Dr. Oppenheimer or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bomb

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We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.

-J. Robert Oppenheimer

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The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts desire.

I doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure
of being alive.

IT doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals; or if you have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
I want to know if you can sit with pain--- mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, ---mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal, and not betray your own soul.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where, or what, or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from within when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself; and if you truly love the company
you keep in the empty moments.


ORIAH, Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder

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Nietzsche, Goethe, Boldness, Genius

I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!""

Friedrich Nietzsche