Category Archives: books/movies/plays

Outliers

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Two years ago, I received an email that had some fun facts about the bible. I thought it interesting and sent it along to a friend who is also my (self proclaimed) online bible study teacher. He replied in his typically concise manner  : “Thanks for the attachment – it’s interesting, but it’s not accurate.”

Everybody knows not to believe everything they read, but many times we still fall victim to it. Ok, more accurately, I still fall victim to it. Which is why when I come across a good book now, I wonder about its accuracy.

outliers

A friend gave this book to Dan (Thanks Kenny!) and I’ll have to say that I wasn’t impressed with its cover. Outliers. What’s that? The story of success. Yet another self help book?

Then Dan and I started on the book together. As in we sat down in bed and started reading it together.

It’s a rare thing for us to do and to do it for an entire chapter, even rarer. That sounds a little wrong but I mean that most literally and in a literary way. I have an innate competitive streak which makes me want to rush through a page so I finish first. (yes yes, very primary school behaviour) In that process, I sometimes skip skim paragraphs that may be crucial to the plot.

Anyway, after we finished reading the first chapter together, I realised I actually read every single line. I forgot to be competitive because the way it was written made for a very compelling read. I didn’t skip skim paragraphs because everything in there was an interesting contribution to explaining outliers.

So what is an outlier : “Outlier” is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In the summer, in Paris, we expect most days to be somewhere between warm and very hot. But imagine if you had a day in the middle of August where the temperature fell below freezing. That day would be outlier.” – Excerpt from the book’s website.

And the outliers in question are men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary. The story of their successes. Is it all ability? Luck/opportunity? Demographic advantage? What is it.

It’s all very thought provoking and written in an easy to read manner. A little like a detective novel almost at some points – find the outliers and nose around the hows and whys.

The only thing, is that I wonder if all the statistics and lists are accurate but am too lazy to check it out. But it’s still a really good read.

The Little Prince

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The Little Prince has been translated into more than 180 languages and sold more than 80 million copies. I came by this classic a few years back when life and love wasn’t as rosy a picture as it is now. I remember reading this chapter which had me in tears. Not the “aw.. this is so touching the tears are prettily rolling down my cheeks” type of crying. it was the “I’m going to die cos I cannot get enough air between sobs” type of bawling. Pretty telling of the state my life was in then so you can imagine how glad I am for that phase to be over :)

The book in a nutshell, is about the little prince’s devotion to his rose which he thinks of as the ONLY one of its kind. He comes from a planet where there’re only 3 small volcanoes and his all important rose.

In this bit of the book, he chances upon a rose garden on Earth and is dismayed that that there are five thousand other identical roses there. He meets a fox there and wants to play with the fox because he is miserable, but the fox says no because he is not tamed. The little prince asks what “tame” means.

The fox says ‘It means to create ties. To me, you are still only a small boy, just like a hundred thousand other small boys. And I have no need of you. And you in turn have no need of me. To you, i’m just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you shall be unique in the world. To you, I shall be unique in the world’

‘i’m beginning to understand,’ said the little prince. ‘I know a flower… I think she must have tamed me…’

The little prince then goes to the roses in the rose garden and say this :

‘You are nothing like my rose,’ he told them, ‘As yet you are nothing at all. Nobody has tamed you, and you have tamed nobody. You are as my fox used to be. He was just a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I made him my friend and now he is unique in the world.’

**And when the little prince and the fox part ways, the fox imparts his secrets**

‘Goodbye,’ said the fox. ‘Now here is my secret, very simply: you can only see things clearly with your heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.’

‘It is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important.’

‘People have forgotten this truth,’ said the fox. ‘But you must not forget. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.’

Very profound and insightful for a children’s book, but perhaps only the pure mind of a child is capable of simple truths.

Why do people get married?

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Have you asked that question before? The answers I’ve heard ranged from “for the sake of the little ones that will arrive“, to “the elders in church wouldn’t approve of us living in sin“, to “i’ve found the one” (aww.. so sweet that one, isn’t it), and “he/she/our parents wants us to leh” (not so cool this one)

While watching “Shall We Dance” (which was a very nice feel good movie and I am 5 years late watching it), that question was raised.  

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”

I like.

FireProof

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This dvd landed in our hands with high recommendations from my sister. So a few nights ago, we dutifully sat in front of the tv and popped it in the player.

The beginning was a tad shaky but it quickly got better as the plot unfolded. We laughed some, learnt some and teared some at the end of it. We started holding hands too from halfway through – all together now, “awwww…” – it is that sort of a movie. Simple, moving, funny, genuinely heartfelt and you walk away from it with a lesson for life.

Throughout it, I consciously asked myself if I would enjoy this movie as much if I wasn’t a christian, if I would be ‘turned off’ by the references to scripture. I have to say that although the message of Christ was obvious, it didn’t come across as unbelievable or ‘crazy’. All credit of course, to its creators, brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick (who are ministers at the Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia) who made this film on a budget, with most of the cast and crew made up from members of their congregation. It opened at #4 and is a multi million dollar box office hit!

I’m passing the dvd on :)

The moral of the story is…

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I wrote this entry sometime last year and would like to share it here because a good read should be shared (i’m referring to the book mentioned in the entry)  :

 Sometimes when a friend goes on and on about a story with seemingly no purpose, we’d rudely interrupt with “and the moral of the story is?” – mostly inspired by silly and rude “the a**hole is the boss” sort of anecdotes.

I was reading The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias last week and this particular chapter evoked such strong emotions in me that i just had to share the ‘moral’ of that story.

The author related the story told to him by a young woman. My shorter version, is that her beautiful mother entered into an arranged marriage with her paranoid, petty and jealous father who resented her mother’s beauty. He flung acid on her face to prevent other men from luring her away and then fled from the house leaving his wife to bring up his children for the next twenty years. The kicker is this – after twenty years of abandonment, her mother heard from this man who was suffering from cancer and living alone. He wondered if she would take him back and care for him in the last stage of his illness.

*gasp* What audacity! The nerve of the man! I built myself up into a good fit of righteousness for the poor lady who’s had to suffer her entire life because of the actions of this man.

The author then continued to say that the mother who’s a devout Christian, pleaded with her children to let her take him back and care for him as he prepared to die.

My little mind thought she must have lost her marbles. Or maybe she’s still in love with the man. So maybe the moral of the story is about how true love prevails.

And then i read this paragraph(p. 88):

In this story, we see all the elements of the human fall and the power of a redeemed heart.
Morality alone would dictate that he gets what he deserves. A redeemed heart says, “Let me bind his wounds because what needs attention is his soul.”
Morality alone says, “There is nothing reasonable in the man’s request.” The redeemed heart says, “The reason by which we live is the heart of mercy that does not keep a ledger.”
Morality says, “It’s all about whether you think it’s right or not.” The redeemed heart says What would God have me do in this situation?”
Morality says, “Make your own judgements.” The redeemed heart says, “Don’t make a judgement unless you are willing to be judged by the same standard.”
In short, morality is a double-edged sword. It cuts the very one who wields it, even as it seeks to mangle the other.”

It IS about love. It is about love of the sort described in 1 Corinthians 13:4. It is about love in the redeemed heart which is patient and kind, does not brag or boast or envy or has pride. ALL of those.

So the moral of the story, is how little morality has to do with it.

That blew me away.