Archive for Month: September 2024

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are fully of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out.  Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.”  —Franz Kafka “The spirit-world around this senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapors denseA vital breath of ethereal air” —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Music is the ethereal connection between this world and the Read More

I just listened to a brilliant podcast of Ezra Klein interviewing Zadie Smith, the best-selling author of White Teeth, On Beauty, and The Fraud.   One comment from Zadie Smith really jumped out at me:  “People aren’t terrible, systems are.”  I might add that systems and culture are both problems that cause people to act terribly or suck them into terrible milieus.   In any event, I highly recommend this podcast for its insights about how we Read More

One of the best pieces of feedback I ever received was when an honest friend said, “Sometimes your confidence exceeds your competence.”  As painful as that feedback was, it made me more conscious of the level of confidence I project when I assert an opinion or decide to take on a task for which I may not be entirely prepared.  For example, I often observe myself giving directions or offering an opinion on a subject Read More

“Locking” and “loading” refer to steps in preparing a machine gun to be fired: You first “lock” the bolt or safety and then “load” an ammunition cartridge or magazine. Figuratively, to be “locked and loaded” is to be fully prepared for aggressive action.   As parents and grandparents, we are always looking for ways to keep our kids out of danger’s way and to avoid aggressive action.  There are two messages I would love to Read More