Stephen Wiltshire has been called the “Human Camera.” In this short excerpt from the film Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain, Wiltshire takes a helicopter journey over Rome and then draws a panoramic view of what he saw, entirely from memory.
I came to know about this from my friend Kamlesh Dave. When we watch Stephen perform we understand that the power and capacity of the human mind is awesome. Here, I’m reminded of this quote from Herbert Otto:
We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating and adventuring. Consequently, the actualizations of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetime.
I was first introduced to the above quote by my mentor, Aporesh Acharya, founder of MILT who constantly reminded us of it. Aporesh was always urging us to “go beyond yourselves”. I understood that to mean we must constantly challenge ourselves and our beliefs. In similar vein Arthur C. Clarke has said:
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
The commercial brand Adidas has seized this idea and used it as their brand’s tagline, Impossible is Nothing:
I like the core thought behind “go beyond yourself”. Living it on a daily basis enriches life and makes it more meaningful and enjoyable. Do you know of any examples of people who have gone beyond themselves that you’d like to share in the comments below?
I’m taking the King’s advice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland wherein it is advised to “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop”. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, wrote many books amongst which Alice in Wonderland is my favourite. I have long owned a 1986 edition of The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll published by Chancellor Press, London.
Though Wikipedia says that Carroll’s works belong to the genre of literary nonsense, his writings continue to be remarkably relevant even today, more than a century later. For example, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has chosen to use a portion to illustrate a section titled Writing Objectives. This is the part where Alice meets the Cheshire Cat in the forest and asks:
“Could you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to”, said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where…” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“…so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that, said the Cat, if you only walk long enough.”
The above is a great way to understand the importance of goal-setting. One definition of success is “achieving your goals whatever they are”. The important thing is to have a goal, otherwise how will you know that you’ve arrived!
I’ll also heed the King’s advice and end this post, my first, where it should: here.
