“It Is Hard For the Good To Suspect Evil, As It Is For The Bad To Suspect Good.” Cicero
I often reflect in variations of this. People always see things through very specific filters that they have created over the course of their lives.
The one who is envious suspects envious thoughts when someone complements them on a new car or new found wealth. They genuinely do not suspect that person has good thoughts about their good fortune.
I read the other day about Simon Cowell of American Idol not wanting his fellow judges to do well in their careers. His quote on it was (paraphrased) ‘nobody wants their co-workers to succeed, it’s against human nature’. There is a person whose filter makes him suspect others of thinking exactly like him. He does not suspect there are those who are positive and happy about their co-workers success.
“Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” – Thomas Jefferson
My favorite period in history is the Revolutionary War and Constitutional period of our country (USA). The reason is that it was the first time in human history where enlightenment philosophical ideas were purposely integrated into the creation of a government, not for self-interest, but for the greater good.
Jefferson was perhaps the most famous of those who pushed the philosophical ideas of the enlightenment into the forefront, but he was by no means the only one.
“A person gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles on the road.” – Alexander Smith
It is easy to see why I might send this along with my daughters’ to school since it is frequently the case that young people aren’t yet grounded in adult reality.
However, that can be a good thing as well. Parents who make their children deal with adult ‘puddles’ before they need to don’t do them any great service. Children can handle a lot, and there is an obligation on the part of a parent to train them in adult responsibilities. But there are also those parents who are hell bent on forcing their children to be adults, not out of necessity, but out of dislike for childhood.
So, if your elementary school kid has chores, good. If your teenager needs to learn how to take care of a car and take care of their money, fine. But don’t expect a child to not want to run around and have fun. Don’t expect a teenager to not want to experiment with their identity through style and new ideas. That doesn’t help them become adults, it stunts them.
One thing I have learned over the years from reading a lot of global and personal histories and biographies and witnessing 50+ years of them myself is that there is ALWAYS a rationalization.
It doesn’t matter how ludicrous the idea might be, how completely untenable or self-destructive, how mean or violent, how opposite of logic or sanity it is, if someone believes it, they will rationalize it. Most all of Germany rationalized Nazism. Mao and Pol Pot rationalized their ‘cultural revolutions’ that killed millions and left their countries destitute. Individuals rationalize addictions and violence and control and gossip and destructive machinations against others. They make the most absurd of conduct make sense in a perverse logic they are depending on.
Always watch out for that in your own life, it is insidious and no one is immune from it unless they have intellectual safe guards against it. What are those safe guards? Solid and proven principles that will keep you safe from outrageous and absurd claims, beliefs and behaviors. What are those principles? There isn’t one set. There are many and it is up to each person to find them for themselves. That is a topic for another blog posting though.
“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.” – Sue Grafton
Having been an avid history reader for many years I agree with this.
When I read this quote I think about my years teaching. I so often got that excuse from my students as sort of plea. They wanted me to use the difficulty of a project as a reason to grade them better than their work really deserved. “But I worked really hard on it” they would say. My response was always the same; “Hard work doesn’t matter if the end product isn’t any good”. They didn’t like that.
I would explain. That in art history people don’t say ‘oh, it was really hard to build that giant sculpture so Michelangelo can be excused for making the head all caddywumpus and ugly’. No, if the ‘David’ wasn’t great nobody would have cared how much work went into it, how hard it was. In the end, the piece has to be great, no matter if it was a lucky shot that took a second, or was planned for years. The art is what matters, not the ‘difficulty’.
“Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the one thing hated.” – George McDonald
I think this might not be true. I know of many situations where the hatred for one thing, person or event has contaminated everything else around it so that eventually the hatred is universal. That is why a young man who might have been pissed about one thing long ago became a crotchety old men yelling at kids who dare to step on their front lawn. You become what you practice, and he practiced hate and resentment until it wasn’t focused at all, but was universal.
“Two things a person should never be angry at; what he can help, and what he cannot help.” – William A. Ward
I recently made a trip to Tucson to deal with one of my daughters, who had not been in communication for a long time. She was found and her circumstances are pretty trying, just above homeless as a matter of fact. There are some good things that came of the trip, including her getting an initial evaluation and us meeting her friends and her landlord. There is a lot of confidence that she has a number of people helping her. But it isn’t the same as having her in your own town, close by, to give direct help as needed. It isn’t the same as family. But we were only able to do so much. And the result is to be reminded once again of this quote, that anger, while a true emotion and legitimate, is often something that doesn’t lead to much value for the future. It can, but most often it is not, IMHO.
“The Occasion Is Piled High With Difficulty, And We Must Rise High With The Occasion.: Abraham Lincoln
I originally drew this in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I have had it on flickr since then but, for some reason, I haven’t found the right time to post it to the Daily.
But with another tall, lanky Illini about to take the presidency I think the Lincoln quote is an appropriate one for the times. Let’s hope Obama, and we, rise to the occasion.
“Life Is Much More Unexpected Than I Expected.” – Marty Coleman
Did you wonder where I had gone? Why no napkins for a number of days?
Well, this napkin explains it.
But I can also explain a bit more.
The daughter who gave me the napkins back on Father’s Day (read the story about the napkins to understand) moved to Tucson, AZ under trying circumstances about 1 1/2 years ago. She initially communicated sparsely, with no return address and no telephone. Then all communication stopped. When she missed cards on birthdays we started to really worry and so over Thanksgiving 2008 her younger sister drove to Arizona to look for her. She found her and spent a number of days with her, reporting back to her mother and me (we are divorced) about what she was learning of her life style and health, mentally and physically. We decided we needed to go to Tucson also to talk to her, which we did the day after Thanksgiving.
We talked to her the next day and it was a bit more confrontational than we would have liked. She didn’t react well but eventually agreed to and got a neutral evaluation of her health. We talked after that evaluation and she agreed to talk to someone about issues she knew she had to deal with. She promised she would communicate with us so we would know she is safe. She said she would see us the next day at a cafe she frequents. She didn’t show up to see us that day or the next. We left without further communications.
On the positive side we met her landlord (she lives in an outbuilding on the lady’s ranch). She was instrumental in getting our daughter to go to the initial evaluation. We were very impressed with her willingness to help us out and her insight from years of practice of teaching and helping people in similar situations. She gave us great confidence that our daughter has someone watching out for her. We met a number of her friends as well, and we found them all to be very loving and caring with a good level of understanding of our daughter. We now have addresses and phone numbers of people who can help us and can tell us if she is in danger or is in need of help.
We will hope for the best; that she will communicate with us, no matter how minimal it is, and that she will seek and get the help she needs to resume functioning at a healthy level.
