“The Complaint of the Present Times is the General Complaint of All Times.” – Anonymous
As the election comes closer, don’t forget that the complaints you hear now are the complaints people have had forever. And the promises we hear are the promises we have heard forever. It might be about the economy, it might be about the war, it might be about negative advertising, but whatever it is, it is your responsibility to look past it to the heart of things. In other words, vote for ideas, vote for direction, vote for the candidate, not just his or her campaign promises.
Sometimes I didn’t have a quote, just a drawing I made up for the girls. It actually was good practice to try and draw the same drawing 3 times in a row. They always turned out slightly different, no matter how hard I tried to make them alike (I never tried very hard actually).
“If God Made Us In His Image, We Have Certainly Returned The Compliment.” Voltaire
Usually this quote is used as a negative statement about God and man. But read the story below and perhaps you will feel that just sometimes the image God creates of us and we create of God reflects well on us both.
I received a wonderful email yesterday from a delightful woman in Chicago. She is doing some advanced academic work in Theology and wanted permission to use 5 of my napkin drawings in her work and in presentations regarding peace building in Africa. I was happy to make the connection and give permission.
A number of wonderful things about it. She is in graduate school but offered to pay for the rights to use the images. Think of how many profit making enterprises don’t have the courtesy to ask permission to use an image much less offer to pay. I took her up on the willingness to pay since I believe they are worth the money and she will feel more freedom to use them as she sees fit in her work. She was telling me my work had value and was willing to prove it in a concrete way by paying me money that could help me in ways a mere complement could not.
The other wonderful thing is that she is using them in a serious thesis regarding peace building in the world and later in presentations regarding that same thing in Africa, where peace building is a hard road for all. It really made my day to know that.
They are just silly drawings on napkins, but good ideas well stated are powerful and transformative no matter where they are found.
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” – Virginia Woolf
I don’t know if I believe this. I think many people can deceive themselves quite thoroughly about their real persona while at the same time having a laser focus on the truth about another person. They don’t make for the most trustworthy people in the world, but they can exist.
