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Showing posts from September 22, 2019

Make This Promise To Yourself

I’ve got another secret to share. I have to write it down, because I don’t know if I will get the chance to speak it in the place where it needs to be said. I think it’s applicable to all kinds of situations, and I hope you will agree. You had better sit down. I refuse to be responsible for managing another person’s emotions. Therefore, I make a conscious choice today to let go of the, “If only...” paralysis of the past couple of weeks. I was me. I authentically gave myself, and that’s all there is to do.

The Unsettling Duality Of Being Human

"That charming man..." said Rhoda Henry. The truth about Wolf Stoller--the banker-extortionist, "Goering's man for extorting the Jews" in Victor Henry's memorable phrase--was becoming clear to her. Of course, the presence of Nazis, Communists, or other monsters is unsettling, because they existed and exist as people, and not, even after all this time, as symbols or pictures of evil. We owe the author of these stories, Herman Wouk, and all who faithfully hold up a mirror to us, a word of thanks. Thanks for--among other things--for letting us remain unsettled. What a lot of the "cancel culture" misses is that we're all complicated. Sometimes, great virtue and vice co-exist in the same person. That battle exists in me. One of our huge problems in society is that we're still moralists; indeed, we're as zealous as ever. But now, as a group, we do not forgive. There is no mercy in the way we talk to each other. I get it, I'm a dinosau