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Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Somehow the calls at the Convention - for affordable healthcare for everyone - for a nation where everyone can get ahead - for the strengtherning of our public schools - repeated over and over again - ring hollow, despite all the rock music and the video screens and the coordinated signs and the pumped up speeches. Perhaps it is because we have heard these same calls now so many times and none of it ever comes to pass. It is like listening to someone tell you over and over again year after year that this is their last drink, but they won't go to an AA meeting.
Perhaps the reason these things never come to pass is because it is not on these things - even remotely - that the system is focused. The simplest explanation is always the one most likely to be true. The system is focused on getting people elected. It is not focused on getting problems solved. It works. People get elected. Problems never get solved.
We don't need to fix the system. Nothing is broken. It does exactly what it is designed to do. What we need is a new system.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Idealism is not the exclusive domain of youth. It is not a phase out of which wisdom takes you. It is not silly to be an idealistic adult. It is no sign that you have not properly matured or that you refuse to embrace your years. Neither is it mandatory that you give up your idealism once you reach the age of 30. Maintain your hope. Make it ascendant. Maintain your idealism. Add the wisdom of your years to it. It is OK to hunger for the idealism of your youth. It is OK to reclaim it.
We live in a world that would have you belive it is unhealthy to hang onto these things past your youth. The truth is, it is unhealthy not to. Human beings are dreaming creatures. When stripped of our dreams, of our hopes, of our idealism, at any age, we become spiritually empty and physically sick. The real cause of cancer is the repression of our natural state of being.
Be yourself. Embrace the fullest possible expression of your magnificence. All your hopes, all your dreams, both for yourself and all the world. There is nothing more beautiful or more inspiring to an idealistic youth than an idealistic octagenarian.
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Monday, July 26, 2004
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
"It is my right to be uncommon. If I can, I seek opportunity, not security. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence: the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and face the world boldly and say, 'this I have done.'"”
Dean Alfange's "My Creed"
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Sunday, July 25, 2004
Monday, July 26, 2004
Do not run from your own power. Do not fear whether it may intimidate or make uncomfortable those around you. Your power is God-given and it is not yours to abandon. Neither is it your job to make those around you comfortable in their own skin. That is their job, and if they are not capable of handling it that is their responsibility, not yours. Others may resent your power and do all manner of things to maintain their denial of its reality. They may criticize you, question your motives, or call you ambitious. Do not let them rile you. If they would take the focus of off you for a moment they might be able to see their own power, and they would be relieved of the compulsion to denegrate yours. But they fear their own power, which is why they fear yours. The fact that they have abandoned their own power and potential is no reason to abandon yours too, just so they can feel at ease in your company.
If you build a life around helping others to feel comfortable in their skin you will never feel comfortable in your own. Be as big as God dreamt you to be.
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Sunday, July 25, 2004
Do you ever feel frustrated? Alone? As if there is a huge well of power inside of you that could do the most miraculous things but it will not seem to reveal itself? Do you ever feel as if the world does not need you or the incredible potential you have inside you or the incredible willingness to make a difference?
These feelings are the sound of your heart. Take solace in its magnificence. It will be called upon one day. Be patient, and know you are not alone.
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Saturday, July 24, 2004
What will the world be like in forty years? Will it have GPS chips under everyone's skin, cameras everywhere, paranoia reigning, freedom lost, fear everywhere? Will it look like "Blade Runner?" Will Orwell have been right? Will there be stormtroopers policing our cities, their human faces covered in protective technology?
Or will we have solved the great dilemmas of international conflict and urban violence? Will there be food enough and education and health care enough for everyone, so that people don't need to steal from one another? Will there be a great enlightenment so that all of the money that would have gone into GPS chips and military hovercraft and protective gear will instead go into great works of art and creation? Will kindness reighn instead of paranoia? Will we have let go all our fear and let God take over, riding waves of It's joy and imagination?
These are the questions that invite us to the future.
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Friday, July 23, 2004
To be engaged in a great dream, with everyone pitching in, giving their all, doing together something that no one has ever done before. It seems impossible. Obstacles everywhere. There is chaos, there are mistakes. You are laughed at. This is creation. After it has been done, others begin to copy it. It enters the domain of the commonplace. No one remembers laughing at it. Now they laugh at anyone who tries to change it. It gets turned into a formula. This is regurgitation. There is nothing wrong with it, but it will never compare to the magic of doing a thing for the first time. Of being the one on the edge of the trail, looking into the terrifying unknown, where there are no formulas, and no one has gone before to point the way.
If we wish to create a world the likes which the world has never known, this is where we will have to go. This is the terrifying world of Neil Armstrong, landing a lunar module on the moon for the first time, with eight seconds of fuel left, 400,000 miles away from home. This is the horrifying world of Nelson Mandela, following a path to freedom through 27 years in a prison cell. This is the dark world of Galielo, condemned to death for telling the world that the earth revolves around the sun. Without terror, horror, and darkness, there can be no joy, no creation, no light.
Are we willing to go there?
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