Glass Ceilings

There’s no such thing as a glass ceiling. It’s just a thick layer of men.

— Laura Liswood, Secretary-General Council of Women World Leaders


Aristotle on Thought

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

— Aristotle


Trees

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in the place of old trees – tens of centuries old – that have been destroyed.

— John Muir

Like many in my generation, I devoured J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings with great relish. The metaphors, archetypes and stories from the rich world of Middle Earth continue to resonate through my mind many years after my last reading. One of my favorite creations is the sentient, intelligent, and wise race of Ents. These humanoid trees spoke too slowly and at a frequency too low for humans to perceive. They moved through the forest at a pace too slow to be perceptible.

Some years ago I hiked with a friend to a sacred Native American burial ground in the mountains of Northwest New Mexico. We sat in awe for what seemed like hours as we stared out over an incredible vista of trees and high desert vegetation. I pondered the Ents. What if the trees really were sentient? What if they actually moved of their own volition and communicated at levels beyond my grasp? When I verbalized these whimsical thoughts my friend responded with a simple question of her own: “Who says it isn’t true?” But she said it in such a way that I know she believed it. Ever since then I have been sort of believing it too.

I have had the rarified treat to stroll through the noble primeval forests of ancient redwoods in Northern California. As I stood amongst these ancient wonders, some whom had been living since before the time of Christ, I was dwarfed not only by their size but their sense of history and wisdom.

I am an INTJ. I have degrees in mathematics and physics. I am driven by objective thought and scientific principles, not emotions and mystical beliefs. And yet, I can’t help but wonder if John Muir and J.R.R. Tolkein were on to something in their reverence for trees.


Education

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.

— Anatole France


Intelligent Mind

An intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti


Destiny

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

— William Jennings Bryan


Rodney Dangerfield

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous – everyone hasn’t met me yet.

— Rodney Dangerfield


Create Your Own Reality

The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created—created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.

— John Schaar


Guard Your Spare Moments

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson


Shoeless Paraprosdokian

Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you will be a mile away and he won’t have any shoes.

— Unknown

How could I resist? After yesterday’s exhortation to embrace empathy, it seemed only fitting to also quote a brilliant variation on the old moccasins quote.

It turns out that the above quote is a perfect example of a paraprosdokian – a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. Other good examples include my previous post from Ellen DeGeneres or my all time favorite, “When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather did . . . and not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”


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