Alright! So i got my first table tennis racket, or bat as some call. It isn't the perfect gift a friend of mine could have given me; in fact, it's not even a gift. It's all full of dirt, made of cheap quality wood and rubber, and the handle is broken on one side. Even the grip is worn off . He just gave it me 'cuz he didn't want it anymore. He's more likely to buy a new one, after all he is rich as croesus.
So why am I so happy about it? Well, first of all, i got for free. This counts alot to me; especially when you get it from a person who is cheap (Yes my friend is really rich but yet cheap). Secondly, I can use it roughly for practicing strokes and smashes. That is of course once i'm done with cleaning the rubber with little detergent water and glue a small piece of wood and carve is with sandpaper in place of the missing handle. And finally, it'll be my second racket, once i buy a brand new one, most likely a butterfly.
I plan to buy a new racket and ball, and start practicing my ping skills. I am so lagging behind in my game with my friends. They began playing at their 7th grade and i just got introduced to it recently. I tried learning and polishing my strokes but i was always pushed in side as an amateur. nobody even wanted to play doubles with me.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Rise of a new polymath
No, this is not the real Ibn Sina writing a blog. The real Ibn Sina passed away around a millennium ago. I'm just a great fan, who hopes to become even half of the polymath he was.
Polymath? What's that? Well let me tell you. Polymath is a Greek word polymathēs meaning "having learned much". Qouting wikipedia, it calls polymath as "someone who is very knowledgeable". To be more specific, a polymath is person who has knowledge about a variety of topics and is accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences: everything from how to gain weight; to how to take care of legal work without a lawyer. He is man who has broad intellectual interests. He is also known as the Universal Man, Italian ‘Uomo Universale’ Latin 'Homo Universalis'. But a more common term used is Renaissance man. Yes I want to be someone like Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomsa Jefferson and especially Abu Ali Ibn Sina. Check this out List of Renaissance men.
A polymath may not necessarily be a genius. Albert Einstein is an example of a genius who was not a polymath.
However, it is not clear just how many fields I must excel in, nor the extent to which I must excel, before I can call myself a polymath. Some people hold that a strong interest in a wide variety of fields (like me) is enough for me to earn this most prized epithet, while others say its reserve for a few truly great achievers.
Other people, however, argue that being a polymath is not a state of being, but a state of becoming. Being a polymath is not what one knows now, but what one desires to know. Not a matter of intelligence, but a matter of intellectual and creative ambition and curiosity.
The most important thing is not to confuse polymathy with pretention. Whatever being a polymath is, it certainly isn't showing off.
But the bad news is that most people think that if you want to be a genuine, top of the range, premier league elite polymath, the chances are that you've left it far too late. As the sum of human knowledge grows, scientific discoveries become not the work of one person sitting under an apple tree and watching the fruit fall, but of teams of people working on collaborative projects in massive laboratories. The individual is nothing, and the research project is everything. As humans now know so much, it's impossible for one person to know enough to advance knowledge very much. The old joke about academic research, that "one learns more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing" might be all too true.
Another problem for me is that the competition is much fiercer. It's all very well being a rich bright spark with too much time on your hands in a time of general poverty and ignorance, when there's still lots to discover, but it's rather more difficult at a time where a university education (in the "developed" world at least) is become more and more common.
But I think otherwise. I believe that polymaths are needed, now more than ever. We need people to be able to relate opinions and ideas. We need to think in a much broader prospective. As we go in much deeper depth of knowledge of individual subject, you will realize that there are a lot of fields related to one another. i mean like sub-atomic particles helps us understand what a material's property in chemistry while in theoretical physics, we study sub-atomic physics for studying the origins of the universe. There's a relation between Math equations and Physics theoretical thinking, chemical compounds used in organic Chemistry and their effect on human body in Biology. You can't master any sport till you've gone deep into it's technique of execution (which need physics) and your overall fitness (which needs biology like nutrition and anatomy).
So the hell with the world's obsession with so called Specialization!
How do I plan to become a polymath? Well by Reading. I need to read magazines, books, (quality) newspapers. Look for connections, form my own opinions. I need to create work of art. I need to be more athletic. I need to seek out those who seem wise and knowledgeable. Like all great polymath, I have to refused to get conveniently pigeon holed. It's tempting, after achieving in one field, to either continue in that field, and invest time and energy in becoming better and better at something you're already good at, particularly as that's what people will expect you to do. I need to follow my interests - even if they seem to be leading in bizarre and even contradictory directions!
Yes people, hear me out loud. I plan to become a 21st century polymath and there is nothing in my way to stop me from being one. For too long I've lived underneath the shadows of other people. I must denude my intentions, my thought and my vision to everyone around me. I have to change myself, change myself for good.
Polymath? What's that? Well let me tell you. Polymath is a Greek word polymathēs meaning "having learned much". Qouting wikipedia, it calls polymath as "someone who is very knowledgeable". To be more specific, a polymath is person who has knowledge about a variety of topics and is accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences: everything from how to gain weight; to how to take care of legal work without a lawyer. He is man who has broad intellectual interests. He is also known as the Universal Man, Italian ‘Uomo Universale’ Latin 'Homo Universalis'. But a more common term used is Renaissance man. Yes I want to be someone like Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Thomsa Jefferson and especially Abu Ali Ibn Sina. Check this out List of Renaissance men.
Know something about everything and everything about something T H Huxley
The only thing that I know is that I know nothing Socrate
However, it is not clear just how many fields I must excel in, nor the extent to which I must excel, before I can call myself a polymath. Some people hold that a strong interest in a wide variety of fields (like me) is enough for me to earn this most prized epithet, while others say its reserve for a few truly great achievers.
Other people, however, argue that being a polymath is not a state of being, but a state of becoming. Being a polymath is not what one knows now, but what one desires to know. Not a matter of intelligence, but a matter of intellectual and creative ambition and curiosity.
The most important thing is not to confuse polymathy with pretention. Whatever being a polymath is, it certainly isn't showing off.
But the bad news is that most people think that if you want to be a genuine, top of the range, premier league elite polymath, the chances are that you've left it far too late. As the sum of human knowledge grows, scientific discoveries become not the work of one person sitting under an apple tree and watching the fruit fall, but of teams of people working on collaborative projects in massive laboratories. The individual is nothing, and the research project is everything. As humans now know so much, it's impossible for one person to know enough to advance knowledge very much. The old joke about academic research, that "one learns more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing" might be all too true.
Another problem for me is that the competition is much fiercer. It's all very well being a rich bright spark with too much time on your hands in a time of general poverty and ignorance, when there's still lots to discover, but it's rather more difficult at a time where a university education (in the "developed" world at least) is become more and more common.
But I think otherwise. I believe that polymaths are needed, now more than ever. We need people to be able to relate opinions and ideas. We need to think in a much broader prospective. As we go in much deeper depth of knowledge of individual subject, you will realize that there are a lot of fields related to one another. i mean like sub-atomic particles helps us understand what a material's property in chemistry while in theoretical physics, we study sub-atomic physics for studying the origins of the universe. There's a relation between Math equations and Physics theoretical thinking, chemical compounds used in organic Chemistry and their effect on human body in Biology. You can't master any sport till you've gone deep into it's technique of execution (which need physics) and your overall fitness (which needs biology like nutrition and anatomy).
So the hell with the world's obsession with so called Specialization!
How do I plan to become a polymath? Well by Reading. I need to read magazines, books, (quality) newspapers. Look for connections, form my own opinions. I need to create work of art. I need to be more athletic. I need to seek out those who seem wise and knowledgeable. Like all great polymath, I have to refused to get conveniently pigeon holed. It's tempting, after achieving in one field, to either continue in that field, and invest time and energy in becoming better and better at something you're already good at, particularly as that's what people will expect you to do. I need to follow my interests - even if they seem to be leading in bizarre and even contradictory directions!
Yes people, hear me out loud. I plan to become a 21st century polymath and there is nothing in my way to stop me from being one. For too long I've lived underneath the shadows of other people. I must denude my intentions, my thought and my vision to everyone around me. I have to change myself, change myself for good.
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