 
Delivered fresh on June 7th, 2010
Greetings!
It takes real courage to keep on believing when it feels like you keep coming up empty. To keep trying when when all you want to do is quit, to keep hoping when it would be so much easier to just give up - is nothing short of heroic. Dana DANA DELIVERED! User's Guide: 1) Open up your Dana Delivered! email. 2) Choose an article from the menu on the left hand side or just start from the beginning and read all the way through. 3) If you are reading an article and want to finish, Click on "Read More..." and you will be taken to our website. You can finish reading and while there, have a look around. Note: Dana's Dailies changes, well, daily so come back often. 4) Click on any of the words highlighted in red and you will be taken right to our site, DanaRoc.com. In INSPIRING PEOPLE: Dana talks with Architect, Matthias Hollwich. Matthias’ approach to architectural design is inspiring, provocative, and groundbreaking. Read Dana's EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Matthias and expand your perspective about some things you might just be taking for granted... Take a minute to read DANA'S WEEKLY INSIGHT and make sure that you listen to the AUDIO VERSION as well. There may be someone who needs you to pass that along. Check out DANA'S DAILIES for no other reason than to hopefully smile. And come back and visit the blog all week at www.danaroc.com/dailies. The special article FROM DANA'S GUESTS this week is Rachel's Emails from Palestine. Rachel Corrie was an activist who died young in the Middle East in defense of peace. Read her final emails! Learn her story! Stand for peace... Check out AUGUSTE ROC'S MY TWO CENTS (For Whatever It Is Worth). There is something in it for YOU! While it may be "Two Cents" but you'll find it's worth a whole lot more. Feel free to email your comments to Auguste at auguste@danaroc.com. This week's THE GOOD LIFE : BOOKS selection is Our America: Life And Death On The South Side Of Chicago by Lealan Jones, Lloyd Newman. Enter the world of two courageous thirteen year olds as they chronicle the struggle to survive their reality in an unforgiving world through interviews and personal commentary. Truly inspiring! Read this book! And there's more so sit back, grab a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy. As always, thanks for reading! Stay cool. Be hungry. Never look back. Always reach back. Fear not. Believe always, Dana Everybody's Got One
"Pride attaches undue importance to the superiority of one's status in the eyes of others; And shame is fear of humiliation at one's inferior status in the estimation of others. When one sets his heart on being highly esteemed, and achieves such rating, then he is automatically involved in fear of losing his status." You've been there, you've done that, in fact you might even be doing it right now. Everyday, whether actively or passively, people every where are working overtime to avoid messing up somehow because let's face it, few things are more unsettling in life than someone else watching you when you're about to look bad. We will do whatever it takes to maintain the image that we've got it all together, which just sets us up for the inevitable fall because remaining on a pedestal; sustaining admiration and high regard, is a delicate balancing act that no man has ever mastered. We are not in control. Sometimes stuff just happens. Within in minutes I was surrounded. I knew that I would have to think fast, which was typically not a difficult thing for me to do. I had always been able to figure my way in and out of "a situation", however this one was posing some unique logistical challenges, promising some potentially damaging personal consequences indeed. This was a real mess and I was stuck sitting there cross-legged on the floor and without a plan of escape. "Better think fast", I thought. As I tried to breathe and maintain my composure, I started to panic, realizing that this episode could threaten my reputation as their hero and reduce me to just another face in the crowd. As the puddle rapidly expanded, I knew that I'd better act now or innocent unsuspecting bystanders, like the kid sitting slightly behind me and just to my left, were going to get hurt. "Oh no!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. And with that outburst I had instantly become the center of attention, which was kind of what I was trying to avoid. All eyes on me, now I had no choice but to commit and to play this card all the way through. My determination to save face had just become an all or nothing proposition. "Didn't you guys see him?", I screamed even louder this time, trying to invoke confusion in an effort to thwart any attempt on their part to employ logic and figure out what was really going on here. "The little man that was flying around my head just now -- you didn't just see him throw that bucket of warm water under my legs?!" All I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding away at what once was my tidy little reality. All I could feel was the anticipation of doom as I fought to hold back my tears. All I could think about was how I was going to get from this puddle to my front door with my dignity in tact and whether or not I was going to be able show my face back at school the next day. They looked at me, they looked at each other, they looked at the puddle and then back at me again and I was relieved to see that I might just be able to spin my way out of this one realizing that if I didn't, I would be doomed to be the girl who wet her pants that day in kindergarten. Imagine. I worked hard to convince those kids back then that I was innocent no matter what it looked like to them and no matter how effectively the evidence stacked up against my desperate alibi. And, in an effort to survive and move on, I convinced myself at five years old, and choose to believe to this day, that they bought my story of the little man flying around my head with a bucket of warm water, hook line and sinker. Maybe I could have humbly confessed to my accident. Maybe I should have asked my teacher for help. At five years old however, that was an option I didn't know that I had. And you? You've been caught in the spotlight of an embarrassing moment, trying desperately to figure out how to maintain your elevated status in someone else's eyes, haven't you? Have you ever lied, even just a little bit, to save face so that you could show your face again when it was all over, said and done? Maybe you felt like you had no other choice. We've all been there and we've all done that, working overtime to avoid messing up somehow because let's face it, we will do whatever it takes to maintain the image that we've got it all together, which just sets us up for the inevitable fall because remaining on a pedestal; sustaining admiration and high regard, is a delicate balancing act that no man has ever mastered. There will always be that unexpected "crack in the sidewalk" just waiting to trip us up! But, it's not about the fact that we've fallen that threatens to make us look bad. It is about how we deal with the fact that we've fallen. It is about how we choose to get up that will ultimately determine who we are and that will allow us to live our lives powerfully and on our own terms. When we are trusting enough to allow our flaws and imperfections to emerge unopposed; courageous enough to accept "looking bad" for a minute, by owning the truth, we open ourselves up to the possibility of accessing the kind of power and influence that can only come through the magic of being fully ourselves. Dana Have a great week!
  Architect, Matthias Hollwich
Last year I saw the documentary film, My Architect and I gained new insight and enthusiasm for the architects as inspired artists. Matthias Hollwich has taken my enthusiasm to another level. His approach to his work is for me, eclipsed only by his "passion" projects. I really enjoyed meeting and talking with him... DR: Tell me about your work. NH: If you think about your life, ninety nine percent of your it is affected by architecture. In America, architecture is driven more by commercial considerations. In Europe, as an architect you are much more of an advocate for society. In Europe you cannot advertise as an architect. Being an architect has the same status as being a doctor. You need to be independent. You cannot act as a pure commercial enterprise. There is a code that you have to kind of swear to when you are an architect because you are for the people. That is what people don't realize. The affect of what you can do in a positive or negative way? You cannot even begin to imagine that as an architect, you could be the reason that a couple breaks up or the reason that someone is unhappy with their lives just because of the way that you have mis-designed a space. DR: Do you have a different response to your physical environment when you are in New York as opposed to being in Europe? NH: Absolutely. New York is something special. The density and the creativity of people resonates and overpowers the opportunistic structure of the city. Here, in New York, it is interesting to notice how people have restructured a city that was basically inhumane and make it a city that works really well for New Yorkers. In Europe some of the cities have a tendency to be too comfortable. Like I lived in Amsterdam and after a while life was just too beautiful. I like pressure and to be driven and I felt that in Amsterdam I could become extremely lazy. Amsterdam invites you to relax and enjoy life. That was not the right place for. I need a place that provides me with more pressure. Pressure causes me to be more creative. As an architect I like uncomfortable cities because I like to fix them. I like to be confronted with problems because I like to...
 Rachel's Emails from Palestine
“...and a child will lead them...” Rachel's Words Hi friends and family, and others, I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool," but I don't think it translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was just a few years ago. Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for...
 Matchless
Basketball fans and sportswriters openly and passionately debate and question who the best are among their favorite players. Their often biased opinions run long and often end without conclusion or concession, perhaps because there are a number of outstanding pro basketball players and evolving standards about what makes a player great. However, in the world of sports like in the rest of the world, every once in awhile history might bestow upon a generation, a special and unusual talent that leaves the "experts" without a doubt about who is great. As if from out of nowhere, a rare talent will arrive without forecast, displaying superior gifts and masterful skills. They will step into the arena and onto the court and rewrite the rules of the game. On November 8, 1984, Michael Jordan played his 7th NBA game in his rookie season for the Chicago Bulls versus the N.Y. Knicks, in Madison Square Garden. From the edge of my seat, unaware of the fact that the game of basketball was about to change forever. I watched MJ bolt masterfully past my hometown Knicks, soaring effortlessly to unreachable heights, sustaining himself in midflight. When he completed that aerial ballet with a slam dunk, I knew that what we were all witnessing was a basketball revolution. Not just once, but over and over again did Jordan conduct his far superior skills around the Knicks with maestro like precision. In that moment, the fans in Madison Square Garden did what they had rarely done before, they followed every move of the new guy on the other team - spellbound, and they cheered. To be there for that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. To witness the introduction of a new and exciting standard is rare and when that happens, few would be willing to argue that there is any room for opinion and debate. And, that's my two cent's (for whatever it's worth). Auguste Roc
 Just Who Do You Think You're Talking To?
He was six years old and it was the first day of first grade. His Dad walked him to school and as he dropped Auguste off he gave him instructions about how to conduct himself now that he was in the first grade. Auguste shared that he remembers thinking "Why is he talking to me like this — like I'm a baby or something? I am a man. Doesn't he get that?" That's kind of like the unexpected thought that I had recently about dogs. In hanging out with a friend and her adorable dog recently, I could have sworn that there was a moment when I locked eyes with her dog and I know that cute little pooch was thinking to herself: "Why is she talking to me like this — like I’m a dog or something?"  Our America: Life And Death On The Southside Of Chicago
Why I am recommending this book: Because it takes extraordinary courage to survive the kind of conditions that these kids had to survive.
Click here to purchase this book.
Click here to purchase this book.
 
It's not too late to become who you once thought you could be.
 
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