What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable

Kannu

This is a great article. Really boils down what you hold dear. 

Knowing what you can drop is very powerful son. People walk around with a huge amount of baggage. Travel light. All you need is inside your head and good health. Rest you can get back again. 

Love

Baba

What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/07/what-they-left-and-what-they-kept-what-an-antarctic-expedition-can-teach-you-about-whats-truly-valuable/

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“Do you hear that? We’ll none of us get back to our homes again.”

Tom McLeod, member of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, stood anxiously on the deck of the Endurance. He looked out on a nearby ice floe where ten Emperor penguins stood wailing a mournful cry. None of the ship’s twenty-eight member crew had seen such a large group of penguins gather together before, nor heard them issue such a strange and chilling sound. Surely, McLeod thought, this was a foreboding omen.

Ernest Shackleton, leader of the expedition, bit his lip. One did not have to be superstitious to feel the crew’s prospects were bleak. The Endurance had been stalled out for months, having become trapped in an ice pack as it sailed towards the South Pole. The crew’s aim was to launch an expedition that would traverse the Antarctic continent. But now the ice floes surrounding the ship had begun violently pinching and twisting it, tearing open holes in the hull through which freezing water poured. The men had worked for days in exhausting, round-the-clock shifts, pumping out the water by hand. But Shackleton knew their efforts were not enough to save the ship; the next day he ordered the Endurance abandoned. “She’s going boys,” he said. “I think it’s time to get off.”

What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable

Kannu

This is a great article. Really boils down what you hold dear. 

Knowing what you can drop is very powerful son. People walk around with a huge amount of baggage. Travel light. All you need is inside your head and good health. Rest you can get back again. 

Love

Baba

What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/07/what-they-left-and-what-they-kept-what-an-antarctic-expedition-can-teach-you-about-whats-truly-valuable/

---

“Do you hear that? We’ll none of us get back to our homes again.”

Tom McLeod, member of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, stood anxiously on the deck of the Endurance. He looked out on a nearby ice floe where ten Emperor penguins stood wailing a mournful cry. None of the ship’s twenty-eight member crew had seen such a large group of penguins gather together before, nor heard them issue such a strange and chilling sound. Surely, McLeod thought, this was a foreboding omen.

Ernest Shackleton, leader of the expedition, bit his lip. One did not have to be superstitious to feel the crew’s prospects were bleak. The Endurance had been stalled out for months, having become trapped in an ice pack as it sailed towards the South Pole. The crew’s aim was to launch an expedition that would traverse the Antarctic continent. But now the ice floes surrounding the ship had begun violently pinching and twisting it, tearing open holes in the hull through which freezing water poured. The men had worked for days in exhausting, round-the-clock shifts, pumping out the water by hand. But Shackleton knew their efforts were not enough to save the ship; the next day he ordered the Endurance abandoned. “She’s going boys,” he said. “I think it’s time to get off.”

Thank you Baba

I am going to kick off a short course on Roman Architecture soon and have been reading up on the great and good like old man Julius and Octavian Augustus. Horace was a good old egg at that time and here’s a lovely poem which I read from the man.

Still, if my character’s flawed by only a few little

Faults, and otherwise sound, just as you’d censure

Perhaps the blemishes scattered over a noble body:

And if no one can accuse me in fairness of greed,

Meanness, debauchery, if in truth, in my own praise,

I live purely, innocently, loved by my friends:

It’s due to my father, who though poor, on poor land,

Wouldn’t send me to Flavius’ school, where fine lads

The sons of fine centurions went with their tablets

And satchel hanging from their left shoulders, carrying

Their eight coins as fee on the Ides of each month,

But instead he bravely whisked his son off to Rome,

To be taught the skills senator or knight would expect

To be taught his son. And if anyone noticed my clothes

And attendants, a big city scene, he’d have thought

The expenses were being met from ancestral wealth.

He, the truest of guardians, toured all my teachers

With me, too. What can I say? He guarded my innocence,

And that’s virtue’s prime ornament, he kept me free

Not only from shameful actions, but slander as well.

He wasn’t afraid someone might call him foolish

If I’d only followed the trade of an auctioneer

Or collector of dues like himself: I’d not have complained

As it turns out I owe him still greater praise and thanks.

It is considered to be one of the most wonderful paeans of praise to a father. Makes one think, no? And while we are at it, thank you Baba.

Bits and bobs on the charity front

So have been fairly active over the past month, but didn't get a chance to blog. Lets see

• We are working on improving the international scope and scale of helping with the anti rabies campaign at the Mayhew. Its a challenging business, so many developing countries do not have good infrastructure to cater for this. My uncle died because a dog bit him. Find it so strange..so bit personal. So we are trying to see if we can expand the work in various countries ranging from India, Russia, Peru, etc. etc.
• And it just infuriates me when I read about animal cruelty. Bastards. See our latest appeals on abandoned animals.

• What else? Well, had a nice chat with the LSE Enactus students. We are going to work together on hopefully three projects. (1) to help improve the data mining at the Mayhew, (2) to see if we can put together a training pack for families with young children in distress for savings and reduced spending for the Home Start Hillingdon charity and (3) help with the School in India with funding, libraries and stuff. It was humbling to see the excitement in their faces and the passion with which they approach life. Beautiful. Truly a fire to be lit.