Vision of a destination is the mother of a journey … and curiosity the father of innovation!
As we watch…
Dissembling
Cranes are remarkable constructions
Capable of rising to great heights
Or wreaking massive destructions
Assembling arguments to new heights
Democracy, purpose, constitution
Or devolve into win-lose power fights
It’s only a matter of what you will believe
As the words spill out like debris
Of wreaking ball lies that confuse and deceive
It’s our choice to endure dissembling
Or push for construction, constitution
And democracy’s future assembling
Trees … and Phone-Trees
I’ve been a little too serious lately… so hopefully this is more fun!
One of my favorite poems was published in 1914 by Joyce Kilmer:
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
My comedic version:
Phone-Trees
I think that I should never hear
A poem lovely as, operator here.
A phone-tree hungry time consume
Against our lives it doeth presume;
A phone-tree that takes us all day
To find the right end we will pray;
The phone-tree may impatient wear
On thee, and cause radical loss of hair;
Upon our bosom a telephone is lain
As we wait on hold for something lame.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only Insurance companies
….. can make a damn phone-tree.
Thomas Mann… on democracy
A work called “The Coming Victory for Democracy” by Thomas Mann was written in 1938. I’ve found it fascinating. Some excerpts that seemed very applicable to our times and our challenges are captured here. Mann’s premise at the time was that for democracy to win over the coming conflict with fascism, it would require democratic peoples to understand, know and properly reflect on the higher values of democratic principles. I believe we need to re-examine our commitment to democracy and remember always that its future survival is not guaranteed.
Thomas Mann… (parenthetical material is my editorial comment)
Democracy is friendly to intellectual thought, to arts, to literature (and free press). Distinguishing itself from dictatorship, which because of its belief in force is thereby obliged to be remote, foreign, and hostile to intellectual pursuits. But this assertion only acquires real value as a definition of democracy if the concept of intellectual life is not understood as one-sided, isolated, abstract, superior to life and remote from it, but is characterized as closely related to life, as directed toward life and action — for only that and specifically that is the democratic spirit. That is the spirit of democracy. “Democracy is not intellectual in an old and outworn sense. Democracy is thought; but it is thought related to life and action.
… In a democracy which does not respect the intellectual life and is not guided by it, demagogy has free play, and the level of national life is depressed to that of the ignorant and uncultivated. But this cannot happen if the principle of education is allowed to dominate and the tendencies prevail to raise the lower classes (here, in our times we’d refer to the social-economic challenged) to an appreciation of culture and to accept the leadership of the better elements.
… They consider fascism a protective bulwark which will save them from the real, the Russian, proletarian bolshevism and from socialism in general (today, we need to avoid thinking of authoritarianism as a false choice against progressive policies)
… Now, as life is constituted, truth depends to some extent on the man who speaks it. From certain sources even the truth becomes a lie. There is no doubt, among the variations and the emotionally intelligible modifications of the idea — truth, freedom, justice– it is what we call justice that is closest to the conscience and the heart of humanity today.
https://ia601601.us.archive.org/4/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.221831/2015.221831.The-Coming.pdf
Embrace Gray
I’ve been thinking about the complexity of the world, about business issues I’ve been involved in, about relationships, and about how we experience all of it. Increasingly this is good, that is bad, or more imminently it seems, it is THEY are good and THEY are bad. In business I see decisions being made based on limited analysis. In politics I see decisions made based on abstract ideas with no grounding in life’s realities. Thomas Mann in his encouragement to the defense of democracy, warned against “pure abstraction”, and “the complete isolation of the mind from life itself” … because it allows us to see the world as black and white, right and wrong, and ignore the complexity of life. He also worried about our susceptibility to “the charm of novelty” … Grabbing on to the latest new idea without understanding the implications, and most importantly the unintended consequences. New is not bad, nor is it good, new is just new, something to be understood, and folded into the complexity of the real world.
Some are even proud of seeing the world in stark terms; black/white, good/bad, with-me/ against-me. As if ignoring the complexities of business, politics, of life is something meritorious. I believe that exploring complexity allows us to see in those gray areas as opportunity. Goodness hiding in the margin of sunrise, and sunset, when the colors shine, it is not day or night, it’s that gray-time in between. We are not wholly good or bad, but we are all gray. Business or politics is not win or lose, its compromise for a purpose. Computers can see through the RGB model 256 shades of gray… why can’t we see some ourselves? Complexity exists, and must be seen and embraced in order to be mastered. Education, and principled hope leads to wisdom and understanding, and advancement.
I think mothers know this better than fathers. They know that nurturing is always a case of operating in the gray zone. Finding the potential in a malcontent, in someone that is resisting learning, resisting change, when they are changing the most. Those that claim the high ground of right and wrong and black and white, are only doing so to bludgeon to death the gray and its inherent beauty in their own lives. Embrace complexity, embrace conflicting information, evaluate and then decide and promote, and grow, and learn even more. Then when you understand, it is possible to communicate a position clearly.
The Thomas Mann quotes were from an article by Nadia Schadlow in the WSJ, titled Thomas Mann’s Message for America in the Digital Age.
Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.
A quote attributed to him: War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Soreness
Soreness
I woke this morning with numbness in my fingers
That came from my shoulder’s arthritic stingers
It is by the stretch of something that shouldn’t
Stretch beyond what I thought I couldn’t
And so, I’m proud of this, this precious sore
For it is work to strengthen to the core
This body that I let go to waste and age
When it need not be the end nor last page
That was written when I had the busy excuse
And I told myself, my mind was only thing of use
January’s Soul
We are changing the climate, we lack empathy for our world, our future, each other, we are sure to make our mother’s weep and our Mother Earth’s tears will either bring us back or not…
For January’s Soul
Yesterday a moist breeze of summer
Interrupted winter’s hold as an affront
To coolness, to dry, to what we expect
Of January’s soul
And although we lean from the sun
It warms us still
As if a mother’s love is endless
And no matter how
We stray we are brought back
To summer by the warm
Moist breeze of tears
For the cold of January’s soul
Happy New Year!
Wisdom is seeing the world as it really is, while promoting the great potential within each and every one of its inhabitants!
Before the Internet… we had the Yellow Pages
Ode to the Yellow Pages
You will never see, I believe
Something as artfully industrious
And hopeful as pages like these
To work all through the year
Gathering from all who sell product
And services from far and near
Putting it altogether, the offers
The artistry, locations, phone
Numbers of all good proffers
This busy, well done deed
Organized by categories you
Know and should want or need
Believing value will be shown
Proprietors and sellers in faith
Buy their presence to be known
Today these pages are seldom perused
As internet search is all the rage
And books are evermore rarely used
These pieces of yesterday’s industrious art
That raised young boy’s bottoms
And ensured success for excursions before depart
Will now depart the Americana stage
Without nary a bow or applause
For all their fame came in a forgotten age!
… Let your fingers do the walking…
Merry Christmas
Christmas Love
Ah this morning with smiles bright
The tree and gifts arranged just right
With child-like joy our hearts leap
As we brush aside our morning sleep
To find our way around the tree
Somewhat shy about what we’ll see
And hug and hold greetings as we hum
Christmas songs as if we were alum
Of another time and place in our minds
For the child within us, remembers those rhymes
And after all isn’t that what it’s all about
Regardless the gifts we shall gush about
So that our appreciation is shown
And our love for each other known
For the gift is not the present
It is all the love they represent