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Thursday, October 14, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
Do you believe you have a right to your dreams? Is there a voice inside of you that tells you that you don't? That respect and maginificence are for United States Senators and movie stars, and that you don't belong at their table? Does it tell you that you are less than? That you're a loser? That your life will never amount to anything, and that nothing you have accomplished has any value or significance? Have you confronted this voice?
I know this voice well, and left uncontested it will take over your life. You have a right to your dreams. Now, to look them in the eye may scare you to death, but never to know that fear is to allow life to pass you by. When you look your dreams in the eye you have to look confront that voice as well, and tell it that it has no authority to shut down your potential - that this potential is given to you by God - that your life remains an unbridled possibility and that you fully intend to explore it.
You can do whatever you want to do, be whatever you want to be. There is something you have always wanted to do and to be. You have made up excuses as to why you haven't done it or been it. You have told yourself it's not what you really want. You have done this because you do not believe you deserve to participate in life at that level. Well you do deserve to.
It is time to confront the lies that have kept us from our real lives.
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Thursday, October 14, 2004
Received this from a good friend today:
"Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes." - Rumi
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
We live in such a ridiculously cautious, "cover your ass" age. We know not from courage. The pundits are all talking about how John Kerry has to be careful not to exploit Christopher Reeve's legacy for political purposes in the debate tonight. Now do you think there is a more powerful forum in which Christopher Reeve would want his name used for the purpose of making a difference than tonight's debate? I bet Christopher Reeve is looking down on all this saying, "You God-damned well better use my name for political purposes in that debate tonight. Why the hell did I struggle for the last ten years if my legacy, in the most important public discourse ever to be held on the issue I cared most about, is to be reduced to an ill-conceived politically correct silence? Use my name. Wear it out. Exploit me. That is why I lived. Use it with courage. Don't be a coward in my name."
The people who think John Kerry, or anyone else, has to be careful about using Christopher Reeve's legacy in the name of stem cell research, have no conception of what it is to devote one's life to something larger than oneself. They have dedicated their lives to protecting their little worlds - guarding their reputations, protecting their popularity, tidying up their titles. Their lives do not belong to the entire community. Their lives are a personal possession, not to be shared - not to be used up for humanity, but to be hoarded all for themselves.
How could they imagine someone giving of themselves even in death when they know not what it is to give of oneself in life?
Stem cell research is not the great issue of our time. The absence of courage is. Silence, where there should be shouting. This is the great issue. This is the cause, more than anything else, for which Christopher Reeve stood.
Imagine that, a man with broken legs able to stand with a dignity most able-legged men don't dare themselves even to conceive.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004
We live in such a ridiculously cautious, "cover your ass" age. We know not from courage. The pundits are all talking about how John Kerry has to be careful not to exploit Christopher Reeve's legacy for political purposes in the debate tonight. Now do you think there is a more powerful forum in which Christopher Reeve would want his name used for the purpose of making a difference than tomorrow night's debate? I bet Christopher Reeve is looking down on all this saying, "You God-damned well better use my name for political purposes in that debate tonight. Why the hell did I struggle for the last ten years if my legacy, in the most important public discourse ever to be held on the issue I cared most about, is to be reduced to an ill-conceived politically correct silence. Use my name. Exploit me. That is why I lived. Use it with courage. Don't be a coward in my name."
The people who think John Kerry, or anyone else, has to be careful about using Christopher Reeve's legacy in the name of stem cell research, have no conception of what it is to devote one's life to something larger than oneself. They have dedicated their lives to protecting their little worlds - guarding their reputations, protecting their popularity, tenuring their titles. Their lives do not belong to the entire community. Their lives are a personal posession, not to be shared - not to be used up for humanity, but to be hoarded all for themsleves.
How could they imagine someone giving of themselves even in death when they know not what it is to give of oneself in life?
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Monday, October 11, 2004
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
If I were President I would establish a Department of Anti-Ridiculousness. Seriously. It would have a Cabinet-level chief. Its purpose would be to reverse ridiculous policy and procedure from the ground up. It would give people who encounter absurd contradictions in bureaucratic policy a place to go to make a difference. The fact that we don't now have such a department - that we don't have a total intolerance for things that make no sense means at some level that we believe we don't deserve any better, or that we have lost all hope that things can ever change. Well we do deserve better and we deserve to have hope that a stupid policy can be reversed, and quickly, mind you.
A friend of mine who receives funding from a government agency recently wanted to invite representatives of the agency to come and see his work - the very work that they are funding. They can't. Why? because of a regulation that prohibits people at their level from travelling. The cost of the plane ticket is about 100,000 times less than the funding they are providing.
The sad thing is, it is not like each of us does not have a friend with some similar story. To want to change this kind of foolishness is not a Democratic tendency or a Republican tendency. It is a tendency toward common sense, and 99.99999 percent of Americans have it.
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Sunday, October 10, 2004
Monday, October 11, 2004
George Bush says that he will hunt down and kill the terrorists. John Kerry says that he will hunt down and kill the terrorists. In this debate about the safety of the United States everything but violence has really been ruled out. It is a question now of who has more gut for violence. This is a dangerously short-sighted approach to the safety and the future of the Republic. All larger contexts have been obscured by this myopic sliver of potential solutions and plans.
In this narrow context all other ideas are labeled foolish, naiive, and dangerous. God forbid soemone says there may be a better solution that hunting down and killing the terrorists. The nation is not in a thoughtful posture. It is in a fear-ridden posture. This is not conducive to wisdom. History repeats itself, yes it does, and unless the United States affords itself the luxury of wisdom, we are headed the way of the Roman Empire.
The end of terrorism does not happen in the short term. It happens in the long term. And we had better begin creating bold long term solutions to it, or by God it is going to grow and envelope us. Now is a time for great, great wisdom. Now is a time for the United States to dig deep into its soul and behave like a champion - to lead like the world leader. The answer is in leadership, not in trying to kill the terrorists, which is a futile exercise anyway. The Unites States of America must unveil to the world a doctrine that demonstrates her compassion and the might of her soul - a doctrine that calls for the end of mass misery and suffering around the world - a doctrine that looks well beyond the "homeland," as it is currently defined, because in 2004, the whole earth is the homeland, and anyone that tells you differently not only does not deserve to be President of the United States, they do not deserve to be listened to.
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