With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
May 19, 2006 - 1:50 a.m.
I submitted my grades today. I think I might have been a bit too generous but not overly so. I gave a lot of people the benefit of the doubt if they showed me at least once that they understood the material. The problem is that I averaged in attendance and the quizzes; those boosted most people’s averages a great deal. I only stretched it past that if they did very well on the final or their grade was brought down by the quizzes.
When I went to school today instead of wearing my usual dress shirt and pants I work a t-shirt, khakis and sandals. I always enjoy going to school in my everyday clothes.
I had all these great ideas of what to write about on the ride home. I actually remember at least one of them but the inspiration isn’t there. I can’t bring it to life. It must be too late. I’ll try again tomorrow.
I know the inspiration was that I’m still on my SMAF high. Me being me I want everyone to feel this way. I always want to share what I love. Will you share SMAF with me? Do yourself a favor and go next year.
I find myself listening to a lot of people talking politics, each of them trying to get everyone to feel the way that I do. The thing is even when I agree with the person I often hate listening to them proselytize. People seem to think that if they are strident and adamant and mock the opposing point of view that makes them seem like true believers. I find that it just makes me think that they don’t have good arguments in their favor. The people that really make a difference are those that preach gently. People that get you to like them. This is the basic stuff of Carnegie’s How to Make Friends and Influence People but is so hard to do in practice.
There are some people that I just automatically like and trust. There are a number of musicians that fit that bill that you are probably aware of, The Kennedys, SONiA, and the granddaddy of them all Pete Seeger. There gentle persuasion does more good than all the bombast of all the “true believers” that simply get cheers from those who already agree with them. In the long run those are the people that change the world.
Of course preconceived notions have a lot to do with it. I always think of Sonia as totally non-threatening. The thing is that there are a lot of people that will never get past her being a Jewish lesbian with dreadlocks. Someone else will have to convert them.
So now all the ideas are flooding back into my head and I have to get to sleep. Isn’t that just the way of the world? Lets keep this simple. Put yourself into the most positive frame of mind you can. That’s the entire assignment. It is how I’m feeling and getting you to understand that is always my goal.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile May 19, 2006
