has anyone ever taken a look at this site? Its a very interesting read. The program started in 1950 on NPR and it is fascinating what people put as their core beliefs. All kinds of people have contributed, famous, infamous and the rest of us....................
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?s ... GgodT3YHnA
This I believe.........
Moderator: Fist and Faith
So I'm gonna move it.The Power of Mysteries
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, January 2, 2006.
I believe in the power of the unknown.I believe that a sense of the unknown propels us in all of our creative activities, from science to art.
When I was a child, after bedtime I would often get out of my bed in my pajamas, go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some end to space, some giant edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?
Another of my childhood questions: Did time go on forever? I looked at pictures of my parents and grandparents and tried to imagine their parents, and so on, back through the generations, back and back through time. Looking out of my bedroom window into the vastness of space, time seemed to stretch forward and backward without end, engulfing me, engulfing my parents and great-grandparents, the entire history of earth. Does time go on forever? Or is there some beginning of time? And if so, what came before?
When I grew up, I became a professional astrophysicist. Although I never answered any of these questions, they continued to challenge me, to haunt me, to drive me in my scientific research, to cause me to live on tuna fish and no sleep for days at a time while I was obsessed with a science problem. These same questions, and questions like them, challenge and haunt the leading scientists of today.
Einstein once wrote that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." What did Einstein mean by "the mysterious?" I don't think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable or supernatural forces. I think that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened.
Scientists are happy, of course, when they find answers to questions. But scientists are also happy when they become stuck, when they discover interesting questions that they cannot answer. Because that is when their imaginations and creativity are set on fire. That is when the greatest progress occurs.
One of the Holy Grails in physics is to find the so-called "theory of everything," the final theory that will encompass all the fundamental laws of nature. I, for one, hope that we never find that final theory. I hope that there are always things that we don't know -- about the physical world as well as about ourselves. I believe in the creative power of the unknown. I believe in the exhilaration of standing at the boundary between the known and the unknown. I believe in the unanswered questions of children.
Alan Lightman is an astrophysicist and novelist teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Einstein’s Dreams and A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit. Lightman and his wife, Jean, started the Harpswell Foundation to help disadvantaged students obtain education in Cambodia.
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, January 2, 2006.
I believe in the power of the unknown.I believe that a sense of the unknown propels us in all of our creative activities, from science to art.
When I was a child, after bedtime I would often get out of my bed in my pajamas, go to the window and stare at the stars. I had so many questions. How far away were those tiny points of light? Did space go on forever and ever, or was there some end to space, some giant edge? And if so, what lay beyond the edge?
Another of my childhood questions: Did time go on forever? I looked at pictures of my parents and grandparents and tried to imagine their parents, and so on, back through the generations, back and back through time. Looking out of my bedroom window into the vastness of space, time seemed to stretch forward and backward without end, engulfing me, engulfing my parents and great-grandparents, the entire history of earth. Does time go on forever? Or is there some beginning of time? And if so, what came before?
When I grew up, I became a professional astrophysicist. Although I never answered any of these questions, they continued to challenge me, to haunt me, to drive me in my scientific research, to cause me to live on tuna fish and no sleep for days at a time while I was obsessed with a science problem. These same questions, and questions like them, challenge and haunt the leading scientists of today.
Einstein once wrote that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." What did Einstein mean by "the mysterious?" I don't think he meant that science is full of unpredictable or unknowable or supernatural forces. I think that he meant a sense of awe, a sense that there are things larger than us, that we do not have all the answers at this moment. A sense that we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened.
Scientists are happy, of course, when they find answers to questions. But scientists are also happy when they become stuck, when they discover interesting questions that they cannot answer. Because that is when their imaginations and creativity are set on fire. That is when the greatest progress occurs.
One of the Holy Grails in physics is to find the so-called "theory of everything," the final theory that will encompass all the fundamental laws of nature. I, for one, hope that we never find that final theory. I hope that there are always things that we don't know -- about the physical world as well as about ourselves. I believe in the creative power of the unknown. I believe in the exhilaration of standing at the boundary between the known and the unknown. I believe in the unanswered questions of children.
Alan Lightman is an astrophysicist and novelist teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Einstein’s Dreams and A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit. Lightman and his wife, Jean, started the Harpswell Foundation to help disadvantaged students obtain education in Cambodia.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Contributor: Jessie
Location: Rochester Hills, MI
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
The Circle Is Now Complete
I believe in circles, as odd as that may sound. As a kid I flipped through National Geographic magazines and clipped out photographs of circles: planets in rotation, oranges resting in crates waiting for shipment, time lapse streaks of light circling the North Star, dew drops glistening in morning sunlight.
There are circles in the conventional sense: watches, compasses and doorknobs. But these things acquire meaning far beyond their intended functions. A watch tells time, but time is the knowable unknown. A compass points the direction, but we must still find our own way. And even a doorknob is not just a doorknob when it leads to a new life.
Circles influence our lives often without our acknowledgment. While we worry about paying bills and returning library books, the earth spins on its axis, circling around the sun while the moon circles around us. The seasons change in relation to the tilting axis of the earth and distance from the sun.
In my Midwest home each season arrives in its own pronounced way. I spent my youth in the company of creaking frogs in spring. My father turned over the rich earth for our summer garden. Each fall the crows congregated by the hundreds in the bare silhouette of the tallest tree. Owls called us into the woods on blue snowy nights in deepest winter. Each season completes a cycle of change.
Circles connect us to our world and to each other. A pebble dropped into a pond sends circles rippling across the placid surface. It is the imagery behind the ripple effect, a fact of exponentiality that can change the world and change our hearts.
Circles are the swollen bellies of my sisters on the eve of giving birth. Trees 1,000 years old tell their stories by their rings. We sit around campfires just as we have for millennia and tell our own stories. We've honed our skills. The best stories begin with character's we know becoming character's we love, but with the weak now strong, the cowardly now courageous, and the ignorant now wise.
The story ends where it began, the circle now complete.
Location: Rochester Hills, MI
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
The Circle Is Now Complete
I believe in circles, as odd as that may sound. As a kid I flipped through National Geographic magazines and clipped out photographs of circles: planets in rotation, oranges resting in crates waiting for shipment, time lapse streaks of light circling the North Star, dew drops glistening in morning sunlight.
There are circles in the conventional sense: watches, compasses and doorknobs. But these things acquire meaning far beyond their intended functions. A watch tells time, but time is the knowable unknown. A compass points the direction, but we must still find our own way. And even a doorknob is not just a doorknob when it leads to a new life.
Circles influence our lives often without our acknowledgment. While we worry about paying bills and returning library books, the earth spins on its axis, circling around the sun while the moon circles around us. The seasons change in relation to the tilting axis of the earth and distance from the sun.
In my Midwest home each season arrives in its own pronounced way. I spent my youth in the company of creaking frogs in spring. My father turned over the rich earth for our summer garden. Each fall the crows congregated by the hundreds in the bare silhouette of the tallest tree. Owls called us into the woods on blue snowy nights in deepest winter. Each season completes a cycle of change.
Circles connect us to our world and to each other. A pebble dropped into a pond sends circles rippling across the placid surface. It is the imagery behind the ripple effect, a fact of exponentiality that can change the world and change our hearts.
Circles are the swollen bellies of my sisters on the eve of giving birth. Trees 1,000 years old tell their stories by their rings. We sit around campfires just as we have for millennia and tell our own stories. We've honed our skills. The best stories begin with character's we know becoming character's we love, but with the weak now strong, the cowardly now courageous, and the ignorant now wise.
The story ends where it began, the circle now complete.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
The Importance of Restlessness and Jagged Edges
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, June 6, 2005.
I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do. I believe, in short, that we are equally beholden to heart and mind, and that those who have particularly passionate temperaments and questioning minds leave the world a different place for their having been there. It is important to value intellect and discipline, of course, but it is also important to recognize the power of irrationality, enthusiasm and vast energy. Intensity has its costs, of course -- in pain, in hastily and poorly reckoned plans, in impetuousness -- but it has its advantages as well.
Like millions of Americans, I was dealt a hand of intense emotions and volatile moods. I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease. And, yet, from it I have come to see how important a certain restlessness and discontent can be in one's life; how important the jagged edges and pain can be in determining the course and force of one's life.
I have often longed for peace and tranquility -- looked into the lives of others and envied a kind of calmness -- and yet I don't know if this tranquility is what I truly would have wished for myself. One is, after all, only really acquainted with one's own temperament and way of going through life. It is best to acknowledge this, to accept it and to admire the diversity of temperaments Nature has dealt us.
Exuberance and delight, tempered by deep depressions, have been lasting teachers. An intense temperament has convinced me to teach not only from books but from what I have learned from experience. So I try to impress upon young doctors and graduate students that tumultuousness, if coupled to discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing. That unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one's darker side and one's darker energies. And, above all, that one should learn from turmoil and pain, share one's joy with those less joyful and encourage passion when it seems likely to promote the common good.
Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.
Kay Redfield Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She has written about her own battle with manic-depression in the best selling books, “An Unquiet Mind” and “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.” She was honored with a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2001.
_________________
As heard on NPR's Morning Edition, June 6, 2005.
I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do. I believe, in short, that we are equally beholden to heart and mind, and that those who have particularly passionate temperaments and questioning minds leave the world a different place for their having been there. It is important to value intellect and discipline, of course, but it is also important to recognize the power of irrationality, enthusiasm and vast energy. Intensity has its costs, of course -- in pain, in hastily and poorly reckoned plans, in impetuousness -- but it has its advantages as well.
Like millions of Americans, I was dealt a hand of intense emotions and volatile moods. I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease. And, yet, from it I have come to see how important a certain restlessness and discontent can be in one's life; how important the jagged edges and pain can be in determining the course and force of one's life.
I have often longed for peace and tranquility -- looked into the lives of others and envied a kind of calmness -- and yet I don't know if this tranquility is what I truly would have wished for myself. One is, after all, only really acquainted with one's own temperament and way of going through life. It is best to acknowledge this, to accept it and to admire the diversity of temperaments Nature has dealt us.
Exuberance and delight, tempered by deep depressions, have been lasting teachers. An intense temperament has convinced me to teach not only from books but from what I have learned from experience. So I try to impress upon young doctors and graduate students that tumultuousness, if coupled to discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing. That unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one's darker side and one's darker energies. And, above all, that one should learn from turmoil and pain, share one's joy with those less joyful and encourage passion when it seems likely to promote the common good.
Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.
Kay Redfield Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She has written about her own battle with manic-depression in the best selling books, “An Unquiet Mind” and “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide.” She was honored with a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2001.
_________________
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Contributor: Stace
Location: Federal Heights, CO
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
I believe that creativity is vital to the soul.
I don't remember which one I saw first. It was either Bradbury's R is for Rocket or Heinlein's Red Planet, but the sequence doesn't really matter. What matters is that I took them both home from the public library and read them, sitting on my brown beanbag throne, flanked by tidy bookshelves like Centurion guards. In that space I discovered the alternate worlds of "A Sound of Thunder", "The Foghorn" and Willis, the Martian roundhead, and I was hooked on science fiction.
Later, I stalked the arid dunes of Arrakis with blue-eyed Paul Atreides and cried when I learned that Ellison's Jeffty was still five, and had never lost his Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Science fiction crossed over into fantasy and I found myself lost in Mordor with Frodo and Sam, then combing the treasure room of Atuan with Ged, seeking to restore the ring of Erreth-Akbe, and with it, worldly balance. And Thomas Covenant, unwilling tutor that he was, reminded me that the real world was of prime importance, and that I was lucky to be in it.
When Dungeons and Dragons came along in the late 1970s, my friends and I were naturally hooked, and spent every Sunday afternoon in the library's basement conference room, crawling through each other's imaginations, solving puzzles and laughing at our own absurdity, bundles of creativity wrapped in cloaks of innocence.
Now, I'm nearing middle age. The marathon D&D sessions have morphed into occasional afternoon strategy games with the same lifelong friends. Books (when they aren't in boxes) don't come off the shelves nearly enough, and I seem to need more sleep than I ever did when I was younger. But the sparks of creativity and imagination that burst into life with Bradbury's Rocket still smolder. Occasionally one will ignite and float skyward with the completion of a poem or short story. A flurry might crackle and spit into being while I play guitar with my band. More sparks glow when I read a sonnet to the woman I love, asking her to marry me beside a high country lake.
I believe that creativity is vital to the soul. It connects us to others in ways we don't expect or understand. It builds self-confidence and teaches us to find solutions to problems no one can predict. It helps us to explore other worlds, mindsets, and cultural ideas. And in the visual and musical arts, creativity helps us express that which has no words.
If not for the sparks of wonder that I found in the Bradburys and Heinleins of the world, I might never have known what it's like to feel the joys of creativity and imagination. I might have never learned to play guitar, or to appreciate the poetry of Gerard Manly Hopkins. I might have never gazed at the Milky Way above timberline and wondered who else was Out There.
And, worst of all, I might never have known the importance of Captain Midnight Decoder Rings.
Location: Federal Heights, CO
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
I believe that creativity is vital to the soul.
I don't remember which one I saw first. It was either Bradbury's R is for Rocket or Heinlein's Red Planet, but the sequence doesn't really matter. What matters is that I took them both home from the public library and read them, sitting on my brown beanbag throne, flanked by tidy bookshelves like Centurion guards. In that space I discovered the alternate worlds of "A Sound of Thunder", "The Foghorn" and Willis, the Martian roundhead, and I was hooked on science fiction.
Later, I stalked the arid dunes of Arrakis with blue-eyed Paul Atreides and cried when I learned that Ellison's Jeffty was still five, and had never lost his Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Science fiction crossed over into fantasy and I found myself lost in Mordor with Frodo and Sam, then combing the treasure room of Atuan with Ged, seeking to restore the ring of Erreth-Akbe, and with it, worldly balance. And Thomas Covenant, unwilling tutor that he was, reminded me that the real world was of prime importance, and that I was lucky to be in it.
When Dungeons and Dragons came along in the late 1970s, my friends and I were naturally hooked, and spent every Sunday afternoon in the library's basement conference room, crawling through each other's imaginations, solving puzzles and laughing at our own absurdity, bundles of creativity wrapped in cloaks of innocence.
Now, I'm nearing middle age. The marathon D&D sessions have morphed into occasional afternoon strategy games with the same lifelong friends. Books (when they aren't in boxes) don't come off the shelves nearly enough, and I seem to need more sleep than I ever did when I was younger. But the sparks of creativity and imagination that burst into life with Bradbury's Rocket still smolder. Occasionally one will ignite and float skyward with the completion of a poem or short story. A flurry might crackle and spit into being while I play guitar with my band. More sparks glow when I read a sonnet to the woman I love, asking her to marry me beside a high country lake.
I believe that creativity is vital to the soul. It connects us to others in ways we don't expect or understand. It builds self-confidence and teaches us to find solutions to problems no one can predict. It helps us to explore other worlds, mindsets, and cultural ideas. And in the visual and musical arts, creativity helps us express that which has no words.
If not for the sparks of wonder that I found in the Bradburys and Heinleins of the world, I might never have known what it's like to feel the joys of creativity and imagination. I might have never learned to play guitar, or to appreciate the poetry of Gerard Manly Hopkins. I might have never gazed at the Milky Way above timberline and wondered who else was Out There.
And, worst of all, I might never have known the importance of Captain Midnight Decoder Rings.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Contributor: Elizabeth
Location: San Francisco, CA
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
460 words
Ever since a forty-foot humpbacked whale made a wrong turn into San Francisco Bay, I haven't felt so bad about my own rotten sense of direction. He hugged the banks of the Sacramento River for close to a month before stopping in the delta, near some farmer's vegetable patch.
The local news media embraced the whale. They named him Humphrey. The marine mammal experts banged on metal pipes underwater and blasted recordings of whale songs at him to try and turn him around. At some point, the noise got so bad he pounded his tail flukes against the water, demanding some quiet.
I like that in a whale.
As soon as he was ready, he made a U-turn in the river and headed back downstream, to the bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Like Humphrey, I can get lost anywhere -- in my own neighborhood, along one of my set routes, in a parking garage. That's the beauty of it, really. When I was six, I often got lost on the mile-long walk to school. It wasn't a complicated route -- up Abbott, down Simmons hill, then left along the lake to the elementary school. But there was so much to look at. Leaves were changing and being burned, which could be magical in the mountains of northwestern New Jersey, and there was the dead raccoon in the drainage ditch whose progress I was tracking-- perfect in its beauty the first day, then duller each subsequent day, until finally it was squirming with white maggots.
I must have turned too soon, zigged when I should have zagged, or possibly I didn't zig soon enough, or I zigged too late, because suddenly I looked up at an unfamiliar row of houses.
Everyone else in my life sees my arrival at this moment as my problem. They suggest all the predictable cures -- a GPS system, a book or workshop on improving my navigational skills. But I've learned over the years that course correction is a trivial matter. Even as a six-year-old, I knew that all I had to do was to look for a red Helping Hand sign in somebody's window. There was always someone in the world who would help me get back on track.
What my friends fail to see in my lostness are its gifts. Getting lost is a prelude to wonder. There are things to witness, miracles in the process of being born. Time is splitting open, and I'm being invited to pay attention.
I can always ring a doorbell, find a map, or ask a sympathetic-looking stranger for directions.
But the truth is, there are worse things than getting lost. And that's why I believe my job in this life is not to navigate, but to notice.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
460 words
Ever since a forty-foot humpbacked whale made a wrong turn into San Francisco Bay, I haven't felt so bad about my own rotten sense of direction. He hugged the banks of the Sacramento River for close to a month before stopping in the delta, near some farmer's vegetable patch.
The local news media embraced the whale. They named him Humphrey. The marine mammal experts banged on metal pipes underwater and blasted recordings of whale songs at him to try and turn him around. At some point, the noise got so bad he pounded his tail flukes against the water, demanding some quiet.
I like that in a whale.
As soon as he was ready, he made a U-turn in the river and headed back downstream, to the bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Like Humphrey, I can get lost anywhere -- in my own neighborhood, along one of my set routes, in a parking garage. That's the beauty of it, really. When I was six, I often got lost on the mile-long walk to school. It wasn't a complicated route -- up Abbott, down Simmons hill, then left along the lake to the elementary school. But there was so much to look at. Leaves were changing and being burned, which could be magical in the mountains of northwestern New Jersey, and there was the dead raccoon in the drainage ditch whose progress I was tracking-- perfect in its beauty the first day, then duller each subsequent day, until finally it was squirming with white maggots.
I must have turned too soon, zigged when I should have zagged, or possibly I didn't zig soon enough, or I zigged too late, because suddenly I looked up at an unfamiliar row of houses.
Everyone else in my life sees my arrival at this moment as my problem. They suggest all the predictable cures -- a GPS system, a book or workshop on improving my navigational skills. But I've learned over the years that course correction is a trivial matter. Even as a six-year-old, I knew that all I had to do was to look for a red Helping Hand sign in somebody's window. There was always someone in the world who would help me get back on track.
What my friends fail to see in my lostness are its gifts. Getting lost is a prelude to wonder. There are things to witness, miracles in the process of being born. Time is splitting open, and I'm being invited to pay attention.
I can always ring a doorbell, find a map, or ask a sympathetic-looking stranger for directions.
But the truth is, there are worse things than getting lost. And that's why I believe my job in this life is not to navigate, but to notice.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude
Contributor: Sarah Adams
Location: Port Orchard, WA
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude
As heard on NPR's All Things Considered, May 16, 2005.
If I have one operating philosophy about life it is this: "Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it's good luck." Four principles guide the pizza dude philosophy.
Principle 1: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in humility and forgiveness. I let him cut me off in traffic, let him safely hit the exit ramp from the left lane, let him forget to use his blinker without extending any of my digits out the window or towards my horn because there should be one moment in my harried life when a car may encroach or cut off or pass and I let it go. Sometimes when I have become so certain of my ownership of my lane, daring anyone to challenge me, the pizza dude speeds by me in his rusted Chevette. His pizza light atop his car glowing like a beacon reminds me to check myself as I flow through the world. After all, the dude is delivering pizza to young and old, families and singletons, gays and straights, blacks, whites and browns, rich and poor, vegetarians and meat lovers alike. As he journeys, I give safe passage, practice restraint, show courtesy, and contain my anger.
Principle 2: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in empathy. Let's face it: We've all taken jobs just to have a job because some money is better than none. I've held an assortment of these jobs and was grateful for the paycheck that meant I didn't have to share my Cheerios with my cats. In the big pizza wheel of life, sometimes you're the hot bubbly cheese and sometimes you're the burnt crust. It's good to remember the fickle spinning of that wheel.
Principle 3: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in honor and it reminds me to honor honest work. Let me tell you something about these dudes: They never took over a company and, as CEO, artificially inflated the value of the stock and cashed out their own shares, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy, resulting in 20,000 people losing their jobs while the CEO builds a home the size of a luxury hotel. Rather, the dudes sleep the sleep of the just.
Principle 4: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in equality. My measurement as a human being, my worth, is the pride I take in performing my job -- any job -- and the respect with which I treat others. I am the equal of the world not because of the car I drive, the size of the TV I own, the weight I can bench press, or the calculus equations I can solve. I am the equal to all I meet because of the kindness in my heart. And it all starts here -- with the pizza delivery dude.
Tip him well, friends and brethren, for that which you bestow freely and willingly will bring you all the happy luck that a grateful universe knows how to return.
Sarah Adams has held a number of jobs in her life, including telemarketer, factory worker, hotel clerk and flower shop cashier, but she has never delivered pizzas. Born in Connecticut and raised in Wisconsin, Adams now lives in Washington where she is an English Professor at Olympic Community College.
Location: Port Orchard, WA
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude
As heard on NPR's All Things Considered, May 16, 2005.
If I have one operating philosophy about life it is this: "Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it's good luck." Four principles guide the pizza dude philosophy.
Principle 1: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in humility and forgiveness. I let him cut me off in traffic, let him safely hit the exit ramp from the left lane, let him forget to use his blinker without extending any of my digits out the window or towards my horn because there should be one moment in my harried life when a car may encroach or cut off or pass and I let it go. Sometimes when I have become so certain of my ownership of my lane, daring anyone to challenge me, the pizza dude speeds by me in his rusted Chevette. His pizza light atop his car glowing like a beacon reminds me to check myself as I flow through the world. After all, the dude is delivering pizza to young and old, families and singletons, gays and straights, blacks, whites and browns, rich and poor, vegetarians and meat lovers alike. As he journeys, I give safe passage, practice restraint, show courtesy, and contain my anger.
Principle 2: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in empathy. Let's face it: We've all taken jobs just to have a job because some money is better than none. I've held an assortment of these jobs and was grateful for the paycheck that meant I didn't have to share my Cheerios with my cats. In the big pizza wheel of life, sometimes you're the hot bubbly cheese and sometimes you're the burnt crust. It's good to remember the fickle spinning of that wheel.
Principle 3: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in honor and it reminds me to honor honest work. Let me tell you something about these dudes: They never took over a company and, as CEO, artificially inflated the value of the stock and cashed out their own shares, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy, resulting in 20,000 people losing their jobs while the CEO builds a home the size of a luxury hotel. Rather, the dudes sleep the sleep of the just.
Principle 4: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in equality. My measurement as a human being, my worth, is the pride I take in performing my job -- any job -- and the respect with which I treat others. I am the equal of the world not because of the car I drive, the size of the TV I own, the weight I can bench press, or the calculus equations I can solve. I am the equal to all I meet because of the kindness in my heart. And it all starts here -- with the pizza delivery dude.
Tip him well, friends and brethren, for that which you bestow freely and willingly will bring you all the happy luck that a grateful universe knows how to return.
Sarah Adams has held a number of jobs in her life, including telemarketer, factory worker, hotel clerk and flower shop cashier, but she has never delivered pizzas. Born in Connecticut and raised in Wisconsin, Adams now lives in Washington where she is an English Professor at Olympic Community College.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Our Noble, Essential Decency
Robert Heinlein - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Broadcast during the 1950s
I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.
Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I’m in trouble, I’ll go to him. My next door neighbor’s a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.
I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say “I’m hungry,” and you’ll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, “The heck with you, I’ve got mine,” there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, “Sure pal, sit down.” I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, “Climb in Mack. How far you going?”
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.
I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.
I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman, there are hundreds of politicians—low paid or not paid at all—doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the Thirteen Colonies.
I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in—I am proud to belong to—the United States. Despite shortcomings—from lynchings, to bad faith in high places—our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.
And finally, I believe in my whole race—yellow, white, black, red, brown—in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth—that we always make it just for the skin of our teeth—but that we will always make it, survive, endure.
I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.
Robert Heinlein - Colorado Springs, Colorado
Broadcast during the 1950s
I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.
Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I’m in trouble, I’ll go to him. My next door neighbor’s a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.
I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say “I’m hungry,” and you’ll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, “The heck with you, I’ve got mine,” there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, “Sure pal, sit down.” I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, “Climb in Mack. How far you going?”
I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.
I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.
I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman, there are hundreds of politicians—low paid or not paid at all—doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the Thirteen Colonies.
I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in—I am proud to belong to—the United States. Despite shortcomings—from lynchings, to bad faith in high places—our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.
And finally, I believe in my whole race—yellow, white, black, red, brown—in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth—that we always make it just for the skin of our teeth—but that we will always make it, survive, endure.
I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
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Savor Dam
- Will Be Herd!
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Thank you for that latest post, Lorin. I have always had a soft spot for Robert Heinlein. He was way to the right of me politically and some of his later books fall into the "what was he (or his wife) thinking?" category, but he was spot-on when he wrote that one.
Not all of what he says there is still entirely true of us, and we are poorer for that, but much is still as he stated. May it continue to be so!
Not all of what he says there is still entirely true of us, and we are poorer for that, but much is still as he stated. May it continue to be so!
first of all, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you responded to this at all. I was beginning to feel a little silly putting them up but I enjoy them so much, I just wanted to share them.Savor Dam wrote:Thank you for that latest post, Lorin. I have always had a soft spot for Robert Heinlein. He was way to the right of me politically and some of his later books fall into the "what was he (or his wife) thinking?" category, but he was spot-on when he wrote that one.
Not all of what he says there is still entirely true of us, and we are poorer for that, but much is still as he stated. May it continue to be so!
Some of the older essays are interesting when taken into perspective of the year they were written. I agree, a lot is obsolete in this day and age, but I am choosing to believe there are still places in this world where it just may be possible.
I like this;
I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
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aliantha
- blueberries on steroids
- Posts: 17865
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
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I like it, too. (And I like it even better that he didn't mention Lazarus Long once in the whole piece. 
)
)
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
https://www.hearth-myth.com/
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Fist and Faith
- Magister Vitae
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Here's Black Elk's take on circles:Contributor: Jessie
Location: Rochester Hills, MI
Country: United States of America
Series: Contemporary
The Circle Is Now Complete
You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round ... and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
And Lazarus Long too. And I never really considered Heinlein to be "right" in his thinking...a touch facist sometimes, but nobody who advocates anarchy can be really conservative, can they?I Believe in Loss
Erika - West Hartford, Connecticut
Entered on October 6, 2005
“I believe in loss” may be a strange and offensive thing to say right now. But I will repeat myself. I believe in loss. Its brutal persistence refines us. It makes us who we are.
Even apart from cataclysmic disaster, life is pretty much all loss all the time. Watching a child move from infancy to independence. Closing the door on an empty house for the last time after the moving truck is packed. The shock of losing a job. Ending a marriage. The randomness of disease. Giving up on a cherished dream. At the right, or more prescisely, the wrong time any one of these losses can shatter us. The biblical story of Job is interesting to me not in its drama: Job–like a hurricane victim–lost everything at once. I love the story because in time all those horrible things that happened to him will happen to of us. Stuff doesn’t last. Children grow up. The body decays.
Loss is assured, but what we do with it isn’t. Do we “curse God and die” as Job’s wife–not a model of support– advised? His so-called friends were sure he had brought this suffering upon himself. Do we rage, as Dylan Thomas implores, against the dying of the light?
I choose none of these.
Fifteen years ago I lost my infant nephew. Charlie lived one short year with a degenerative muscle disease and then left us. On the hot New Mexico night I arrived at my brother’s house for funeral preparations I saw my sister-in-law, Charlie’s mom, lying on her back in their driveway looking up at the stars. She was surrounded by neighborhood children and friendly dogs. She talked softly to the kids, pointing out some constellations, scratching the dogs behind the ears. I looked on in awe. How can this be I asked myself? Even in the presence of boundless grief there was beauty: the gentleness of this bereaved mother, the kids taking notice of the night sky, the happy gregarious dogs, the stars a reflection of light that itself had died eons ago.
I believe in loss because it takes me, often kicking and screaming, into the realm of the infinite. The miracle of a happy moment. The uniqueness of the story each human leaves behind him. The relationships with loved ones that extend beyond the grave. The endless cycle of the natural world. The human imagination. What some people call God.
So we carry our losses, catastrophic and mundane around with us. And well we should. Each scar has a story to tell. But instead of isolating us, loss ought to connect us to each other. We’re all the walking wounded.
No, I’ll never shake loss. But knowing it is there, believing deeply in it makes what remains, and what can never be lost, precious and beloved. I believe in loss not because I want to but because I have to. It makes me better. It keeps me admiring the stars.
Erika - West Hartford, Connecticut
Entered on October 6, 2005
“I believe in loss” may be a strange and offensive thing to say right now. But I will repeat myself. I believe in loss. Its brutal persistence refines us. It makes us who we are.
Even apart from cataclysmic disaster, life is pretty much all loss all the time. Watching a child move from infancy to independence. Closing the door on an empty house for the last time after the moving truck is packed. The shock of losing a job. Ending a marriage. The randomness of disease. Giving up on a cherished dream. At the right, or more prescisely, the wrong time any one of these losses can shatter us. The biblical story of Job is interesting to me not in its drama: Job–like a hurricane victim–lost everything at once. I love the story because in time all those horrible things that happened to him will happen to of us. Stuff doesn’t last. Children grow up. The body decays.
Loss is assured, but what we do with it isn’t. Do we “curse God and die” as Job’s wife–not a model of support– advised? His so-called friends were sure he had brought this suffering upon himself. Do we rage, as Dylan Thomas implores, against the dying of the light?
I choose none of these.
Fifteen years ago I lost my infant nephew. Charlie lived one short year with a degenerative muscle disease and then left us. On the hot New Mexico night I arrived at my brother’s house for funeral preparations I saw my sister-in-law, Charlie’s mom, lying on her back in their driveway looking up at the stars. She was surrounded by neighborhood children and friendly dogs. She talked softly to the kids, pointing out some constellations, scratching the dogs behind the ears. I looked on in awe. How can this be I asked myself? Even in the presence of boundless grief there was beauty: the gentleness of this bereaved mother, the kids taking notice of the night sky, the happy gregarious dogs, the stars a reflection of light that itself had died eons ago.
I believe in loss because it takes me, often kicking and screaming, into the realm of the infinite. The miracle of a happy moment. The uniqueness of the story each human leaves behind him. The relationships with loved ones that extend beyond the grave. The endless cycle of the natural world. The human imagination. What some people call God.
So we carry our losses, catastrophic and mundane around with us. And well we should. Each scar has a story to tell. But instead of isolating us, loss ought to connect us to each other. We’re all the walking wounded.
No, I’ll never shake loss. But knowing it is there, believing deeply in it makes what remains, and what can never be lost, precious and beloved. I believe in loss not because I want to but because I have to. It makes me better. It keeps me admiring the stars.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
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aliantha
- blueberries on steroids
- Posts: 17865
- Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2002 7:50 pm
- Location: NOT opening up a restaurant in Santa Fe
Yup, good stuff, lorin. Thanks. 
EZ Board Survivor
"Dreaming isn't good for you unless you do the things it tells you to." -- Three Dog Night (via the GI)
https://www.hearth-myth.com/
I Believe in Other Words
thisibelieve.org/essay/13974/
Ashur - Atlanta, Georgia
Entered on May 24, 2006
I Believe in Other Words
Bindolway. Larmo. Trimunly. Fidge.
If these words don’t mean anything to you, there is a good reason for that. Until about a minute ago they didn’t exist. The particular combinations of letters in those four words are entirely new to mankind, at least as far as we know. But, from this point on, they are real words because I say so. If Orwell and Heller can do it, then so can I.
Bindolway n. An intended shortcut or bypass that increases wait or travel time rather than decreases it.
e.g. “Turning onto E.Morningside Drive to get to Ponce de Leon Avenue ended up being a bindolway rather than a shortcut.”
Larmo n. A state of despondency.
e.g. “I suspect the reason Joel declined my invitation to the party is because he has been going through a bit of larmo lately.”
Trimulny adv. With the fewest resources possible
e.g. “We managed to build the house trimunly, only to find it collapsed the next morning.”
Fidge v. To cause maximum damage with the least effort or likelihood
e.g. “I didn’t mean to fidge his car, but who knew a penny dropped between the seats could slip into the transmission?”
There, now there are four more words in the world. Now I know some of you might groan and ask, “Why do we need more words? Aren’t there enough?” The answer to this question is no. I believe that the expression of human thought and emotion is limited by language. Even if you speak every language in the world, there will still be some things you “can’t put into words.”
That’s why I think there is a new word for every situation. But for some reason there is a rule against making up words to express new ideas. I know when I do it, people think I’m crazy. Well, maybe I am crazy, but I just don’t think “gloomy” was the way I really felt when I told my friend I felt “Monraic”. You see, I’ve acquired the rare skill of transforming my thoughts directly into words, bypassing the censoring filter we call language. Now, I know this sounds insane because the entire point of communicating is expressing yourself so that others can understand you, but maybe we could just leave a little more to interpretation.
It’s like the difference between a road sign and a painting. Hopefully, a road sign will clearly and concisely deliver its message leaving as little room for error in translation as possible. A painting, on the other hand, leaves its message entirely to the eye of the beholder. It becomes its own message. So why is it that language has become a road sign instead of a painting? Sure you can make the road sign attractive and elaborate, and you can probably make it say everything that is essential in day to day life. But where is the mystery? Where is the romance (no pun intended), Where, I find myself asking, is the magic?
The magic, I believe, is in the Fidge.
Ashur - Atlanta, Georgia
Entered on May 24, 2006
I Believe in Other Words
Bindolway. Larmo. Trimunly. Fidge.
If these words don’t mean anything to you, there is a good reason for that. Until about a minute ago they didn’t exist. The particular combinations of letters in those four words are entirely new to mankind, at least as far as we know. But, from this point on, they are real words because I say so. If Orwell and Heller can do it, then so can I.
Bindolway n. An intended shortcut or bypass that increases wait or travel time rather than decreases it.
e.g. “Turning onto E.Morningside Drive to get to Ponce de Leon Avenue ended up being a bindolway rather than a shortcut.”
Larmo n. A state of despondency.
e.g. “I suspect the reason Joel declined my invitation to the party is because he has been going through a bit of larmo lately.”
Trimulny adv. With the fewest resources possible
e.g. “We managed to build the house trimunly, only to find it collapsed the next morning.”
Fidge v. To cause maximum damage with the least effort or likelihood
e.g. “I didn’t mean to fidge his car, but who knew a penny dropped between the seats could slip into the transmission?”
There, now there are four more words in the world. Now I know some of you might groan and ask, “Why do we need more words? Aren’t there enough?” The answer to this question is no. I believe that the expression of human thought and emotion is limited by language. Even if you speak every language in the world, there will still be some things you “can’t put into words.”
That’s why I think there is a new word for every situation. But for some reason there is a rule against making up words to express new ideas. I know when I do it, people think I’m crazy. Well, maybe I am crazy, but I just don’t think “gloomy” was the way I really felt when I told my friend I felt “Monraic”. You see, I’ve acquired the rare skill of transforming my thoughts directly into words, bypassing the censoring filter we call language. Now, I know this sounds insane because the entire point of communicating is expressing yourself so that others can understand you, but maybe we could just leave a little more to interpretation.
It’s like the difference between a road sign and a painting. Hopefully, a road sign will clearly and concisely deliver its message leaving as little room for error in translation as possible. A painting, on the other hand, leaves its message entirely to the eye of the beholder. It becomes its own message. So why is it that language has become a road sign instead of a painting? Sure you can make the road sign attractive and elaborate, and you can probably make it say everything that is essential in day to day life. But where is the mystery? Where is the romance (no pun intended), Where, I find myself asking, is the magic?
The magic, I believe, is in the Fidge.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.
Testing The Limits of What I Know and What I Feel
John Updike - Beverly Farms, Massachusetts
April 18, 2005
A person believes various things at various times, even on the same day. At the age of 73, I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. The special value of these indirect methods of communication — as opposed to the value of factual reporting and analysis — is one of precision. Oddly enough, the story or poem brings us closer to the actual texture and intricacy of experience.
In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity. I find in my own writing that only fiction — and rarely, a poem — fully tests me to the kind of limits of what I know and what I feel. In composing even such a frank and simple account as this profession of belief, I must fight against the sensation that I am simplifying and exploiting my own voice.
I also believe, instinctively, if not very cogently, in the American political experiment, which I take to be, at bottom, a matter of trusting the citizens to know their own minds and best interests. “To govern with the consent of the governed”: this spells the ideal. And though the implementation will inevitably be approximate and debatable, and though totalitarianism or technocratic government can obtain some swift successes, in the end, only a democracy can enlist a people’s energies on a sustained and renewable basis. To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures — if not happiness — its hopeful pursuit.
Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds. The power of materialist science to explain everything — from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms and their sub-microscopic components — seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind. On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires and — may we even say — illusions, composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms, attempts to address, organize and placate these. I believe, then, that religious faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has been for me.
John Updike - Beverly Farms, Massachusetts
April 18, 2005
A person believes various things at various times, even on the same day. At the age of 73, I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. The special value of these indirect methods of communication — as opposed to the value of factual reporting and analysis — is one of precision. Oddly enough, the story or poem brings us closer to the actual texture and intricacy of experience.
In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity. I find in my own writing that only fiction — and rarely, a poem — fully tests me to the kind of limits of what I know and what I feel. In composing even such a frank and simple account as this profession of belief, I must fight against the sensation that I am simplifying and exploiting my own voice.
I also believe, instinctively, if not very cogently, in the American political experiment, which I take to be, at bottom, a matter of trusting the citizens to know their own minds and best interests. “To govern with the consent of the governed”: this spells the ideal. And though the implementation will inevitably be approximate and debatable, and though totalitarianism or technocratic government can obtain some swift successes, in the end, only a democracy can enlist a people’s energies on a sustained and renewable basis. To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures — if not happiness — its hopeful pursuit.
Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds. The power of materialist science to explain everything — from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms and their sub-microscopic components — seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind. On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires and — may we even say — illusions, composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms, attempts to address, organize and placate these. I believe, then, that religious faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has been for me.
The loudest truth I ever heard was the softest sound.