I recently read Golf in the Kingdom, by Michael Murphy. One does not need to be a golfer to find it of interest. Here are some un-golf-related quotes from this very unique and mystical book that caused me to stop and think and that you, too, might want to ponder:
All of our experience is full of anticipations.
The left and right sides of the brain at times need to readjust their marriage.
One of the beauties of sport is the inspirational heart-stopping move that reminds us of possibilities yet unguessed.
Learn how to strike a fine balance between the disciplined and the inspired.
Postponement can get to be a disease.
Moral entropy is often taken for nirvana.
There’s no better way to slay a dragon than to charge right up to it and shove a spear down its throat.
[How often we are]poised at last on insight’s very edge.
We need to be alive to the other edge of possibility.
You bring your entire past into every transaction.
Some people have an enormous ratio of talk to skill.
[Our challenge is] to fulfill the Boswellian task destiny has given [us].
Everything in life is potentially something more.
Everything is full of messages.
The world is a passage back to God; that is the only reason it is here.
Life is taking us on a mighty journey, if we will only go.
[We should] guide our [motives, etc.] in the Godward direction.
Behind every invention stands a withered human faculty.
Benjamin Franklin [noted] that his body ‘will appear once more in a new and more elegant edition revised and corrected by the author.
The great gate of charity is wide open with no obstacles before it.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Enemies List
I read in last weeks’ newspaper of the death of Daniel Schorr, a C.B.S. newspaper correspondent on former president Richard M. Nixon’s notorious ‘Enemies List.’
I have thought that it would not be a bad idea for me or others to have an ‘enemies list’ of people or things that we should be very wary of. A handy cliché to this end would be, ‘To be forewarned is to be forearmed.’ In the Bible, the apostle Paul encourages the Christian disciple to “put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” In my own Christian denomination we are told that God said, “In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you….” So I say, in all seriousness, make no mistake, there are devils of various kinds out there—carnal, spiritual, chemical, temporal, social, intellectual—that can bring us down. Are they not our enemies?
In the interest of ‘transparency’ I will share two of my ‘intellectual’ lists with personalities or concepts of various genres (I could, of course, have other lists); for lack of better titles I tentatively call them my Foes List and my Friends List. These are based on my own reading and education and in a few cases on the recommendation of those whose judgment I trust (as in, ‘In God We Trust’). I concede that their personalities or ‘contributions’ may not be all black, or all sterling and glorious, on the one hand or the other, but I think you will get the drift.
Foes: much of Greek and Roman philosophy; Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides, Descartes; secular humanists from various disciplines, notably: Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, John Watson, B.F. Skinner, J.S. Mill, John Dewey, Margaret Meade, Carl Becker, Charles Beard; the ‘New Left’ of the ‘60’s; the ‘British Invasion’ of rock music in 1964, especially those groups whose lyrics promote the 'drug culture' or lewd language or behavior (e.g., The Rolling Stones, etc.).
Friends: Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Hegel, Friedrich Froebel, the Founding Fathers of our country, The Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, Utopianism, Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, Bach, de Tocqueville, Walter Lippmann, C.S. Lewis.
The reader might have on their lists (and I encourage them to make such lists) other people, organizations, foods, hobbies, habits, etc., that they know, by sad experience, have or could lead them to grief or derail them from their noble or worthy goals. But also make a positive or ‘friends’ list of those who can lift and point you in the right direction.
Since experience is not the only teacher, I would hope that some of my readers would consider my list as more or less valid, or at least use it as a starting point, and thereby be forewarned about the perils of our time and start to be forearmed.
I have thought that it would not be a bad idea for me or others to have an ‘enemies list’ of people or things that we should be very wary of. A handy cliché to this end would be, ‘To be forewarned is to be forearmed.’ In the Bible, the apostle Paul encourages the Christian disciple to “put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” In my own Christian denomination we are told that God said, “In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you….” So I say, in all seriousness, make no mistake, there are devils of various kinds out there—carnal, spiritual, chemical, temporal, social, intellectual—that can bring us down. Are they not our enemies?
In the interest of ‘transparency’ I will share two of my ‘intellectual’ lists with personalities or concepts of various genres (I could, of course, have other lists); for lack of better titles I tentatively call them my Foes List and my Friends List. These are based on my own reading and education and in a few cases on the recommendation of those whose judgment I trust (as in, ‘In God We Trust’). I concede that their personalities or ‘contributions’ may not be all black, or all sterling and glorious, on the one hand or the other, but I think you will get the drift.
Foes: much of Greek and Roman philosophy; Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides, Descartes; secular humanists from various disciplines, notably: Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, John Watson, B.F. Skinner, J.S. Mill, John Dewey, Margaret Meade, Carl Becker, Charles Beard; the ‘New Left’ of the ‘60’s; the ‘British Invasion’ of rock music in 1964, especially those groups whose lyrics promote the 'drug culture' or lewd language or behavior (e.g., The Rolling Stones, etc.).
Friends: Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Hegel, Friedrich Froebel, the Founding Fathers of our country, The Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, Utopianism, Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, Bach, de Tocqueville, Walter Lippmann, C.S. Lewis.
The reader might have on their lists (and I encourage them to make such lists) other people, organizations, foods, hobbies, habits, etc., that they know, by sad experience, have or could lead them to grief or derail them from their noble or worthy goals. But also make a positive or ‘friends’ list of those who can lift and point you in the right direction.
Since experience is not the only teacher, I would hope that some of my readers would consider my list as more or less valid, or at least use it as a starting point, and thereby be forewarned about the perils of our time and start to be forearmed.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Grist
Every time I start to write one of these musings I have a prayer that my thoughts may be guided and my words may be helpful to someone who may take the time to read them. I thought today that if I were a reader of Omnium-Gatherum I would want to know who some of these ‘giants’ were who at one point in my life were catalytic in my education or who continue to inspire me. Some, obviously, were ‘taller’ than others, but each contributed in some very significant way to who I am and what I believe. If I could read no other sources for the remainder of my days I would find among most of these gifted people grist for innumerable feasts. Here are a little more than a dozen (alphabetically arranged):
Jesus Christ
Stephen R. Covey
Jeffrey R. Holland
Spencer W. Kimball
C.S. Lewis
George MacDonald
Bruce R. McConkie
James Michener
Hugh Nibley
Paul (the apostle)
Ayn Rand
Joseph Smith, Jr.
John Steinbeck
Rodney Turner
Orson Whitney
Brigham Young
I make it a practice to ask others about books and/or authors which/who were highly influential in a positive way in their lives. I’ve still got a fairly substantial list that I have yet to look into, but I would always welcome more. What do you recommend?
Jesus Christ
Stephen R. Covey
Jeffrey R. Holland
Spencer W. Kimball
C.S. Lewis
George MacDonald
Bruce R. McConkie
James Michener
Hugh Nibley
Paul (the apostle)
Ayn Rand
Joseph Smith, Jr.
John Steinbeck
Rodney Turner
Orson Whitney
Brigham Young
I make it a practice to ask others about books and/or authors which/who were highly influential in a positive way in their lives. I’ve still got a fairly substantial list that I have yet to look into, but I would always welcome more. What do you recommend?
Monday, July 19, 2010
Multitasking
Several decades ago I taught a values clarification class for Santa Clara University. Then, as I thought about the concept and prepared for the class, my own values were clarified. So it may be with the idea of ‘multitasking.’ Day by day I’m becoming more clarified on this phenomenon, and consequently day by day I find I’m swimming upstream with current culture but fortunately, now, more downstream with the validation of current science. Let me clarify.
Many, facing the challenges of the current generation, take it for granted that with the technology available to them it is necessary or desirable or even de rigueur to attend to several things at once. Consequently we have young people texting in church, talking on the cell-phone while driving, watching television on a split screen while information bars are streaming data below the visual images, playing video games while doing homework, and listening to music while doing everything.
Though simultaneous processing abilities may be fine for computers, and occasionally necessary, but to a much more limited extent than we sometimes realize, science is finding—as wise people have known for decades—that it can be counterproductive and even harmful for people when carried too far.
Prescient Eighteenth Century thinker Lord Chesterfield wrote this advice to one of his sons: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” That may, perhaps, be overstated, but is confirmed by one of the smartest men of all time, Isaac Newton, who, when asked about his particular genius, responded that when he had made any discoveries, it was “owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.” And William James, the eminent Nineteenth Century psychologist, wrote in Principles of Psychology echoing Lord Chesterfield’s observations, that the transition from youthful distraction to mature attention was in large part the result of personal mastery and discipline—and so was illustrative of character. “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again,” he wrote, “is the very root of judgment, character, and will.”
In addition to these philosophical observations, numerous scientific studies are now showing the dangers of multitasking or diluting one’s attention. For example, it has now been confirmed that:
Overall I.Q. performance (clear thinking) is markedly lessened when people try to attend to too many things as once.
Personal relationships such as marriage, parenting, even friendships, suffer when one or both of the parties are distracted or attending to more than the person at hand.
Workplace productivity is diminished. Discussing multitasking with the New York Times in 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, an analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.
Related to the above is an increase in automobile and industrial accidents when people are distracted by electronic devices and are attending to more than the task at hand.
In my area of expertise, sports performance, the ability to fully attend to one thing—the task at hand—and eliminate the past, the future, and all distractions is often the thing that separates the winner from the also-ran.
As a result of these and other accumulating data, best-selling business advice author Timothy Ferriss warns of the dangers of multitasking and makes a strong case for “single-tasking” in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek.
To rest my point, Christine Rosen, senior editor of The New Atlantis magazine, wrote in “The Myth of Multitasking,” “that given what neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant intentional self-distraction could well be of profound detriment to individual and cultural well-being. When people do their work only in the ‘interstices of their mind-wandering,’ with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.”
That is something to think about.
Many, facing the challenges of the current generation, take it for granted that with the technology available to them it is necessary or desirable or even de rigueur to attend to several things at once. Consequently we have young people texting in church, talking on the cell-phone while driving, watching television on a split screen while information bars are streaming data below the visual images, playing video games while doing homework, and listening to music while doing everything.
Though simultaneous processing abilities may be fine for computers, and occasionally necessary, but to a much more limited extent than we sometimes realize, science is finding—as wise people have known for decades—that it can be counterproductive and even harmful for people when carried too far.
Prescient Eighteenth Century thinker Lord Chesterfield wrote this advice to one of his sons: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” That may, perhaps, be overstated, but is confirmed by one of the smartest men of all time, Isaac Newton, who, when asked about his particular genius, responded that when he had made any discoveries, it was “owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.” And William James, the eminent Nineteenth Century psychologist, wrote in Principles of Psychology echoing Lord Chesterfield’s observations, that the transition from youthful distraction to mature attention was in large part the result of personal mastery and discipline—and so was illustrative of character. “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again,” he wrote, “is the very root of judgment, character, and will.”
In addition to these philosophical observations, numerous scientific studies are now showing the dangers of multitasking or diluting one’s attention. For example, it has now been confirmed that:
Overall I.Q. performance (clear thinking) is markedly lessened when people try to attend to too many things as once.
Personal relationships such as marriage, parenting, even friendships, suffer when one or both of the parties are distracted or attending to more than the person at hand.
Workplace productivity is diminished. Discussing multitasking with the New York Times in 2007, Jonathan B. Spira, an analyst at the business research firm Basex, estimated that extreme multitasking costs the U.S. economy $650 billion a year in lost productivity.
Related to the above is an increase in automobile and industrial accidents when people are distracted by electronic devices and are attending to more than the task at hand.
In my area of expertise, sports performance, the ability to fully attend to one thing—the task at hand—and eliminate the past, the future, and all distractions is often the thing that separates the winner from the also-ran.
As a result of these and other accumulating data, best-selling business advice author Timothy Ferriss warns of the dangers of multitasking and makes a strong case for “single-tasking” in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek.
To rest my point, Christine Rosen, senior editor of The New Atlantis magazine, wrote in “The Myth of Multitasking,” “that given what neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant intentional self-distraction could well be of profound detriment to individual and cultural well-being. When people do their work only in the ‘interstices of their mind-wandering,’ with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.”
That is something to think about.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
My Guiding Maxims
•One thing leads to another. Ask, “Where could this take me?” “Do I want to go there?”
•Never, Never, Never forget who you are, what and whom you represent and what you ultimately want to achieve. ‘What ere thou art, act well thy part.’ Don’t get derailed.
•Measure all things by value anticipated or received. Ask, “Is it worth it?” Count the cost.
•Live the golden rule. Strive for charity in all interactions. Be patient. Be kind.
•When someone is speaking to you focus totally on what they are trying to tell you.
•Be grateful to all who have contributed to your life. Express it. You didn’t get here alone.
•Always leave and maintain a margin of safety, a reserve, a cushion, a spare, a surplus. Don’t overdraw your accounts—financial or emotional—or take anything to the limit.
•Walk away from trouble if you can; and you usually can. But don’t compromise yourself.
•It is better to keep peace than to insist that you are right. To win a battle by force of power or position then to lose the war is folly.
•Seek counsel from the wise; especially from the scriptures and Church leaders.
•Don’t say the first thing that comes to your mind. Weigh your words then choose carefully what you say. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.’
•Keep a record or a copy of everything; record it, date it, document it, file it.
•Never take more than you give; always give back more than you take. No entitlements.
•Don’t be tempted to put off to later duties you are prompted to do and have opportunity to do today. Work while you can and work hard; it takes the same amount of time.
•Do not ask, or expect, someone else to do for you what you can, and should do for yourself. Don’t be lazy.
•Never despair. Don’t quit. With God’s help and approval you can get through anything.
•Avoid debt like a plague. Having sufficient for your needs with a sufficient reserve is enough and will be enough, ‘but before ye seek for riches, seek for the kingdom of God.’
•Maintain your health and physical fitness. Pay the price, or you will pay the price.
•Do everything in your power to see that your wife and family or friend is exalted.
•Never lose sight of the big picture, the long view, the ultimate goal. Think of it often.
•A cheerful attitude and a smile is worth more than many words. Don’t talk big; live big.
•Don’t make big decisions on the spur of the moment. Think it through.Wait at least a day.
•Politeness and punctuality pay plentifully. Be on time and be prepared.
•Pray about everything. Heed your conscience; that is God’s answer to your prayer.
•Believe that “angels above are silent notes taking….” Behave accordingly.
•A commitment is a commitment; fulfill it at any cost. Keep promises.
•Seek out great people in history, in literature, in life, and emulate their finest qualities.
•If you know it is not good or right don’t investigate it; don’t entertain it; don’t touch it; don’t even go near it.
•It always takes more time than you originally guessed; it always costs more than you originally thought. Plan accordingly.
•Never, Never, Never forget who you are, what and whom you represent and what you ultimately want to achieve. ‘What ere thou art, act well thy part.’ Don’t get derailed.
•Measure all things by value anticipated or received. Ask, “Is it worth it?” Count the cost.
•Live the golden rule. Strive for charity in all interactions. Be patient. Be kind.
•When someone is speaking to you focus totally on what they are trying to tell you.
•Be grateful to all who have contributed to your life. Express it. You didn’t get here alone.
•Always leave and maintain a margin of safety, a reserve, a cushion, a spare, a surplus. Don’t overdraw your accounts—financial or emotional—or take anything to the limit.
•Walk away from trouble if you can; and you usually can. But don’t compromise yourself.
•It is better to keep peace than to insist that you are right. To win a battle by force of power or position then to lose the war is folly.
•Seek counsel from the wise; especially from the scriptures and Church leaders.
•Don’t say the first thing that comes to your mind. Weigh your words then choose carefully what you say. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.’
•Keep a record or a copy of everything; record it, date it, document it, file it.
•Never take more than you give; always give back more than you take. No entitlements.
•Don’t be tempted to put off to later duties you are prompted to do and have opportunity to do today. Work while you can and work hard; it takes the same amount of time.
•Do not ask, or expect, someone else to do for you what you can, and should do for yourself. Don’t be lazy.
•Never despair. Don’t quit. With God’s help and approval you can get through anything.
•Avoid debt like a plague. Having sufficient for your needs with a sufficient reserve is enough and will be enough, ‘but before ye seek for riches, seek for the kingdom of God.’
•Maintain your health and physical fitness. Pay the price, or you will pay the price.
•Do everything in your power to see that your wife and family or friend is exalted.
•Never lose sight of the big picture, the long view, the ultimate goal. Think of it often.
•A cheerful attitude and a smile is worth more than many words. Don’t talk big; live big.
•Don’t make big decisions on the spur of the moment. Think it through.Wait at least a day.
•Politeness and punctuality pay plentifully. Be on time and be prepared.
•Pray about everything. Heed your conscience; that is God’s answer to your prayer.
•Believe that “angels above are silent notes taking….” Behave accordingly.
•A commitment is a commitment; fulfill it at any cost. Keep promises.
•Seek out great people in history, in literature, in life, and emulate their finest qualities.
•If you know it is not good or right don’t investigate it; don’t entertain it; don’t touch it; don’t even go near it.
•It always takes more time than you originally guessed; it always costs more than you originally thought. Plan accordingly.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Who's in Charge Here?
Iconic artist Arnold Friberg died on July 1st. Among other heroic paintings of his was that of George Washington kneeling in prayer with his horse at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during our Revolutionary War. He told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2000 that “I did that [painting, The Prayer at Valley Forge] to pay tribute to Washington, to portray the burden that fell upon one lonely man.” Friberg went on: “I’m a hero worshiper. I have to respect, almost idolize, whatever I paint. I don’t belong in the art world at all; I’m a storyteller.”
That painting tells a great story. To me, the story is that General Washington, ostensibly in charge of America’s destiny, recognized his dependence upon Almighty God and knew that he needed God’s help and blessings if we were to succeed in our great endeavor. Prayer was the key to getting that help.
Like Arnold Friberg, I, too, have my heroes, and I know my source of help. Even surpassing George Washington, in my mind, is Abraham Lincoln. In Meridian Magazine (online edition) I recently saw a short You Tube video featuring a painting by Larry Winborg of Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer. The painting was surely inspired by Friberg’s classic of Washington, and like it, the subject matter was completely historic. With what was to become the turning point of the Civil War at Gettysburg Lincoln said that “I got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed mightily before him… [and] soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul; the feeling came that God had taken the whole business into his own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg.”
Notice that Lincoln didn’t say “I said a prayer,” he said “I…prayed mightily before him….”
A little verse that I keep in my head goes,
“The heights by great men reached and kept
were not attained by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept,
were upward toiling in the night.”
Like Washington and Lincoln, I think a little of the toiling we all must do, when we feel our own feeble efforts are insufficient to the task at hand—which is most of the time--is done on our knees and is done in “mighty prayer.”
“Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.”
(James Montgomery)
That painting tells a great story. To me, the story is that General Washington, ostensibly in charge of America’s destiny, recognized his dependence upon Almighty God and knew that he needed God’s help and blessings if we were to succeed in our great endeavor. Prayer was the key to getting that help.
Like Arnold Friberg, I, too, have my heroes, and I know my source of help. Even surpassing George Washington, in my mind, is Abraham Lincoln. In Meridian Magazine (online edition) I recently saw a short You Tube video featuring a painting by Larry Winborg of Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer. The painting was surely inspired by Friberg’s classic of Washington, and like it, the subject matter was completely historic. With what was to become the turning point of the Civil War at Gettysburg Lincoln said that “I got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed mightily before him… [and] soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul; the feeling came that God had taken the whole business into his own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg.”
Notice that Lincoln didn’t say “I said a prayer,” he said “I…prayed mightily before him….”
A little verse that I keep in my head goes,
“The heights by great men reached and kept
were not attained by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept,
were upward toiling in the night.”
Like Washington and Lincoln, I think a little of the toiling we all must do, when we feel our own feeble efforts are insufficient to the task at hand—which is most of the time--is done on our knees and is done in “mighty prayer.”
“Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.”
(James Montgomery)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Information Overload
I am sensitive to the fact that people today are bombarded with things to read, to see, to listen to. The time spent in telephone conversations, text messages and other social networking messages young people are sending and receiving, for example, is staggering. But do these electronic-sustained missives really contain content or substance commensurate with the time we spend engaged with them? Are they satisfying and growth-promoting?
As a counterpoint, and since I am inviting others to engage with me, I intend in Omnium-Gatherum to always have something to say that is new, meaningful, thought-provoking or otherwise worthwhile; otherwise there is no point in writing the postings—or your reading them. Even 2600 years ago it was recorded on some metal plates: “[my successors] shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.”
I do not want to be like the lawyer of whom Abraham Lincoln said, “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I have ever met.”
The observation I share today, then, is that sheer verbosity whether in electronic text, ink text, or verbal ‘conversation’ might, if we are purveyors of it, with benefit be reevaluated. (This sentence might be reevaluated.) In professor and editor William Zinsser’s classic guide, On Writing Well, he said to “simplify, simplify, simplify,” and that “writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that…don’t serve any purpose.”
Two guidelines each of us might keep in mind are these: (1) Man—and woman—has been given two ears and one mouth; we should use them proportionately. (2) Remember the case of the very pretty woman who was tediously loquacious who complained one day to a distinguished matron that she was constantly tormented but then suddenly dropped by her suitors. “I may be able to help you, my dear,” she said. “It is very easy to get rid of them. All you have to do is to open your mouth and start speaking.”
As a counterpoint, and since I am inviting others to engage with me, I intend in Omnium-Gatherum to always have something to say that is new, meaningful, thought-provoking or otherwise worthwhile; otherwise there is no point in writing the postings—or your reading them. Even 2600 years ago it was recorded on some metal plates: “[my successors] shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.”
I do not want to be like the lawyer of whom Abraham Lincoln said, “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I have ever met.”
The observation I share today, then, is that sheer verbosity whether in electronic text, ink text, or verbal ‘conversation’ might, if we are purveyors of it, with benefit be reevaluated. (This sentence might be reevaluated.) In professor and editor William Zinsser’s classic guide, On Writing Well, he said to “simplify, simplify, simplify,” and that “writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that…don’t serve any purpose.”
Two guidelines each of us might keep in mind are these: (1) Man—and woman—has been given two ears and one mouth; we should use them proportionately. (2) Remember the case of the very pretty woman who was tediously loquacious who complained one day to a distinguished matron that she was constantly tormented but then suddenly dropped by her suitors. “I may be able to help you, my dear,” she said. “It is very easy to get rid of them. All you have to do is to open your mouth and start speaking.”
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Day After, July 5th, 2010
I am an idealist. That was the term I used back in the 1960’s--and still would use-- when my teachers asked their students to take a philosophical stand and then defend it. I believe there are such things as absolute truths and moral imperatives. I believe there is a plan of happiness in the universe and ideals we should try to attain. The older I get the more I am sure of it.
I do not believe that empiricism or pragmatism or rationalism or socialism or any other man-made ‘ism’ ever will get us very far on the path of right purpose or discovery of the great ideals. Therefore I do not limit the tools in my intellectual toolbox to those politically-acceptable, socially-popular, God-denying approaches to finding the great truths or living a morally acceptable life before my peers or my God.
I believe in revelation, in intuition, in conscience, in sudden bursts of insight. And I believe that they are the ‘power tools’ to help us in our quest for the good, the right, the ideal, the pursuit of things of lasting value and of virtue.
So, let me briefly explain why I believe ‘The day after’ is a worthy subject for a posting.
Today is the day after Independence Day in the United States of America. I believe there are many people in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ who hold with me that freedom under law and being brave in the face of threats to our lives, our liberties or our sacred honor are values we should hold dear and strive to defend. We behaved like we believed it yesterday as we sang our great national anthems, listened to patriotic speeches, enjoyed the American flags and buntings, and were awed by the ‘rockets red glare’ where our communities didn’t have ordinances against our celebrations. The question is, will we behave like we believe it tomorrow and next week and next month?
I therefore extend this challenge made on the 5th of July to the day after Hanukah, or the day after Christmas and Easter, the day after Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, the day or week or month after any of our significant days of appreciation and remembrance: I challenge you to retain the kindled feelings of appreciation, of renewed determination, and of hope engendered, and live your life in pursuit of the noble ideals that these dates signify.
It may be a reordering thought to have these signal days last more than 24 hours. If so, then let’s do a reordering.
I do not believe that empiricism or pragmatism or rationalism or socialism or any other man-made ‘ism’ ever will get us very far on the path of right purpose or discovery of the great ideals. Therefore I do not limit the tools in my intellectual toolbox to those politically-acceptable, socially-popular, God-denying approaches to finding the great truths or living a morally acceptable life before my peers or my God.
I believe in revelation, in intuition, in conscience, in sudden bursts of insight. And I believe that they are the ‘power tools’ to help us in our quest for the good, the right, the ideal, the pursuit of things of lasting value and of virtue.
So, let me briefly explain why I believe ‘The day after’ is a worthy subject for a posting.
Today is the day after Independence Day in the United States of America. I believe there are many people in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ who hold with me that freedom under law and being brave in the face of threats to our lives, our liberties or our sacred honor are values we should hold dear and strive to defend. We behaved like we believed it yesterday as we sang our great national anthems, listened to patriotic speeches, enjoyed the American flags and buntings, and were awed by the ‘rockets red glare’ where our communities didn’t have ordinances against our celebrations. The question is, will we behave like we believe it tomorrow and next week and next month?
I therefore extend this challenge made on the 5th of July to the day after Hanukah, or the day after Christmas and Easter, the day after Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, the day or week or month after any of our significant days of appreciation and remembrance: I challenge you to retain the kindled feelings of appreciation, of renewed determination, and of hope engendered, and live your life in pursuit of the noble ideals that these dates signify.
It may be a reordering thought to have these signal days last more than 24 hours. If so, then let’s do a reordering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)