Original thoughts — creative, humorous, and otherwise — about life, liberty, and the pursuit of meaning.
. . . those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and the natures which suffer most sharply are those which also enjoy most keenly.
— Lucy Maud Montgomery, Ann of the Island
I grew up in a home where showing emotions was not encouraged. As I set out on my own I was proud of my ability to maintain an even keel. But as time wore on I came to realize that holding my emotions in check was just a cloak for numbness. A dear friend offered me this quote and I was suddenly free.
In order to soar to emotional heights I had to allow myself the possibility of plunging to the deepest depths. Goodbye even keel. I learned to embrace the lows and reveled in the highs. Sometimes you have to live with the rain. But when the sun eventually comes out — and it always does — the warmth and the light are more glorious than ever.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Perhaps it is my natural temperament to do things deliberately and with purpose (after all, it is the tortoise who wins the race). Maybe it is my persistent skepticism. Quite possibly it is an outgrowth of my intuitive personality type (INTJ). Whatever the reason, I have always been resistant to Wall Street’s incessant demand for growth from public companies.
If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill,
Be a shrub in the valley – but be
The best little shrub by the side of the hill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass,
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, some have to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here;
There’s work to be done, and we all have to do
Our part in the way that’s sincere.
If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun, be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail,
Be the best of whatever you are.
— Douglas Mallock
If you want to defeat any kind of vicious fraud–comply with it literally, adding nothing of your own to disguise its nature.
— Ayn Rand, Spoken by Francisco d’Aconia to Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged
I have been a leader in a number of organizations that were in dire need of change. Building a “case for change” is usually difficult. People seem compelled to continue in their dysfunctional ways despite their inefficacy or discomfort. I have learned that sometimes you have to let things fall to the floor and break before you can pick up the shards and create the change that the organization so desperately needs.
Atlas Shrugged struck me as a testament to this approach to change management, albeit with a more poetic and metaphorical approach.
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.