Nations and his charities sent food and medicine around the world.

Chinmoy’s followers were said to take on a regimen of vegetarianism, humanitarian service and extreme physical challenges as a way to inner peace. He set an example by running ultra-marathons before switching to weightlifting. Acolytes said he was capable of lifting airplanes and had written more than 1,600 books of prose and poetry in his quest for world peace.

Read more: ABC News: Peace activist Sri Chinmoy dead at 76.

With the deadline fast approaching in the Daily Blog Tips Blog Writing Contest, the time has come to submit my own favourites, chosen from the final list of 122 submissions (Disclaimer: I may not have fully read them all).

In no particular order I enjoyed reading:

• Tips for Interval Training by Shane.
  I realy should improve my marathon time…
• Hi! I’m Jimbo and I’m an Addict! by MyBrainDumper!
  Possibly suspect advice, but I’ll use it for my moving image addiction
• Forgotten Someone’s Name? Use These Tricks by Dee
  Astronomers have yet to discover or name the black hole inside my head into which names disappear
• Warning: These 9 Photoshop Techniques May Result In Great Photos
  Even for one who makes a living using it, there is always something new to learn in Photoshop. It’s the quest for enlightenment of computers
• 9 Tips to be More Creative
  Who couldn’t do with a little more creativity
• 10 Tips to Avoid Becoming Depressed
  Er, this one was just for my “friend”…
• Tips for Using Film Critics
  In case I don’t get over my moving image addiction
• How to keep your marriage, despite your Heavy Metal addiction
  While I don’t have a Heavy Metal addiction, Alexandre gets my vote for the following sagely line: “If you try hard these healthful habits, maybe she will still tolerate your CD collection for the coming 10 or 15 years. After that period it doesn’t matter, they’ll complain anyway.”
• Five Tips for Making Soccer/Football Exciting (or at Least Tolerable) No Matter Where You Are
  While disputing that football needs to be made any more interesting, this post gets my vote due to my weakness for anything round with hexagonal panels.

“I’m a winner!”

Forgive me my fist pumping, flag waving and shouting into the air. I won a competition the other day. I haven’t won anything in a while.

There was a drawing competition when I was eleven; a pencil crafted picture submitted to a national children’s television show the winner of a logo emblazoned t-shirt. I didn’t wear the shirt much. My classmates decided it, and its wearer, were not cool.

I won a Calendar Prize in my second year of high school, an all-round achievement award named after precisely I don’t know what, and awarded for high marks in exams, being selected for an inter-school sporting team as well. A cheque for $60, I spent it on several books, not exactly disproving the jeers of my ‘friends’—“nerd!”

Jeers, and sneers aside—and probably better forgotten—A Sensitivity to Things is a winner, the joint winner in fact of the 2k Bloggers membership competition, admitted with fellow “Down Under” blogger Flabuless and Going Like Sixty to the august ranks of two thousand top bloggers.

Perhaps not an exclusive number were we to gather in a single venue, but elitist enough out of an estimated 60 million.

Sixty million monkeys typing? To paraphrase Technorati, there’s got to be one or two primates worth reading…

Will success go to my head? Friends are doing their best to help me avoid an inflation of the ego—regular taunts of “Johnno Bloggo” suitably deflating to burgeoning writer’s pride.

And it is worth mentioning, in a spirit of humility, that friend and far more prolific blogger Tejvan is a member of 2k Bloggers as well, and has been for a considerable time.

Once more I arrive on the band wagon late…