Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 “If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.” ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 ~ Ok “Jika Anda ingin dicintai, mencintailah, dan jadilah seorang yang dapat dicintai.” ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 ~ Ok Apakah Anda ingin dicintai? Mampukah Anda mencintai orang lain sebagaimana Anda ingin dicintai? Tahukah Anda bagaimana cara mencintai? Dapatkah Anda dicintai seperti Anda ingin mencintai orang lain? Mencintai dan dicintai merupakah dua kondisi yang saling mendukung dan berada dalam posisi seimbang. Seseorang yang ingin dicintai maka ia harus mampu mencintai. Demikian juga, seseorang yang mau mencintai, maka ia pun harus dapat dicintai. Demikianlah yang pernah disampaikan Benjamin Franklin, dikenal sebagai Bapak Pendiri Amerika Serikat, berkebangsaan Amerika, hidup dalam rentang tahun 1706-1790, melalui quote-nya, ‘If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.’ Secara bebas diterjemahkan, ‘Jika Anda ingin dicintai, mencintailah, dan jadilah seorang yang dapat dicintai.’ Cintai merupakan dua arah! Saling mencintai merupakan wujud bila kita memiliki cinta dan kita dapat memperoleh cinta. Setiap orang yang dapat saling berbagi dan saling meneguhkan merupakan buah dari cinta sejati. Tidak ada cinta satu arah! Hal yang sulit kita mau mencintai bila kita sendiri tidak mau dicintai. Demikian juga, hal yang mustahil kita memperoleh cinta bila kita pun tidak berniat untuk mencintai. Tuhan telah menganugerahkan cinta kasih kepada manusia. Maka sudah seyogyanya kita mampu mencintai semua ciptaan-Nya, terutama sesama manusia. Orang-orang yang dipenuhi cinta kasih adalah orang-orang kaya, terlepas dari kekayaan harta benda yang dimilikinya. Seseorang yang kaya raya secara materi dan kebendaan, bila ia tidak memiliki cinta kasih, sesungguhnya ia orang yang miskin. Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 Page 1 Kita mampu mencintai bila kita juga mau dicintai. Demikian halnya, kita dapat dicintai bila kita telah mencurahkan cinta kita kepada pihak lain. Indonesia, 30 April 2019 Riset Corporation --- Benjamin Franklin Biography Diplomat, Inventor, Writer, Scientist (1706–1790) Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the Founding Fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Who Was Benjamin Franklin? Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 to April 17, 1790) was a Founding Father and a polymath, inventor, scientist, printer, politician, freemason and diplomat. Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and he negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War. His scientific pursuits included investigations into electricity, mathematics and mapmaking. A writer known for his wit and wisdom, Franklin also published Poor Richard’s Almanack, invented bifocal glasses and organized the first successful American lending library. Benjamin Franklin’s Inventions and Discoveries Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor and scientist who was responsible for the following inventions: - Franklin stove: Franklin’s first invention, created around 1740, provided more heat with less fuel. - Bifocals. Anyone tired of switching between two pairs of glasses understands why Franklin developed bifocals that could be used for both distance and reading. - Armonica. Franklin’s inventions took on a musical bent when, in 1761, he commenced development on the armonica, a musical instrument composed of spinning glass bowls on a shaft. Both Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed music for the strange instrument. - Rocking chair - Flexible catheter - American penny Franklin also discovered the Gulf Stream after his return trip across the Atlantic Ocean from London in 1775. He began to speculate about why the westbound trip always took longer, and his measurements of ocean temperatures led to his discovery of the existence of the Gulf Stream. This knowledge served to cut two weeks off the previous sailing time from Europe to North America. Franklin even devised a new “scheme” for the alphabet that proposed to eliminate the letters C, J, Q, W, X and Y as redundant. Franklin’s self-education earned him honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, England’s Oxford University and Scotland’s University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1749, Franklin wrote a pamphlet concerning the education of youth in Pennsylvania that resulted in the establishment of the Academy of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin and Electricity In 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted the famous kite-and-key experiment to demonstrate that lightning was electricity and soon after invented the lightning rod. His investigations into electrical Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 Page 2 phenomena were compiled into “Experiments and Observations on Electricity,” published in England in 1751. He coined new electricity-related terms that are still part of the lexicon, such as battery, charge, conductor and electrify. Was Benjamin Franklin President of the U.S.? Benjamin Franklin was never elected President of the United States. However he played an important role as one of seven Founding Fathers, helping draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He also served several roles in the government: He was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly and appointed as the first postmaster general for the colonies as well as diplomat to France. He was a true polymath and entrepreneur, which is no doubt why he is often called the “First American.” Franklin’s Wife and Kids In 1723, Benjamin Franklin moved from Boston to Philadelphia and lodged at the home of John Read, where he met and courted his landlord’s daughter Deborah. After moving to London in 1724, Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 to find that Deborah had married in the interim, only to be abandoned by her husband just months after the wedding. The future Founding Father eventually rekindled his romance with Deborah Read and he took her as his common-law wife in 1730. Around that time, Franklin fathered a son, William, out of wedlock who was taken in by the couple. The pair’s first son, Francis, was born in 1732, but he died four years later of smallpox. The couple’s only daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743. The two times Benjamin Franklin moved to London, in 1757 and again in 1764, it was without Deborah, who refused to leave Philadelphia. His second stay was the last time the couple saw each other. Franklin would not return home before Deborah passed away in 1774 from a stroke at the age of 66. In 1762, Franklin’s son William took office as New Jersey’s royal governor, a position his father arranged through his political connections in the British government. Franklin’s later support for the patriot cause put him at odds with his loyalist son. When the New Jersey militia stripped William Franklin of his post as royal governor and imprisoned him, in 1776, his father chose not to intercede on his behalf. When and Where Was Benjamin Franklin Born? Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston in what was then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Childhood Benjamin Franklin’s father, English-born soap and candle maker Josiah Franklin, had seven children with first wife, Anne Child, and 10 more with second wife, Abiah Folger. Ben was his 15th child and youngest son. Ben learned to read at an early age, and despite his success at the Boston Latin School, he stopped his formal schooling at 10 to work full-time in his cash-strapped father’s candle and soap shop. Dipping wax and cutting wicks didn’t fire the young boy’s imagination, however. Perhaps to dissuade him from going to sea as one of his brothers had done, Josiah apprenticed 12-year-old Ben at the print shop run by his brother James. Although James mistreated and frequently beat his younger brother, Ben learned a great deal about newspaper publishing and adopted a similar brand of subversive politics under the printer’s tutelage. When James refused to publish any of his brother’s writing, 16-year-old Ben adopted the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogood, and “her” 14 imaginative and witty letters delighted readers of his brother’s Brainy Quote ~ Benjamin Franklin 026 Page 3 newspaper, The New England Courant. James grew angry, however, when he learned that his apprentice had penned the letters. Tired of his brother’s “harsh and tyrannical” behavior, Ben fled Boston in 1723 although he had three years remaining on a legally binding contract with his master. He escaped to New York before settling in Philadelphia and began working with another printer. Philadelphia became his home base for the rest of his life. Living in London Encouraged by Pennsylvania Governor William Keith to set up his own print shop, Franklin left for London in 1724 to purchase supplies from stationers, booksellers and printers. When the teenager arrived in England, however, he felt duped when Keith’s letters of introduction never arrived as promised. Although forced to find work at London’s print shops, Franklin took full advantage of the city’s pleasures—attending theater performances, mingling with the locals in coffee houses and continuing his lifelong passion for reading. A self-taught swimmer who crafted his own wooden flippers, Franklin performed long-distance swims on the Thames River. (In 1968, he was inducted as an honorary member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.) In 1725 Franklin published his first pamphlet, "A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which argued that humans lack free will and, thus, are not morally responsible for their actions. (Franklin later repudiated this thought and burned all but one copy of the pamphlet still in his possession.) Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726, and over the next few years he held varied jobs including bookkeeper, shopkeeper and currency cutter. In 1728 he returned to a familiar trade printing paper currency in New Jersey before partnering with a friend to open his own print shop in Philadelphia that published government pamphlets and books.