Dog, bone, and a carrot too

Life is amongst other things a series of decisions and rarely do we know which are going to influence the course of our lives or that of other people's. There's a line from a song, one which I have quoted in these pages before; 'Turned a different corner and we never would have met.' To me, at least, it sums up in one rather abstract statement how much seems to happen by chance. A continual succession of seemingly insignificant events that lead us towards singular moments in time where for one reason of another we take stock of where we are, whom we are with, what we are doing and we wonder at how life brought us forth to that particular point. Predominanty, the decisions we make, we make easily. We make them without considering the less favoured options, without considering that at every moment there are an untold number of alternative routes we could take.

With others, the facts are clearer. Do this, and this might happen, do that, and that might. Or will. Sometimes they are even as clear as that. Clear is nice. Clear is simple.
For example, if someone stands before us asking for our help and we are willing and more importantly able to offer the assistance required, it's a simple decision to make. Few among us lack the compassion to do what we can for other people. We see a person in need and we feel for that person, we put ourselves in their shoes, we remember what it was like when we were the ones in need of help and how we felt when someone offered it to us.

The more abstract sense of someone needing our help is a little harder to identify with. Be that as it may, we willingly donate to charities trusting that the funds we award will be helpful and we do it knowing we will never hear directly of how exactly and whom we were able to help. Yet we do it, because we understand the concept of it. Others are working on our behalf, or to put it another way, we are by donating funds enabling others to offer direct aid.


The World Community Grid works on the same kind of principle.
But instead of donating cash, we are giving away only what we ourselves will never need or use. By downloading this small agent, each time our computer is idle, for a minute, for an hour, what we effectively are doing is donating that unused computing power for research purposes. Research into illnesses and environmental issues that during our lifetimes will effect us all on a personal level, somehow, someway. By being a part of this endeavour we could be not only aiding others but ourselves.
In short, it's one of those decisions, where we know what the possible outcome might be.

I can't help but want to shout from the rooftops, or at least tell everyone I know about grid computing and the potential benefits. I keep thinking about legacies, how we all want to have the space that we occupy mean something, how we want to matter to other people and how there are a million different ways to go about doing that. And how they all begin with touch, with connection, with linking, of how opportunity continually presents itself to us to make a difference in someone else's life, small or large, and how each such event is significant.

Every moment matters, every action, every inaction, every word we speak, every smile we share, our lives are our responsibility, but they are not ours alone. We impact upon each other.
It all sounds so momentous, and it is, but as the saying goes, it's the little things that matter. It's being kind, when there is no seldom any reason to be otherwise. It's loving, and letting those who want to love you, do. It's being a part of the whole.

Such a little thing. And yet, it is still a decision that has to be made. Which is why for every name I see on the list, my heart rejoices.
It's been so very, very nice to watch the stats at Bravo these past three weeks. What we clearly have is a team of dedicated individuals, most of whom were being introduced to the concept of crunching for the first time and yet each of them, as soon as they realized what it was, made the decision easily and have been idly watching their figures rise ever since. Now just 3 weeks into Bravo's existance, our members are already hitting some pretty significant milestones.

This particular shout-out goes to my dear sweet poppet, aka Trée who every single day unfailingly shows anew the beauty and depth of his heart through his blog (blogs) and comments around the blogesphere, and who has in just 3 weeks accumulated over 100 days of runtime, returned over 150 results and reached and surpassed 50,000 points!
Congratulations are a must on what is truly an amazing achievement!


And a carrot in front of my(our) nose as I(we) aim to reach those milestones as soon as possible. ;-)
Points are of course the fun aspect of crunching, propergating a little healthy competitive spirit, and most importantly letting us see in real terms how we are contributing.

It is a little thing, granted, but it's a big thing too, and I just wanted to thank again each of the teammates for doing it.

And on that note, a big welcome to new teammember ~d, who joined Bravo today. Happy crunching! :-)