Passion

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Harold Whitman

 

Hope

Hope springs eternal in the human heart.

– Alexander Pope, Essay on Man

As TV’s Craig Ferguson would say, “It’s a great day for America, everybody.”

Glance of a Speechless Animal

In the glance of a speechless animal there is a discourse that only the soul of the wise can really understand.

– An Indian Poet

While in graduate school at Purdue many years ago a friend and I made a road trip to the west coast. Along the way we took the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon with a goal of hiking down to the canyon floor. Although we were experienced hikers, neither of us were in the best of shape, and we were further weakened by the several days we had just spent driving across the country in a Honda Civic. Hiking all the way down to the canyon floor and all the way back up in a single day was strongly discouraged by the park authorities. Since campsites on the canyon floor were reserved far into the future, we were fortunate to snag a reservation for a campsite that was a couple of miles up from the canyon floor on a different trail. Our plan was to hike down one trail all the way to the bottom, take in the grandeur, then hike back up a few miles to camp for the night. The next day we would hike back out and continue our westward journey.

My traveling and hiking partner was obstinate and over-confident to say the least. As we were donning our hiking gear at the start of the first day I cautioned him against his strategy of only wearing a single pair or socks. We were about to hike 7+ miles down a steep trail. Blisters would be torture. He scoffed at the conventional wisdom that a second pair of socks protected against blisters. I was not convinced and dutifully wore a thin hiking liner to wick away moisture underneath a heavy pair of hiking socks. He wore a single pair of athletic socks.

We hadn’t even reached the half-way mark to the bottom when his oversized boots began to shred his under-protected feet. His toes became blistered and bloodied as they were jammed into the front of his boots with every step. I am sure that my “I-told-you-so” attitude was no comfort. The more we walked the more animosity that developed between us until we eventually just continued the hike each on our own. I made it to the bottom, took in the incredible rush of the white water coursing through the canyon for as long as I could, and began the journey back up the canyon to the site where we would camp for the night.

I was fuming and angry that my friend could be such an idiot and allow his obstinacy to cast a shadow over such an amazing experience. I was muttering to myself as I followed the upward trail that tracked along a small stream. As I approached an oasis formed by a small pool in the stream I was stopped dead in my tracks by a dear. She picked up her head from drinking in the stream and cocked it my direction. I could not have been more than eight feet from the face of this beautiful creature that had huge brown eyes the size of tennis balls. We stared at each other in a shared sense of serenity for what seemed like ten minutes. Then, as if to say that our speechless conversation was now complete, we both turned and continued walking; she down the trail towards the canyon, me trudging up towards a waiting campsite.

That silent connection with a creature of nature stays with me. The  memory is as vivid today as it was more than 20 years ago and I continue to have a fond affection for dear. I do not know exactly what transpired that hot summer day under the Arizona sun. But I do know that I have long forgotten the name of the college friend who refused to heed the wisdom of appropriate hiking gear while the memory of the extended glance of a speechless animal remains burned in my memory to this day.

Life

The greatest gift is the gift of life . . .

and the greatest sin is to return it unopened.

– Mork

Maturity & Wisdom

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

– Mark Twain

Reading

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they are written.

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I have always been a deliberate reader. When I stumbled across this quote while reading Walden so many years ago, it simply gave me permission to enjoy the pace at which I read. Good writing is more than just conveying ideas or recounting a story. Good writing creates a mood, and images, and evokes emotions — and these cannot be digested while speed reading.

One of my favorite writers is Pat Conroy, and my favorite book of his is Prince of Tides. When I read this poetic prose I am drawn in to the rich and colorful images Conroy is able to create. Every sentence feels like a sculpture carefully crafted.

I had the opportunity to hear Pat Conroy speak shortly after the Prince of Tides was published. He described at length his mean and abusive father which he cataloged in The Great Santini. In a misguided attempt to protect his male children from growing up to be “sissies,” Pat Conroy’s father refused to let Pat learn how to type. As a result, Pat Conroy writes all of his book longhand.

I have concluded over the years that there is a qualitative difference between writing longhand and typing on a computer. When writing longhand the pen is an extension of my arm connected directly to my mind. With a pen in my hand ideas tend to flow more transparently onto the paper. The process is slow and deliberate. Ideas form and reform as they make their way down my arm and out through the nib of the pen. 

A computer and a keyboard represent a considerable barrier to the flow of ideas when compared to the simplicity of pen and paper. Although I touch type fluently, and have been for almost 30 years, my brain has to supervise as it translates my ideas into keystrokes which then emerge on a busy (and often distracting) computer screen. Granted, I can type much faster than I can write longhand, but this isn’t always a good thing. Some have accused Pat Conroy of sounding as if he swallowed a thesaurus. I know that his rich choice of words and images flows from the painstaking effort of forming every word slowly in his mind and then transferring them to paper through the fluid motion of his hand.

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.

Lending

It is better to give than to lend . . . and it costs about the same.

– Unknown

Leadership

Those “best leaders” excel at six skills . . . They have a winning attitude, a passion for customers, an ability to collaborate across boundaries, a global mindset, an ability to leverage diversity and a talent for working just “fast enough” — getting the right balance point between overly rapid decision-making and paralysis by analysis.

– Ann Livermore, HP Executive VP
(From a Knowledge at Wharton article) 

Writing

You ask me why I spend my life writing?
Do I find entertainment?
Is it worthwhile?
Above all, does it pay?
If not, then, is there a reason? . . . 

I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.

– Sylvia Plath

For ten years during my late twenties and early thirties I kept a journal. I started writing modestly in college and it eventually grew into such a compulsion that I would often write for hours a day. The pen seemed to have a mind of its own. Sometimes I would start a sentence not knowing where it was going, only to be amazed at the journey that it would launch. Even as computers started to enter my life, I wrote everything longhand. There was something magic about the connection between my thoughts and the paper, linked through the pen clasped in my  fingertips.

Occasionally I would ponder the sense of it all. Why was I writing so incessantly? I could not see where this was going and yet I could not help myself. Was I a budding novelist in search of a plot line? Sylvia gave me permission to not worry about the answer to why.

I journal only infrequently now. In retrospect, I believe that the writing process was a catharsis. Some young people explore the world through Eurail passes and youth hostels in order to find themselves. I chose the refuge of books and the pen to clear my mind and find my way. The experience of journalling  is still cathartic but the voice that drove me to write earlier in my life is quieter now. She is more at peace with herself and I have a clearer sense of what I want to do with my life.

Game on!

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