Saturday, December 26, 2009

Snowflake Analogy


At a very young age we all learn that no two snowflakes are alike. They look exactly the same from a distance, but up close they are individually unique. Of all of the millions of snowflakes piled up in my yard right now, no two are exactly the same.


Kind of like people. No two are exactly the same. Even siblings raised in the same household with similar DNA and identical parents can be amazingly different philosophically.


Which makes me wonder if we're overvaluing the concept of diversity and making erroneous assumptions about masses of people when individuals are inherently diverse.


If I were to be placed in a room full of middle aged white women, the main things we would have in common would be our human experiences -- the very things we would have in common with people of any other race or gender. My philosophical twin, if one exists, would not necessarily be in that group. He could be male and black, or she could be elderly and Asian.


And why do I care about this subject? Because I believe that efforts to orchestrate diversity artificially do more to divide us than to unite us, and my inner cynic sometimes wonders if that could be intentional. "United we stand, divided we fall." If we allow ourselves to be divided into groups (based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, religious affiliation, or any other factors), we are more easily conquered.



Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Probably not an original thought...

It's probably not an original thought, but it felt like one when it occurred to me about midnight last night after I'd turned off the light to go to sleep. I sat up in bed, turned on the light again, and wrote this on a 4x6 card:

The good news and the bad news are the same news: you can have just about anything you want in life if you're willing to work for it.


Now as I sit here thinking about this midnight revelation, it occurs to me that we receive many of the desirable things in life without working for them: our five senses, our health, bright warm sunshine, breathtakingly beautiful scenery, family...They are gifts from a loving Father in Heaven.

He also gives us the freedom to pursue happiness - that's where work comes in. If we're lucky, the work involved is rewarding. If we're really lucky, it's even pleasurable.

Which reminds me of one of my favorite all-time quotes:

Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that the power of work is a blessing, that love of work is success. -- David O. McKay

Monday, December 7, 2009

Word of the Day: Quixotic

QUIXOTIC -- (like Don Quixote) extravagantly chivalrous and romantic; impractical; visionary; imaginary; foolish in the pursuit of unreachable ideals

First written reference dates back to 1688, though the book, Don Quixote, dates back to 1605.

Some examples of how to use 'quixotic' in a sentence (this is hard!):

As a young college student, she was mesmerized by the poet's quixotic world view.

After forfeiting her Miss America crown, the beauty queen realized world peace was probably quixotic at best. She decided to try for inner peace instead.