A Quote by Ishmael Beah

As a kid in Africa, you were so connected to nature itself because you went farming, watched the moon out at night, observed how the sky was different, and how the birds chanted different songs in the evening and the morning.
I watched the night sky with it's countless stars and its moon, and I wondered about the universe and all that had been created, why the stars and the moon rose at night and the sun in the day, how vast it must be, how I could never understand the infinite measure of its size.
At different moments you see with different eyes. You see differently in the morning than you do in the evening. In addition, how you see is also dependent on your emotional state. Because of this, a motif can be seen in many different ways, and this is what makes art interesting.
When I started doing improvise music in Europe, in the beginning I thought the way that Europeans were interpreting the reconstruction of deconstruction of this thing that we call jazz - of course it's different than what Americans do, because Europeans have a different history, a different sensibility and so forth - the nature of the creative process itself it's the same; but what comes from that creative process is different, because you have a different history, you have a different society, different language.
Just like my career, I've sung the same songs night after night in so many ways. It's always different because every space is different. I lost my mojo once. It was like Austin Powers. I don't know why or how, but I had to get it back. And I did.
I'm not asking myself, 'How I can be different from Netanyahu?' because I am different, and Kadima is different from Likud, by its own nature.
The impact of giving someone a connected smartphone is no different from giving them a real computer. I look at how my kids learn and how different it is from how I learned because the impact of these things is just so huge. Sometimes I think we don't fully internalize what it is to get the power of knowledge in everyone's hand.
I write my books to challenge my own feelings and theories. Perhaps most surprising was what I learned about rice farming. It was really interesting to think of how different Asian and Western cultures are as a result of the kinds of agricultural practices that our ancestors used for thousands of years. The life of a Chinese peasant in the Middle Ages was so dramatically different from the life of a European peasant - night and day different.
I think, one thing that I've really come to appreciate about my parents as I've got older is you know, how wise they really were. As a kid when I was growing up, as any kid, you think you know every thing and I was no different to that. I had different opinions on a lot of different things then them but the way they raised me, in hindsight, they were right.
When we will all see our role in society as servants, we will all light up the sky together like countless stars on a dark night. Don’t think of society as the sky on a full moon night. The moon’s harsh light blinds us to the true and humble work of the stars. But on a moonless night, the true servants shine forth, as though they are connected invisibly in this vast and infinite cosmos.
Have you ever sat very quietly with closed eyes and watched the movement of your own thinking? Have you watched your mind working?or rather, has your mind watched itself in operation, just to see what your thoughts are, what your feelings are, how you look at the trees, at the flowers, at the birds, at people, how you respond to a suggestion or react to a new idea? Have you ever done this?
The idea of social performance, that we're always performing identities, is something I got fairly obsessed with. I think it's probably because I am a person who went to 15 different elementary and middle schools. I moved all the time, often having to run out in the middle of the night because my mom couldn't pay the bills. There were schools where I'd be the poor loser kid. There were schools where I'd suddenly be the smart kid or the cool kid, although that was very seldom.
Software touches all of these different things you use, and tech companies are revolutionizing all different areas of the world...from how we shop to how farming works, all these things that aren't technical are being turned upside down by software. So being able to play in that universe really makes a difference.
Livestock adopted in Africa were Eurasian species that came in from the north. Africa's long axis, like that of the Americas, is north/south rather than east/west. Those Eurasian domestic mammals spread southward very slowly in Africa, because they had to adapt to different climate zones and different animal diseases.
The Little House was very happy as she sat on the hill and watched the countryside around her. She watched the sun rise in the morning and she watched the sun set in the evening. Day followed day, each one a little different from the one before . . . but the Little House stayed just the same.
Different times call for different attitudes. But I love your generation because you are so creative and innovative in how you wear things, how you think, how you approach everything.
How real can your music be if you wake up in the morning hearing birds and crickets? I never hear birds when I wake up. Just a lot of construction work, the smell of Chinese takeout, children screaming, and everybody knocking a different track from 'Ready to Die' as they pass down the street.
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