Come, let’s ride brightly painted inner tubes, you and I
If you have watched TV commercials for the new teeniny microscopic MacBook Air, perhaps you will recognize this song by Yael Naim. Come, let’s ride brightly painted inner tubes, play cymbals in a field of sunflowers, sing with a gorgeous Israeli-French accent, and realize that there is a whole big …
B is for “be FOR something”
There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is …
I is for inside looking
Man need only divert his attention from searching for the solution to external questions and pose the one, true inner question of how he should lead his life, and all the external questions will be resolved in the best possible way. – Leo Tolstoy In 2008, I will end each …
J is for jijnasu
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan In 2008, I want to be a jijnasu, a seeker of wisdom, an inquirer. When I was preparing to talk with Billy Collins the other day (doesn’t that sound casual?), Mr Brilliant was holding the paper bag while I hyperventilated, …
Start a diversity bookclub
In any community, there are diversity issues – the natives vs the newcomers, race issues that pit black against white, gay and straight clashes, classism – and often, we’re not equipped to talk about them. Dialogue that approaches the issues head-on sometimes is too difficult, we avoid it, or we …
Retreat to move forward
Sometimes we have to retreat to move forward. The next 37days retreat is scheduled for September 28-30, 2007, and registration has just opened for it. Limited to 14 people, I hope you can be one of them. I’ll be joined by my business partner, David Robinson, in facilitating the weekend …
Narrow your search
“A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you don’t find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.” – James Matthew Barrie There is something about a …
Draw circles
“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays –"Circles” Let’s imagine that all learning takes place in a …
Consider the flea
“And now let us welcome the New YearFull of things that have never been.” -Rainer Maria Rilke I started writing this on day 5 of a 3-day business trip. [As an aside, I’m pretty confident that I uncovered a Big Universal Truth on this trip: travel brings out the absolute …
