Tag: Featured
Sense and Sensitivity
March, 1968. I arrive in Saigon during the Tet offensive. I’m scared shitless. Having grown up in a rural, middle-class, Midwestern, small town, I’m not exactly used to hearing bullets whistling over my head. How in hell did I get into this hell and what am I supposed to be doing here?
Concepts and Skills
Stephen Ambrose, in his new book describing the construction of the Transcontinental railroad, Nothing Like It In the World, suggests that trains were the primary vehicle for introducing the industrial revolution. He quotes an engineer who said, “where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go.” The poetry of engineering requires both the imagination to conceive and the skills to execute. We use concepts to frame our imagination, we use skills to build Read More
Reckless and Righteous
Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, is a real hero to me. He goes where few journalists dare venture to report on atrocity and abuse. He raises uncomfortable subjects we would prefer to keep hidden or out of our consciousness. He confronts his fellow progressives on our blind spots. He challenges us not to be reckless in our language or righteous in our beliefs. In a recent NYT article, Peter Baker discusses how carelessly Read More
Jails and Justice
My daughter, Emily, asked me a great question the other day: “How did your work in jail rehab inform your work with executives?” My answer: It was the best training I could have ever had. Why? Because the same principal applies to both: to get out of jail you need to move up the scale. Here’s the context and explanation. After returning from Vietnam, I spent 8 years in jail (1970-1978)—fortunately, not as an inmate, Read More
Endings and Beginnings
In 1984, we formed a book group in Basking Ridge, NJ with 6 other couples. Our first book was George Orwell’s 1984. We met monthly (with few exceptions) for the next 32 years discussing a diverse mixture of books: fiction and non-fiction, simple and complex, light and heavy, funny and sad, uplifting and depressing. Each book gave us an opportunity to share our thoughts and feelings and to get to know each other on a Read More
Timelessness and Transcendence
“This trip had dimension and tone. It was a thing whose boundaries seeped through itself and beyond into some time and space that was more than all the Gulf and more than all our lives.” -John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez We just returned from the Sea of Cortez on a trip with National Geographic to watch the whales migrate from the tip of Mexico to the Bering Strait. The beauty of Read More
Delusion and Discrimination
Ezra, my 4 year-old grandson, has a favorite expression: “I NEED IT, RIGHT NOW!!!!” “It’s not fair when I don’t get what I want” is a common lament we often hear from people of all ages. Employees at corporations who are in the top 1% of all wage earners frequently complain that they should be making as much or more than their peers. After all, “isn’t it obvious that my performance is far better than Jane’s?” Family members Read More
The Many Sides of Extremism
I just finished two books that shed new light on service and sacrifice and put them in perspective. The first, Strangers Drowning, discusses multiple examples of moral extremism; the second, When Breath Becomes Air, describes the experience of a 37-year-old Stanford neurosurgeon who died of cancer the year he finished his residency and was about to embark on a stellar career. In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar shares the stories of people who broke all norms and Read More
Nietzsche, Nazis, and Now
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” ―Henry A. Wallace When I ride the subway, I often take out my kindle and open up Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. It transports me immediately from the hustle, Read More
A Tribute to Old Friends and New
There’s a comfort in old friends. It’s a warm, easy comfort that is somehow different from the new. There’s no posing, pretending, or pandering. There’s no need for anything other than relaxing in the joy of connection and in being who you are. There is no fooling an old friend. There is a fullness and richness in conversations with old friends. The long histories and specific details of trials, triumphs, and tribulations enrich the re-telling Read More