Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It’s not about winning. It’s about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didnt let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There wasnt one more thing you could’ve done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman – you’re perfect!

Coach Gary Gaines Friday Night Lights 2004

No language can fully describe, no artist paints the beauty, grandeur, immensity, and awe-inspiring of this most wonderful production of Nature’s great architect. Grand Canyon must be seen to be fully appreciated. How great is Thou art!

Today was such a fascinating day! I had a great discussion with Lawrence Rentoul from Merck Chemicals about shifting career from academic research to industry. He is a great guy with vast knowledge both in science and business-wise. He is truly inspirational and career-driven. I guess he will be despised by most of pure-hearted academics as he left science to the dark side, ups, I mean industry. He did convince me about moving my career to industry but for now, I have to take care of my PhD – I am still open-minded about my future career.

Another last-minute talk caught me by surprise was from Prof. John Parker from University of Cambridge. I was rather bored in lab – waiting for incubation time for my experiment so I said to myself, ‘Well, I could kill time by going to this talk….’ The talk was supposed to be ‘Applying Business Intelligence to Charles Darwin (and John Henslow) Herbarium Specimens’. He focused on how ‘business intelligence’ or computer-based data collection can reveal many things of Darwin’s and Henslow life and research. I have to admit I quite enjoy the talk as John wrapped the talk in a more-or-less a nice story – a story of how Charles Darwin became ‘Charles Darwin’ with his Origin of Species.

John Stevens Henslow is mostly known as Darwin’s tutor – but is that it? Is it that simple? Henslow himself was a great natural philosopher with broad interest from mathematics, mineralogy, botany, agriculture and even summing up his life as a Rector with his work transforming the local parish in Hitcham. He is the ‘forgotten-man’ behind Darwin’s success.

Darwin’s interest in the systemic study of nature variations started from his long-lasting relationship with Henslow. According to John, Henslow’s research in botany established the crucial intellectual framework for Darwin’s to come up with the theory of evolution. Darwin, as a pupil, learnt much from Henslow meticulous work in assembling and organizing the British flora which cover more than 10,000 plants. This gave Darwin insight in careful observation of flora’s and fauna’s variations. Interestingly, Henslow himself arranged the possibility of Darwin’s trip with HMS Beagle in 1831 visiting Galapagos and around the world. Moreover, Henslow was one of the clergymen who defended Darwin.

One notes that I would like to share with you from John, “It’s a great example of how influential teaching can be in forming the mind of the undergraduate. This certainly launched Darwin with the ability to think for himself about the nature of species” (more of the story: http://www.bit.ly/1MrBps)

I think that whether we like it or not ad nauseam, we will be influenced by our mentors. A great guy like Lawrence, I believe he reaches his success because his previous experience with his mentors/teachers. I personally realized that most of my characters and successes that I have are because of my previous teachers, supervisors, and parents.  I am because of them. They are ‘pahlawan tanpa tanda jasa’ or ‘heroes without recognition awards’.

This is why choosing the right ‘teacher’ is definitely crucial in our life. A wise man once said, ‘He who walks with wise men shall be wise but a companion of fools shall suffer’.

Just a week after I had posted my ‘preface’ of this website, I had several emails asking me what the meaning of being ‘spiritual but not religious’ is. You may ask, ‘Isn’t it the same?’ Stuart, one of my friends, bluntly said to me, ‘If you pray and talk to God, you are religious, but if you are talking to God and God talks to you, you are  spiritualist, you are psychotic!’ Well it is not that simple. In the 20^th and earlier centuries, the terms religious and spiritual were used more or less interchangeably, but now different people define the phrase differently.

Before attempting to explain it further, I had better spell out the similarities between ‘being religious’ and ‘being spiritual’. Both share and denote (1) the belief in Higher Power, (2) the desire to build a relationship with the Higher Power, and (3) the interest in practices that relates to the Higher Power.

The difference comes in practice. It is not about me pleasing a demanding God. I personally consider faith and belief as something private based on personal conviction. I see and perceive my relationship with God is within ‘my private realm’ rather than the ‘public’ realm of institutions, creeds, and rituals. Hence, I do not consider being a member of certain church or participation in formal rituals or adherence to official denomination doctrines is crucial. I reject traditional organized religion and its traditions as the sole means for my spiritual growth.

You may remind me of St. Augustine (354-430 AD) who said, “If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” I agree with St. Augustine but I see my spirituality as my relationship with a living God. Like a person dating someone, I prefer to ask my future-spouse to lead me the way to get to know deeper and closer with all the ups-an-downs of a relationship rather than having someone telling me to do this and that and what-not. I may become a radical Christian or an orthodox Christian or some-where in the middle, or a Neocharismatic or what-not in the future, but for the time being, I consider myself as a mere (spiritual) Christian.

Beauty… is the shadow of God on the universe.

~Gabriela Mistral, Desolacíon