Just Be

Sometimes the best thing we can do is to stop “doing” and just be. You don’t have to “be” anything. We don’t have to “be” quiet, or productive, or useful, or nice. Just be.

In his brilliant album that gave music and lyrics to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Neil Diamond wrote:

Be, as a page that aches for a word that speaks on a theme that is timeless.

These words appear nowhere in Richard Bach’s writing. They are Neil Diamond’s interpretation of what he thought Bach was trying to say. I think Diamond nailed it!

Be … as a blank page … that is aching for words … that speak on a theme that is timeless. Sometimes it’s okay to just be.

Similar Posts

  • On the Financial Meltdown

    As they say on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, “and now for some quotes from this week’s news.”

    First, a delightful blog I discovered called The Big Picture by Barry L. Ritholtz. In a post titled The Underlying Basis of Finance and Credit, Mr Ritholtz observes:

    Over the entire history of human finance, the underlying premise of all credit transactions — loans, mortgages, and all debt instrument — has been the borrower’s ability to repay.

    Except for [the 5 year period from 2002 to 2007] the entire history of human finance was rather reasonable about the basis for making loans in general, and extending mortgage loans in particular.

    For 99.9996% of the last 1.2 million years, loans were granted primarily on the condition of whether or not the lender believed that the borrower could repay. Between 2002 and 2007 this condition was dropped.

  • Consumers Go On Strike

    As the economy continues to sour, consumers have gone on strike. For the past few months, I have been contemplating the following economic and social trends that seem to explain why.

    • American productivity has risen almost 20% in the last decade (Source)
    • Real median income over the same period has declined (Source)
    • Executive compensation has risen astronomically (Source)
    • Consumer debt has risen substantially (Source)
    • Consumer spending comprises 70% of GDP

    Rising productivity is what enables companies to increase employee’s pay. Increases in pay result in the overall rise in our standard of living. However, in the last decade, this relationship between productivity and rising employee pay seems to have been fractured.

  • Important Moments in Life

    Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

    — Susan B. Anthony

    I have never been very big on holidays like birthdays, anniversaries or Christmas. They seem like such artificial constructs to me. Years ago I reached a peaceful truce with my family and friends to not exchange gifts at such times. We have all been enjoying stress-free holidays ever since.

    I don’t mean to demean the important moments in life.

  • Lying

    What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you.

    — Friedrich Nietzsche

    Like most children, my parents raised me with an unending plea to always tell the truth. In my mom’s eyes, a clean conscience was to be valued above all else. “Besides,” she always said, “if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you said.” I have carried this commitment to truth and honesty with me, almost to a fault. It has served me well.

    As I have observed the global meltdown of the financial industry I can’t help but believe that it has been forever transformed by a blatant lack of trust. When the banks stopped lending it was clear that they no longer believed one another. The Bernie Madoff case was the icing on the cake. It seems to me that it will take a long time to restore trust and confidence into the financial system. In the process, I am not sure what kind of “financial system” will actually emerge on the other side.

  • Self-Confidence III

    [A]s a few strokes on the nose will make a puppy head shy, so a few rebuffs will make a boy shy all over. But whereas a puppy will cringe away or roll on its back, groveling, a little boy may cover his shyness with nonchalance, with bravado, or with secrecy. And once a boy has suffered rejection, he will find rejection even where it does not exist—or, worse, will draw it forth from people simply by expecting it.

    — John Steinbeck, East of Eden

    Today’s quote is the third in a three-part series on self confidence. Wednesday Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” Thursday Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No man can make you feel inferior without your consent.” These quotes are important to me because they underscore the fact that we are victims less often that we think. If I feel inferior, or intimidated it is because I have chosen to feel that way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.