The Ship of Friends...Now...and Later

When we are seeking someone out there....
....and cannot somehow find them.....

When we are seeking the soul of someone lost....
.....and deeply need to know it will be there....

When we are with near and dear, loved ones...in talk and touch....
.....they are with us....

On the Ship of Friends....

Because it sails for love and closeness, for us now....
....and it will be there later on, waiting in the sun....to welcome us on board....

When we can't find it, or see it, or lose a sense of where our love is....
The Ship of Friends sails on through....it will be there for us....through the fog....

It is part of us now....and will be our carrier later on...........
....it sails safely, smoothly on any sea....in any time....and is ours.
......it is our heritage....and our legacy all in one....

It gives us peace....it asks only one thing from us, ever.......that is love.

Peak Moments for a College President

When I can sit with students who are happy, and relax, and laugh together.....
When I sign a new contract with a great world partner institution....
When I hear from that president by email within an hour of my email to her.....
When a business leader from my California community accompanies me across the Pacific to help me build bridges in Korea....


When we share a fresh seafood lunch at a seaside barbecue in cold wind, but warm sun...
When I discover a colleague is an artist and has an amazing collection...
When it's Friday night, at our house, and students are coming....with food and drink and we plan to have fun...

When there is a warm wind in the sky, blowing the stars around.....when fans and friends are all one....
When people are on the Ship of Friends like this....the moments could not be better...

Yet the best of all moments come when a student signals that he or she wants to go abroad to study...
It is the signal that unfolds a lifetime of new culture and learning and career and maybe lifetime partnership...
Signals....
Our job to spark...
....our job to read....
.......to encourage and enable...

After all...that was our own journey....remember!

The CIBU Family Worldwide

This year takes us to new countries and new markets worldwide.  Through it all, CIBU retains its spirit of family and friendship.  Every single time I meet parents, I just want to thank them for being the guideposts for their sons and daughters to join us here in San Diego, and California, and America.

San Diego has been known for many years as "America's Finest City".  That was then.  This is now: "America's Global Gateway City"!  CIBU is in the heart of the cultural district of this great city.  We aspire to be one of the world's most creative business education institutions, regardless of size and former fame.  We re-energize our spirit and programs daily!  We add value every minute!  We are the place where scientific inquiry meets the forces of creativity unleashed.  This creative collision takes place in a nurturing and supportive environment.  Individuals thrive and talents are put to form.

We are creating a unique institution in time and place.  We are unfolding a true global alliance of colleges and universities with a common core of commitments and values and covenants to creativity and global teamwork.  We envision a Global Gateway campus for CIBU and its partners in this magnificent place where the arms of family, friendship, and scholarship reach to the farthest corners of the planet.

Celebrate this new decade with us.  It is CIBU's second century, its third decade!  Almost eighty countries and several thousand students have made CIBU home and family for a part of their life.  We honor that time together and treasure the promise of the future.  If our modest history is any indication, and our present is even more, then, our future is beyond our dreams.  And yet, it is in our hands every day!

Found Touch...New Life....

Something about this time of year....

I resolved that when I see an act of specialness, if it hurts no one, I will tell that person...
....that I will feed forward....a kind thought....a passage of hope or something that brightens the darkness...

California people are not known for running away...or putting out fires....
....we take our pride in starting not stopping, in lighting fires in darkness....
......if there is openness, we will find it...if there is strength, we will share it...
.......if there is weakness, we will not hide it, and it will......make us stronger...
........because we are who we appear to be....we create, we communicate, we enjoy...
.........we love and live to love another day....

We are the carriers of the torch...
We are the firestarters....
We are the lovers....
We are guardians...and liberators...

California sun rises from the East...with the smell of fresh coffee...
.....and sets with the green flash...on any horizon it can be even imagined...

Lost Touch..Lost Life

OK, folks, how are your connections?
Mine are like this...human touch is there but going to safer places...
..like underground...like where anonymous is better than authentic.

I spend about 1 to 2 hours a day on email and electronic brain interactions..less on touch than ever before..less on deeply sharing moments with true friends

You are OK with this, or am I alone?

What I see happening is a trend toward closeted intimacy...the world is so tough, we cannot be able to express our trueness of friendships, from a kiss on the cheek to a high five.

No way here I will effect a change, just to spark some comment.

Here is one truth...song lyrics, paintings, play scripts express what the human pulse is trying so desperately to find..in each other

Say what you feel today...tell that person you find something in them...we must keep on trying..

Coffee in the morning...see you there...

Taste Fresh in Winter

Can you imagine...
Sitting where the ocean and hills are at your feet....
...the sky is deep blue....
.....the air is so cold...with wind about 10 degrees F
......now just taste this...

You are with dear friends of 50 years....laughing....
....you all are so hungry...

You are sitting inside a porch sheltered from the outside cold
...yet you have the warmth of the sun....

The smell of charcoal is everywhere...

Now...on your table comes these fresh jumbo scallops....
...and Kimche....and dried fish...and local rice wine....

The taste was so fresh, the memory lasts forever....
....the friendships are even stronger....they will last longer than forever....

Everybody Thought it Was Funny When I Said "Cute"

In fact, Sam's sister is downright cute.  Doesnt' matter if she has 70+ years.  She is high energy, attends to every detail.  Takes care greatly her husband and her brother Sam, my friend and me, his guest.  They made me feel very honored, yet they have other doctors in this family who are far more important than me.  They took us to a beautiful place for dinner, a true cultural landscape restaurant, south of Seoul.  The food was bountiful.  The warmth was amazing and the artictecture was fabulous.

Sam's sister was so much the organizer.  When we went home to their flat, she served tea and fruited persimmons, a natonal treasure.  She had fun being the cheerleader of this party.  I was so tired, I may have missed important flashes, but I got the whole picture....she is "cute" in any terms....she provided a motherly and fun spirit...this was one of the most beautiful dinners of my life.  Thanks, Sam and family!

Saw the Sun Today....Hint of New Life and Spring

The sun light on the water today at Taesan on Korea's west coast...
...hinted at spring....the air was cold....but the light dancing on the stage of water....

.....ah, the sun brings us warmth

Deep in the Heart of Soul...I Mean Seoul

It's cold here in Seoul in winter.
But how are to know warm unless we know what cold is...?

Birthdays, anniversaries come and go....
True friends last forever....

As I am building bridges with Korea....all the way across the Pacific...
....to California.....
It is great to have a true friend here with me.

We all need someone to help us understand and decipher and get around in a new culture...
The bridge to a nation starts with the bridge to a friend....

I am lucky to have this friend.  Everything starts with this...

Global Teamwork

When you are in a multicultural team or group...you might have a mission together...something that puts pressure on the team to come up with a great result...

You will look to the weakest member....you will scan who is strong and who knows something...
...the you may ask yourself, what will you do...?

If you strive to bring in what everyone has to contribute...
...without regard to verbosity, eloquence, or talking...
......if you can discern the shades of meaning in what the shy ones in the team are saying...
........even if you can bring them along, however you may because you all are one team...

You have begun to know what global teamwork is....
If you see that you can be a leader when otherwise you would lead knowledge...
....this time you just lead people to a goal..

If you can possibly believe that being a leader in these conditions is as strong as when you know little and someone else is the leader.....

Then you are ready for global teamwork...

Without that basic attitude of modesty, humility, realistic contribution....you are not worth the trip...

When you want to be a global team leader, you love the diversity itself...
You are attracted to it....it is natural.....
You shine in this diversity and you bring even more teamwork to this group than it had before you were there....

That is your challenge...
That is the global challenge...yesterday, today and tomorrow...

Flying into the Night...

Every time we leave home base...company, family, friends...city..

...we need to be thankful....and be so looking forward to the next day...

.....flying into the night...we trust our lives to the pilot and the very few in the cabin....

......we trust, every day, though the moments are not so dramatic as in takeoff...

........every day, we trust in our lives and the ones we are with.....

Flying into the night....always reminds me....

.....we are not alone....

Soul to Soul...on the Ship of Friends

...."We search and search....and reach out...but rarely do we deeply touch or connect..."

"Soulness" is something that many talk about, preach and yet, no one is sure.  I have heard the term "soulmates" since I was young, and millions use the term, yet everyone knows the general idea, yet, no one really knows what this is, except,perhaps, what we feel....that is by the millions...

We hear and experience this feeling after the death of a dear, loved one...and when we are in deep crisis, when our character is being formed...when our voice is perhaps most clearly heard....when someone is there to hear us...whose soul has gone this path...then, if we can, we get a deeper sense of life...maybe beyond here and now...

The Search Universal for Soul

We already know that people become true friends because of like minds and meet mentally and intellectually. They also meet in love and romance.  Yet, there is this other category, about "soul" which has to do with the intangible, the very least visible, the most lasting and deepest part of a person....

No one, in fact, has ever defined the "soul"...except in art form, the Creator's gift to us humans.  Anyone who has tried to define "the soul" in words is a poet, a philosopher, an artist, a teacher, a cinematographer, a photojournalist, a playwright, an author, a teacher, a policeman, a lawyer, a doctor of medicine, an emergency worker, a soldier.....a scientist to a complete amateur.

It could be said, that every baby born speaks out their soul to the world in its first cries...

Who are we to say?....if that baby talks a language of the Millenia...in trying to reach out for human touch and its soul...it finds its mother, its first human touch from the first second of its creation....through its first touches of love....that baby is a creation of the passion of its mother and father and the Creator....

"Soul" is with all of us.  It has been the focus of much of human creation, in science, art, and in human procreation.  It started at our conception, and perhaps before, and goes on and on...

Dimensions Beyond Us

Most cultures and world religions recognize that there is something which transcends this time and space.  Many in the world believe that there are ancestors to every person....maybe spiritual forces in these ancestors....and many believe that there is also a future life for each person, a kind of destiny, or life awaiting...possibly beyond this life...

However you analyze this all, there is one thing paramount and manifest...it is the presence in each one of us in the here and now, and in deep roots of the past, and into the long future....

Are we alone?

When we bring in the astrophysicist's perspective, we are still a small spec in time and space from the universe out there....

We must also bring all of this universe to our lives each day.  We may be given a destiny, we must make choices here and now, each minute, hour, day...and we must make strategic plans into the future.....it is between our choice, our past and our destiny, all in our hands...

Much of this pursuit of happiness is about just this.  A dilemma.  How can we plan our best if we have a soul which is in a "larger game"?  Do we have a co-pilot watching us, or are we somehow the co-pilot?

Science and Art

Scientists cannot touch this.  There is no way they can. Artists and writers try and have tried for thousands of years....all art and words are ephemeral...nothing is truly "permanent" and could answer the question...what is our soul?

But, we have two things we know to our bones here as human beings....what we feel might be the message of what we consider as the Creator....and the other, is our deep friends...those who love us and we love....

Some of this love is so powerful, as in true romantic love, that it totally occupies our minds and senses.  Those moments and times and people are a gift to us....a lasting gift....

Then, there are some others...

The Most Special Ones...Soul to Soul

Those people we seem to call "soul friends", sometimes "soul mates"...

It appears that there is a human bonding that is like no other...not like even mother and child...beyond what is normally called "lovers" or "husband and wife"....or even, "best friends"....

It appears that this is the most extraordinary of all human bonding.  It transports people to outside where they are, time and place....it has some deeper feelings by both past history...and destiny.

.... a kind of longer destiny than what we may know...it is not at all "practical" or even convenient, as a relationship, but somehow "universal" ...that is what the friends feel...not only mind to mind, or even of romance, but beyond this place and time....

One of my paradoxes of life is the question: "How can I find a lost love... if true love is never lost?"
My answer from living is that true love is our soul.

Joining the Ship of Friends...Soul to Soul...

People meet and find this special connection...they search for answers, but there is no apparent reason why...
Many of the soul to soul friends know it and just smile, the smile of ages, and just go on, sometimes it may be difficult, so they try to go on...I have been there a time or two...

Some things in life we cannot make sense of...but we can ask ourselves who have been the people we have connected to soul to soul...it may be a grandfather or grandmother, a parent, a sibling, a spouse, a classmate, workmate, a lover, a stranger...some people we bond to we have no logic to understand... no reason, nobody to sponsor or approve...or even know...

There is only one answer that is comforting, and it is my only human answer.  It is that we are destined to connect so very deeply beyond normal friendship or romance with a precious few.  When we do and we know from the other as well, it is often very lasting.  It has permanence in what we call our deepest life and in our dreams...it is like we are all far out at sea...in the night...

We look for the deepest way to go on...
...and we see the light....to grab on...
.....it is the Ship of Friends....
.......to bring us up, and give us life....
.........a vision to where we have been...
............a life for the rest....to keep us strong...
...............into the night...going on....
...................and ever ready for the morning light....

Soul to soul friends are a gift of life and it is for all of us to see...
...and maybe be surprised just how amazing it can be.....!

My soul, as I know it, has been, is now, and wants to be with some very, very dear souls I reach out to...
....to touch....to love...to speak to....
......without anything back from their souls, I just know I have been somehow in touch...
........how could that even begin to take place?  It is because we all have soul.
..........some of us are such friends forever, before now and aftermore...

The Ship of Friends...Let Me Introduce...

Before the essay on Soul to Soul friends...the introduction of the next book...
and the possibly ultimate essay to date, for me, on love
....it seemed logical to visit once again...
...What is the "Ship of Friends"...?

This is a metaphor....far more..
It is a mental state, a place in our minds...
...but, here is for my bet on everything....a possible place in joint minds, between two people
.....and a place here and now in this space of our living....and a place in our dreams later on...
.......not many have written about "heaven", yet everyone hopes to get there!
..........just suppose, for a moment....we create it here..........

Yes, here on planet earth a spec in the universe of time, yet the center of our universe...
...each of us....

We connect with people, minds, hearts and souls...if we connect at all....
....and that is what this is all about...

Like a voyage...like a beautiful trip, a cruise, a flight we take with our deepest loved ones..
...our life mates...our significant deep friends...even those we love for a short while and release to life...
.....a sweet place of reunion we have deep within our own heart and soul....

We have to...we need to look forward, after all...out into the distant future...not the past...
....the past gives us everything to treasure....
......the future gives us everything to live for...
........the ones we live to love....forever....

That is our Ship of Friends!

Heart To Heart...on The Ship of Friends

We meet people in life who we fall for.  It is just all about the flash of romance.
It starts in small doses and progresses until we are smitten or just focused on the one we love...
...sometimes this love goes to marriage, and some marriages retain their love for many years...
....I met someone this week 62 years old, who married her one love and knew him 58 of her 62 years!
......some of the loves people find or finds them are not as simple or easy...
........some meet others they fall in love with yet cannot openly love because of circumstances....
..........when this happens to us...we want to hold them...we want to be with them...
..............we want to love them....even when we cannot...
......sometimes both want to love, but society or family or friends tell them they cannot....

Big Romantic Love....Lurks just out of reach when we want it, and Bam! there it is right in front of us when it is least convenient!!!

So what is the alternative?...one is to just get together...be together...lay together....fulfill that love...
But when we can't....there is an alternative in our minds and hearts....
.....we might think we are able to join the Ship of Friends....a place and time where all is OK....
........everybody welcomes you, the voyage is smooth and peaceful...love is now possible....

It is a dream voyage...where we can hug each other, touch each others' face and lips and say "I love you"...
It is a place we can have playful fun....and serious love.  Maybe make a family...

The Ship of Friends is a safe place for our love.  It is for our marriage love...for love in our minds and hearts
.....it exists here and now and does not even know time and space as we know it here on this planet....

The Ship can sail several times in our life, because heart to heart connetions happen a lot.
They are not always perfect, sometimes hard won.  But the ship gives bliss to its passengers...

A few of these in love folks go to the deepest level of all....the soul level, where we are soul to soul...
These passengers are long riders and truly understand the Ship.....

Mind to Mind...on the Ship of Friends

We meet people from time to time....they seem to think the same way we do...or just they and we share lots and lots of similar intellectual processes and shared experiences...this is our mind to mind friend.

Why?  We do not know.  It crosses cultures.  We meet people and we think the same way, or we have similar mental reactions to the same things....these friends are from our home or far away....

It happens everywhere and all our life....some of these friends stay with us and become dear friends, maybe heart to heart friends or even deeper, soul to soul...

It certainly helps when we share similar cognitive and intellectual worlds.  We recognize the name of some historical events, great artists, great stars and movies.  We find we share the same ideas...

These friends may begin early and stay all our lives, but that usually means we become heart to heart...
...yes, it begins with our minds and may go to even deeper levels...

That is another chapter, not only here, but in our lives...the best is yet to come....

True, Deep Home....

A friend from the Netherlands, through China, now of the world,  read my essay about what and where we call "home"...

He wrote me back...a poem...and he said...

We call a place home...but true home may trace to an earlier time...to a family far greater than what we know as our family right here and right now...

We have sisters and brothers part of a greater family...it spans time...and space...

As does our life...

And yet,

We are a spec in the universe, renting space here...

Yet, we must also be the center of our own universe...

Making choices every day, which we just somehow hope are correct...

And every day, we must eat, and sleep at night...and watch the sun come up...

....every morning

...who we live for...who we want to see by our side...that is what makes our spec...
.......in the universe....

        SO HUGE.....every second we are here.....