{"id":57146,"date":"2015-05-25T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=57146"},"modified":"2015-05-17T18:26:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T17:26:39","slug":"the-oak-tree-and-the-reed-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/the-oak-tree-and-the-reed-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oak Tree and the Reed Grass"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_54505\" style=\"width: 170px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dietrich-Fischer.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-54505\" class=\"size-full wp-image-54505\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dietrich-Fischer.jpg\" alt=\"Prof. Dietrich Fischer\" width=\"160\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-54505\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. Dietrich Fischer<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A mighty oak tree ridiculed the soft thin reed grass bending back and forth in the lake.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Look how strong and thick my trunk is, I don&#8217;t bend in the wind, I stand my ground, while you give in to the slightest pressure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The reed grass did not respond, but knew better inside. Then came a mighty storm, and the rigid oak tree fell crashing down. But the reed grass bent down, and when the storm was over, it stood up again.<\/p>\n<p>There is a Chinese proverb, &#8220;In strength, there is weakness, and in weakness strength.&#8221; And &#8220;Being strong does not mean that you never fall down, but that each time you fall down, you stand up again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>___________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Dietrich Fischer, born in 1941 in M\u00fcnsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Excerpted from Dietrich Fischer&#8217;s <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tup\/index.php?book=44\" >Stories to Inspire You<\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tup\/index.php?book=44\" > &#8211; TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mighty oak tree ridiculed the soft thin reed grass bending back and forth in the lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}