Thursday, January 1, 2015

Happy New Year

“Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love – and to put its trust in life!” --Joseph Conrad















Easy reading books for the year: Ivanhoe-Walter Scott, In the Garden of the Beasts, Empire of the Summer Moon; a bit more demanding, To the Lighthouse-Virginia Woolf, Victory-Joseph Conrad












New Year Suggestions:


Politics are not all but are an indication of the present and future where we and our children have to live. As such, it is no more or less important than a rational assessment of your environment.


Be respectful and avoid people who are not.


Know what you earn and what you spend. Earn more than you spend.


Always say thank you.


Save 10% of what you earn.


People will forget or forgive almost anything but not how you made them feel.


Be true to your word.


I can think of no field where communication is not important.


A characteristic of our current mini-culture is the intense, unselective and unreasonable scrutiny of just about anything. A case of Ebola paralyses the news industry for days--until a new Ebola Czar moves in whose job it is to manage not the virus but the news of it. Now the Sony Hack is being dissected by Lord knows how many people of Lord knows what qualifications. This creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust on the benign end of the spectrum, hostility and corruption on the other. Avoid the eddies, concentrate on the stream.


Paul's Letter to the Galatians says that Christ on earth means that all men are adopted sons of God, heirs to His infinite creation.
So every man, regardless of station or circumstance, wealth or heritage, birthright or appearance, sickness or health is equal in the eyes of God. There have been a lot of notions--from nihilism to castes, from divine right to class conflict, from Freud to Malthus--that have come down the pike since the beginning of recorded time but has there ever been a more radical, more hopeful, more optimistic idea than that? And could there be a better thought to start the new year?


Happy New Year

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