I played tennis yesterday with someone I've been wanting to play against for a long time.

I thoroughly anticipated getting decimated on the court.

But despite being horribly out of shape (I was winded after the first 3 games), I actually won. 6-2.

Call me lucky I guess.

So I played tennis again yesterday... with the same person as last time.

What's amazing is how quickly the human body adapts. Last time, I was so out of shape that I was way too winded after only a couple of games in.

This time though, I felt a noticeable increase in endurance from the previous match, just a few days earlier. I even had enough energy to play a second set, which I wasn't able to pull off the first time around.

Final score: 6-2, 6-1

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
- attributed to Benjamin Franklin

“When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood it is hard to shake hands with her.”
- Oscar Wilde

“You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's freedom. You can be free only if I am free.”
- Clarence Darrow

"True liberty consisteth in man's submission unto My commandments, little as ye know it. Were men to observe that which We have sent down unto them from the Heaven of Revelation, they would, of a certainty, attain unto perfect liberty. Happy is the man that hath apprehended the Purpose of God in whatever He hath revealed from the Heaven of His Will, that pervadeth all created things. Say: The liberty that profiteth you is to be found nowhere except in complete servitude unto God, the Eternal Truth. Whoso hath tasted of its sweetness will refuse to barter it for all the dominion of earth and heaven."
- Bahá'u'lláh

"Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and its symbol is the animal. That which beseemeth man is submission unto such restraints as will protect him from his own ignorance, and guard him against the harm of the mischief-maker. Liberty causeth man to overstep the bounds of propriety, and to infringe on the dignity of his station. It debaseth him to the level of extreme depravity and wickedness"
- Bahá'u'lláh

Click on the image to go to the photo album.

One of my buds helped produce a really excellent short film. I love it.

How people act:

Read this

How we're supposed to act:

"When a man turns his face to God he finds sunshine everywhere. All men are his brothers.

Let not conventionality cause you to seem cold and unsympathetic when you meet strange people from other countries. Do not look at them as though you suspected them of being evil-doers, thieves and boors. You think it necessary to be very careful, not to expose yourselves to the risk of making acquaintance with such, possibly, undesirable people.

I ask you not to think only of yourselves. Be kind to the strangers, whether come they from Turkey, Japan, Persia, Russia, China or any other country in the world.

Help to make them feel at home; find out where they are staying, ask if you may render them any service; try to make their lives a little happier.

In this way, even if, sometimes, what you at first suspected should be true, still go out of your way to be kind to them – this kindness will help them to become better.

After all, why should any foreign people be treated as strangers?...

... What profit is there in agreeing that universal friendship is good, and talking of the solidarity of the human race as a grand ideal? Unless these thoughts are translated into the world of action, they are useless.

The wrong in the world continues to exist just because people talk only of their ideals, and do not strive to put them into practice. If actions took the place of words, the world's misery would very soon be changed into comfort."

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá