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Studying German Philosophers in their native language. Philosophy, Writing,Basketball.
This page is dedicated and linked to Travis directly by alternate means. Please feel free to leave any comments, messages and blog comments and he would definitely receive it. His direct responses would also be posted to each message and/or comment.Please feel free to leave your personal testimonials towards him as it may help improve the decisions involved when analyzing his situation.Pictures and Forums will be posted soon. Thank you all for your continuos support!The following was taken from Travis' Commencement Speech at his Graduation from Bard University:Personally, I can still remember coming to prison as a lost adolescent, confused and directionless, running away from both my parents and myself until landing in a place that will change my life forever.Try to imagine this place if you will, with its towering fences and sturdy gates, it's a place where thirty-year old men are breaking down because an eight by ten cell has shrunk their dreams into eight by ten thoughts. Involuntarily, your hands start to shake and your body even quivers and it is precisely because you're afraid that you tell yourself to be strong. But over the years, the pressing strength of concrete walls, iron bars and metal plated shackles starts to out weigh your strength, reduces you to a bent knee and leaves you a tear or two away from those eight by ten thoughts. Still, you invoke your fighting spirit and battle through the blows, telling yourself, if you're not going to be strong at lease don't become weak – that seeing your child only once a year, having your wife leave because this place isn't human enough, and not being able to hold your grandfather on his death-bed are not reasons enough to become weak. So you don't become weak. In fact, you become all the more strong, so much so that your soul turns harder than the brick in these walls and your heart more cold than the steel in these bars.You feel your humanity slipping from your reach, and it is at that precise moment when the point of no return is not far enough – that you draw from the most audacious depths of all human power. You draw from the depths of human hope. You draw from those words your father once proclaimed, "that great men are in command and never are commanded"; from the soft wisdom of your mother's voice, "that at the heart of every crisis is the spirit of opportunity" and suddenly a swell of life begins to dawn from this hope. It dawns as the iron bars sleep and the stone walls slumber, as you stand up from your knees and wipe those tears away. It dawns, until you notice that brilliant picture of your child smiling, with all the hope in his eyes, and you can't help but to look and smile back. You can't help but to feel a little less of the weight, a little less of the pain, and a bit more inspired to dream of another place.Perhaps an even greater place – where life, liberty, and happiness are not only extended to those who live life without mistakes. But a place where the power of these truths allows for men to redeem their mistakes. It's a place where our compassion is deep, human empathy is wide, and men try to forgive more than they condemn. It is, I believe, that benevolent place we all see when we dream from deep down inside.Before, entering ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Bard College, the future of this dream and the prospect of this place seemed distant and obscure, fleeting and unreachable. But it has been though our education here at Bard, through the process of becoming new men, and through the new found courage to reevaluate our souls and come to terms with our heart that we have taken a great step forward to making this dream a place of reality. Indeed, a great step closer to realizing that the most abstract truth can be the most practical – that we can have a sense of life through hope; a sense of liberty through education; and a sense of happiness through learning and building from our mistakes.So as we stand here today, we not only accept this degree as a written achievement of our education; but we also accept it for all the unwritten achievements of our experiences here at Bard. We accept it for giving us the valor to know better than we do and to become wiser than we know. We accept it for the hard work and dedication of our true heroes, the unsung professors, like Melanie Nicholson and Daniel Berthold, Nancy Leonard and Jim Brudvig, whom come in year in and year out, day in and day out, and have not only taught us to grow and learn from our mistakes, but to also become greater men because of them. We must also accept if for the tears our parents cry, the smiles our children smile, and for the hope that our tomorrows will bring about better days.It is for all these things that we accept this degree, and it is on behalf of these unwritten achievements that we no longer stand here strong like concrete and metal. Today, we stand before you with the highest depth of human strength. We stand before you strong with hope; we stand before you strong with education; and we stand before you strong with a new sense of life, liberty and happiness – that has transformed us from inmates of a prison to students of the world.
Oldies, My mom's collection!
See Travis Darshan on CBS 60 Minutes: Click on the link below:http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.sht ml?id=2685517n
MY Mother, MY SON!