Dan Pallotta

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

I think sometimes of the long chain of events that needed to occur for me to, for instance, have a ravioli. Someone had to make the ravioli. Someone had to ship it to the store where I bought it. Someone had to put it on display. And someone had to be there to sell it to me. These are four of probably an infinite number of things that had to be done for me to get that ravioli. Someone had to make the machine that made the pasta, someone had to make the metal that made the machine. Someone had to build a truck to carry the metal. Someone had to make the tires to go on the truck, produce the fuel that fired the engine, transport the fuel that went into the truck, build the fuel refinery, understand the science of fuel, build a school to teach others about the refinery of fuel, make bricks to build the school, work a quarry to make the brick, and on and on and on - you get the picture.

We ought not be so quick to damn industry. It would not be possible to live without industry. This is 99% of the problem with the left - they are so quick to damn the people that get the ravioli to us. The undercurrent of their commentary is that all undustry is evil. This is not a tenable argument. It will lead to no progress at all, for anyone.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

If Jesus were alive today, I doubt he'd recommend that we all sit around and meditate and pray all day. Jesus was a man of action. He was compassionate, yes - healing the sick and all. But he obviously loved physics and science and technology. You can't tell me that someone who was into walking on water and ascension wouldn't have loved airplanes and rockets and hovercraft, or that someone into turning water into wine wouldn't have loved the Ipod - which turns a magnet into music.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Got a gyroscope as an early Christmas present from my sweetie tonight. Funny thing, a gyroscope. Momentum within itself keeps it from tipping over. If humanity had tremendous momentum focused on a great series of dreams, I have no doubt that it could keep us from tipping over as well.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Lots of talk about nuclear missiles these days - Russia, Iran, North Korea. The thought of them is so overwhelming that my natural reaction, and I'm sure everyone else's, is to forget about them and think of something else. It was somehow easier when it was just the Soviet Union vs. the United States. There was no talk then of a black market for nuclear weapons, and the deterrent of mutually assured destruction (known those days as M.A.D.) didn't have to take into account the reverse logic of a religious fanatic who views his or her destruction as heroic and the highest call of service to God.

Still, this is our world, and it's the only one we've got. None of us wants to be walking around in rubble some day, having to build it all over again. There is so much to look forward to if we can make peace make sense to everyone. This is why I believe so strongly in the power of dreams. If we can get everyone aligned on the most unbelievable dreams for all the planet - great, exciting advances in industry and quality of life for everyone - dramatic technological achievement in which everyone believes they can have a share - bold and daring commitments to end disease alongside these next-generation-industrial-age-dreams - if we can all see something big together - something so huge the thought of it scares us - then we won't have to be scared of each other anymore. We simply won't have time to.