two gifts....................

 

We do not think of it every day, but we never forget it:  the beloved shall grow old, or ill, and be taken away finally.  No matter how ferociously we fight, how tenderly we love, how bitterly we argue, how pervasively we berate the universe, how cunningly we hide, this is what shall happen.  In the wide circles of timelessness, everything material and temporal will fail, including the manifestations of the beloved.  In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to ask questions.  Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

-Mary Oliver, Upstream:  Selected Essays

Questions matter......................

 

We knew intuitively that we were in disagreement on the answers, yet we soon found out that we asked the same questions.  And both Kraemer and I knew even as very young men that the questions matter.  So we used each other to hear ourselves talk and to force ourselves into defining ourselves.  Kraemer contributed more than anyone else to making me understand myself as a political maverick and forcing me to realize where my own concerns lay, precisely because they were not the same as his.  I, in turn, probably did the same service for him.  Our relationship was purely intellectual, though we respected each other and surely did not dislike each other.  But I don't think we would ever have asked: "What do you feel?"  The question was always: "And what do you think?"

-Peter F. Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander: Memoirs, from his essay, The Man Who Invented Kissinger

Questions not asked..............

 

An interesting study on the Labor Force in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was published last month.   It was noted that, in the past five years, there was an out-migration, with 182,000 "net domestic residents" leaving the Commonwealth.  Judging from the study, this is a problem.

As far as I can tell, they never asked the question: why did they leave?  It's a puzzle.

via

They'd say you're a good man....................

 

Then again . . . I can’t help but try to resurrect all the ancestors — the ancients of days — who I’m sure would have birthed the same or similar thoughts bearing on the time left to them, and the speed with which life slipped through their fingers.

And I’d wonder what they’d say to me . . . ?

-Julian Summerhayes, from here

the other side......................

 

When things don't go well it's easy to wonder, "Why me?" It's easy to point fingers. It's easy to wallow in frustration or defeat.

But it is also easy to ask, "What is this teaching me?"

You can't remove the frustrations from life, but you can always try to come out a little wiser on the other side.

-James Clear, from this edition

The art is in the question............?

 

Computers are useless; they can only give you answers.

-attributed to Pablo Picasso (perhaps modified a bit)

asking......................

 

     Asking leads to answers, and answers lead to more questions.  From not knowing, we get to knowing, and eventually to the truth.  This is why we must understand that there is no such thing as a dumb question.  In fact, a person becomes smart only by asking questions.  The more impertinent and relentless the better.

-Ryan Holiday, Wisdom Takes Work

A legal immigrant......................

...........has many questions and a few observations:

 Here’s a common-sense proposition: Since we can’t invite the whole world inside our borders, let’s consider the matter as one of optimal limits. Once the need to restrain immigration is acknowledged, the next step should be to seek consensus on the practicalities—the maximum number the country can absorb each year, the skills we most urgently need to import, and, of course, the most transparent and fair process for those arriving, as I once did, on the shores of this fortunate land.

In other words, our attention must turn fully to legality, not illegality. That should be the content of the politics of immigration: devising rules and procedures for legal entry that are intuitive to Americans as well as to potential migrants. The current system, we should accept, is a soul-devouring labyrinth that deserves to be demolished in its entirety.

-Martin Gurri

voids.................

 

Everyone in business wants to know, "What's new?"  But a better question for creating new market opportunities is to ask, "What's missing?"

     One of the major voids we see across demographics . . . is people's need and desire to make good friends, feel less isolated and lonely, and belong to something more meaningful.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable

Newsweek deliveres the opinion that..............

 

........America is getting the President we deserve.

You can read the essay yourself if you wish.  I will tell you that the following sentence made me stop and say, "What?":

When approximately half of adults in the U.S. lack literary proficiency, is it any surprise we elect leaders who speak in soundbites rather than solutions?

In 2025 almost half (actually, if you follow the link the number used is 54%) of the adults in the United States "lack literary proficiency"?   Can that possibly be true?

via

Don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer.....................

 I run into trouble when I ask myself why I’m doing things.

-Annie Mueller

Checking in with Will.......................

 

Toby.  Approach, Sir Andrew.  Not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes; and "Deliculo surgere," thou know'st.*

Andrew.  Nay, by my troth, I know not, but I know to be up late is to be up late,

Toby.  A false conclusion; I hate it as an unfilled can.  To be up after midnight, and to go to bed then, is early; so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes.  Does not our lives consist of the four elements?

Andrew.  Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

Toby.  Th' art a scholar!  Let us therefore eat and drink.  Marian I say, a stoup of wine!

-William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night,  Act II, Scene III

*Ed. Note:  Those of Shakespeare's time would have recognized Diluculo surgere saluberrimum est as "it is most beautiful to rise early.

A couple of bottles of wine and a few cigars......

 

..........................and we might make a dent in this.  Worth trying anyway.

A useful channel.....................

 ..................................for questions and answers.

Question answered....................

 Parents, teachers, coaches, and guidance counselors bombarded me with the same question: "What are you going to do with your life?"  I didn't even want to think about that when I was fourteen.  My teachers called me a daydreamer.  They would write comments on my report card like, "He seems to live in a fantasy world and prefers that to paying serious attention to serious subject matters that will prepare him for life."

     The life they were so hell-bent on preparing me for bored the living shit out of me.  It seemed way too serious.  I saw more meaning in the mysteries of the ocean and the planets than in theology or religion.  I was too busy figuring out ways to skip school, go diving, and get laid.  My heroes were not presidents, they were pirates.  Emerging from adolescence with a healthy "lack of respect for the proper authorities," and a head full of romanticism and hero worship, I was able to come up with an answer.

    Q. What are you going to do with your life?

    A. Live a pretty interesting one.

-Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Fifty

     

Seven questions to ask yourself....................

..............................when you don't know what you want.

via

A question not asked very often............

 Everyone remembers the children’s story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You know, this porridge is too hot, this one is too cold, this one is just right.

Well, pain kinda works in the same way. Too much pain will lead to trauma and helplessness. Too little pain will lead to entitlement and selfishness.

But just the right amount of pain and struggle: that’s what allows us to feel a sense of accomplishment and meaning in our lives, which then builds up our sense of autonomy and self-worth—the bedrock of a mentally healthy and happy person.

So, how do you define the Goldilocks Zone of Pain? How do you know how much pain is “just right?”

-Mark Manson, from here

But not all of us........................

. . . we have 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day from now until the end of this decade.

-from this Ben Carlson post, in which he offers answers to six significant questions about the economy

On questions and answers........

 To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

-Christopher Hitchens, from this Vanity Fair essay

No questions, no answers............

      To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being and does not rise to personality, he has failed to realize his life's meaning.  Fortunately, in her kindness and patience, Nature never puts the fatal question as to the meaning of their lives into the mouths of most people.  And where no one asks, no one need answer.

-Carl Gustav Jung, from his essay "The Development of Personality"