Long ago as a young adult I drove a semi-truck for a few years. Teamsters Union, good pay, hard work – at least physically – it lacked intellectual challenge causing some existential discomfort. While I drove a truck and loaded freight, ideas and insights often sprouted in my thoughts. In the moment I would jot them down in small spiral notebooks (words on paper), some of which I still have.
That practice continues as I still record random thoughts and ideas, some providing seeds for current posts, others not worth much. Taking a summer break from single themes and topics in these posts, the following are some recent notes, wide-ranging, some contradicting, and in no particular order. Nestled among them are two from a spiral notebook long ago. If you would like to take a guess on which ones, post a comment, or send an email.
- Creativity is essential to discovery. Learning and finding wisdom are not simply products of searching and discovering. Actively creating brings learning, wisdom, discovery.
- The mission-role, survival-position paradox: Which do you value more, the survival of the organization and your position in it, or the mission of the organization and your role in it? Truth lies somewhere in the middle.
- Postmodern-Metamodern attributes compared: Are people basically good, or evil? Good, corrupted by society (Jean-Jacques Rousseau), or evil, reined in by society (Thomas Hobbs). I lean toward Rousseau.
- Does anyone remember Y2K? Maybe consternation today about AI will follow a similar path. Chat says, “AI raises questions about ethics, control, job displacement, and long-term risks. In both cases, the challenge lies not just in technology itself but in anticipating and managing unintended consequences.”
- What happened to the soul of the Republican Party? It sometimes seems as though right-wing evangelicals profess the New Testament, while their behavior is Old Testament. Republicans-Old Testament; Democrats-New Testament. You need both in balance.
- Foxtail are invasive, harmful weeds. Fox tales are invasive, harmful words and images.
- Imagine the infinity of the universe. Then absolutely nothing, the infinity of nothingness, not a vacuum, not an empty space, but nothingness. There is no beginning or end of the universe; there is God.
- Missing the days of ‘politics as usual’. The political process, while cumbersome and often irritating, is how disparate groups collaborate for the common good. Compromise is the grease.
- Of the world’s woes, 60 percent result from nonfeasance, 30 percent from misfeasance, and 10 percent from malfeasance. Yet, we spend percentages of our resources to fix them in the opposite order. We need to spend more on inspiring, motivating, educating people to act in positive ways.
- With the cost-free culture that developed with the internet, payment is now coming due. We are paying in the decay of our political, social, educational, and communications institutions.
- All philosophies and religions are mankind’s attempts to reach out to God. After the prophets, Jesus was God’s attempt to reach out directly to mankind. God does not differentiate between religious and secular.
- Supporting Trump is like trying to burn down your house just because you don’t want to clean it. The depraved are leading the deceived toward a constitutional crisis, or worse, failure.
- We exist to work in community, creating goodness for all humankind, all living things, the natural environment, in seeking the ultimate truth, which resides in the ultimate Creator.
- Advice to the old, live in the moment; to the young, leaven the moment (inspired by Arthur Brooks, From Strength to Strength).
- 21st Century U.S. peasant uprising underlying factors: Reaganomics, wealth disparity, weakened labor unions, corporate power. Discontent fueled and facilitated by right-wing media, digital communication. Became focused by a figurehead charismatic leader.
- The young study philosophy and religion trying to understand what is the meaning of life; the old do so trying to understand what was the meaning of life. (Arthur Brooks again, vanaprastha, the fourth asrama.
- History proves that democracy is the only system of government that works for the betterment of all citizens. Traitor Don and his billionaire cronies are seeking to reverse that.
- The Bible is the backbone of literature, reflecting and including all aspects of the human condition, Conflict, resolution, redemption. (Russell Berman, Fiction Sets You Free, Literature, Liberty, and Western Culture).
- A great equity built up in the past. Traditions, experiences, where there were sparks of truth, love, honesty – now seen in stark contrast from the outside.
- Society today is so enthralled with progress in science and technology, that we neglect to nurture individual, character, integrity, learning, wisdom, faith, ethics. Technical prowess does not always include wisdom.
- What we may think is new substance, often are merely changes in style and technology. So much time, effort, and money are spent chasing style, while we ignore substance.
- Beyond All That Matters (my forthcoming novel) theme: “We exist by relationships, among fellow human beings, among the elusive sub-atomic particles and fields that form all physical matter, including our bodies. Body and spirit, life is a mystery; truth beckons from beyond, from the cave to the light, the ultimate relationship.”
