In the movie version of the H.G. Wells story, "The Time Machine," the story ends with the Time Traveler disappearing into earth's distant future, where the human species is not only living a primitive Stone Age existence, but is engaged in a life-and-death struggle against a violent competing species. However,…
I hereby propose a new version of the Ten Commandments.
1 Choose and follow a version of the golden rule. Note in your heart that golden rules have appeared in the writings of many cultures, including Jewish, Buddhist, Confucian and Ancient Egyptian.
2. Never publicly advocate that one’s own version of a supernatural God is truer than the Gods of others; always apply the same degree of skepticism one uses regarding the Gods and sacred writings of others to one’s own God(s) and sacred writings. Don’t build expensive or ostentatious worship places in honor of your God. Never scare any child with stories of great suffering in order to cause that child to believe in the existence of any particular supernatural being. Thou shalt not blasphemy the unfolding mysteries of the universe by claiming to know the thoughts or plans of any God. Thou shalt always approach the mysteries of life with humility, awe and unbridled curiosity.
3. Do not honor any God who you believe prohibits you from honoring any other God or who, in your opinion, threatens to eternally torture any person or animal for any reason. Constantly remind yourself that you have a serious obligation to take good care of all of the children of the world, not just your own children. Regularly breathe deeply and remember to keep a sense of humor, especially when considering spirituality, sex and death. Whenever you speak of God, don’t get that look like you’re about to be smacked with a …
Aristotle wrote with great insight and clarity that maintaining friendships was a prerequisite to acting virtuously. For Aristotle, to act virtuously was necessarily to consciously act for the right reasons. But doing this requires bringing our non-rational parts into harmony with the rational. Further, finding this harmony requires self-knowledge that…
I returned from China two weeks ago, after a three-week trip to three cities, two of which I spent over a week visiting. I have little recollection of the first couple of days home, swathed in a jet-lagged fog as I must have been. I had, as a friend’s daughter describes it, “jet legs.”
The next few days involved what has become my standard decompression after these trips. I’m still not sure how I work my way out of it – whether I recover, or whether I simply desensitize further each time. Let me explain.
I’ve made five of these trips to China now, during which I’ve worked with an incredible foundation (halfthesky.org) in orphanages in eleven different cities. The cities vary with the extent of western influence they’ve suffered – some are still blessedly devoid of McDonald’s and KFC and Wal-Mart; their bloated corporate shadows have already darkened others. Those without such western “flavor” are endlessly more intriguing to explore.
What all the locations have in common, though, is the visual evidence, everywhere, of both a poverty we in the West can’t imagine, and a work ethic we’ve all but lost. I watch farmers trudge into town carrying baskets of brilliant green produce fresh from their small patches of ground – a trek they repeat daily. Some have land tucked into the nearby hills, some scratch out just enough space in the local hutong or next to a dusty construction site to get by.
They set up shop at …
When did careful planning and execution become un-cool in real life? Probably about the same time it became un-cool in Hollywood.
Think how the American hero has evolved. He used to be smart, principled and disciplined. Not anymore. Where we used to have student-of-the-game Ted Williams, we now have Barry Bonds. Where we used to have Atticus Finch, Rick Blaine and Jefferson Smith we have hot-headed Lt. Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise). Planners and careful executers include heroes as diverse as Rocky Bilboa and Gandhi. Heroes-who-plan include soldiers from starkly different backgrounds, such as the soldiers in The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen.
Modern television and movies don’t offer heroes who intelligently plan and collaborate with others to save the day. A television show offering this in the 60’s was Mission Impossible. The Impossible Mission Force was a group of specialists who actually sat down to plan their mission at the beginning of each show.
Modern heroes rarely sit down to plan their missions. They bristle at the thought of collaborating. Modern protagonists are reactive, not planners. Think of Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Terminator II. These are individualistic hot headed rejecters of collaboration. When they succeed in the end it is because they got lucky at that last desperate moment, not because they pondered contingencies before setting out. Interestingly, if you want planning and execution, look to Hollywood’s villains, people such as Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader or Batman’s Joker.