Eric Baker...................

...............offers four paths to peak happiness:

 But in a field of study like psychology where things are often blurry, it seems fair to say there is one necessary condition for extreme happiness…

Connecting with people you love.

effects.........................

I have sought God in the meanings that have inspired people to live in such a way that their lives seem to point to something larger than themselves . . . It can be an affirmation, someone who gives you the confidence to be yourself.  It can be forgiveness, a way of saying, yes, you know and I know that it was wrong, but that was yesterday, and you have work to do today, and perhaps tomorrow will bring the chance to heal what you harmed.

      People with the Abrahamic monotheisms have always known that for most of us, most of the time, God, more infinite that the universe, older and younger than time, cannot be known directly.  He is known mainly through his effects, and of these the most important is his effect on human lives.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning

ground rules.................

 Here's a rule of life: you have to be there. You have to listen and laugh and argue and comfort the people around you in a multitude of exchanges where life's mystery means you may not know just which exchange was the most important.

-Michael Wade

discovery............................

 Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about.  It won't be obvious, and your job is to discover what it is.

-Kevin Kelly

types........................

      Two days now Matt Sabre had been marshal of Painted Rock.  Yet the job was not new to him, for he had been marshal before in other towns.  And this town was no different.  Even the faces were the same.  It was strange, he thought, how little difference there was in people.  When one traveled, got around to many towns, one soon realized there were just so many types, and one found them in every town.  Names were different, and expressions, but it was like many casts playing the same roles in a drama.  The parts remained the same, only the names of the cast had changed.

-Louis L'Amour, from his short story The Marshal of Painted Rock

Can I get an Amen.........................?

 It is our theory that the people own the government, not that the government should own the people.

-attributed to Calvin Coolidge

Dormant ties....................

 Dormant ties* are the neglected value in our networks, and givers have a distinctive edge over takers in unlocking this value.

-Adam Grant, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

*Dormant ties are people you used to see often or knew well but with whom you have fallen out of contact.

      It is indeed difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people.

-Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Incomparable.................

   more fun here

Aspirational....................

 

                   via

"Like people" rules.....................

1.  Learn to remember names.  Inefficiency at this point may indicate that your interest is not sufficiently outgoing.
2.  Be a comfortable person so there is no strain in being with you.  Be an old-shoe, old-hat kind of individual.
3.  Acquire the quality of relaxed easy-going so that things do not ruffle you.
4.  Don't be egotistical.  Guard against the impression that you know it all.
5.  Cultivate the quality of being interesting so people will get something of value from their association with you.
6.  Study to get the "scratchy" elements out of your personality, even those of which you may be unconscious.
7.  Sincerely attempt to heal, on an honest Christian basis, every misunderstanding you have had or now have.  Drain off your grievances.
8.  Practice liking people until you learn to do so genuinely.
9.  Never miss an opportunity to say a word of congratulation upon anyone's achievement, or express sympathy in sorrow or disappointment.
10.  Give spiritual strength to people, and they will give genuine affection to you.

-Lyndon Baines Johnson, as quoted by David J. Schwartz, in The Magic Of Thinking BIG

Martin Gurri on AOC...............

Worth reading, especially the obsession part.  He concludes:

 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a political celebrity for less than a year.  She may yet rise, in time, to spectacular heights, or plunge into the abyss and be forgotten.  No one can say at this point.  The only prediction I offer with confidence is that her performance, along the way, will be hugely entertaining.

Sacrificial...........................

To the disciples' embarrassment the Master once told a bishop that religious people have a natural bent for cruelty.

"Why?" demanded the disciples after the bishop had gone.

"Because they all too easily sacrifice persons for the advancement of a purpose," said the Master.

-Anthony de Mello,  One Minute Wisdom

On mood swings and sane talk..............

Let me submit, as my parting word, a warning to the skeptic:  the democratic process is in peril of self-negation.  The public's mood swings are driven by failures of government, not hope for change.  Each failure bleeds legitimacy from the system, erodes faith in the machinery of democracy, and paves the way for the opposite extreme. 

. . . A rebellious public, sectarian in temper and utopian in expectations, collides everywhere with institutions that rule by default and blunder, it seems, by habit.  Industrial hierarchies fer no longer able to govern successfully in a world swept to the horizon by a tsunami of information.  An egalitarian public is unwilling to assume responsibility under any terms.  The muddled half-steps and compromises necessary to democracy may become untenable under the pressure applied by these irreconcilable forces.

. . . I wrote this book, in part, to invite the discussion.  I did so in the manner of a man who notices a fire blazing in a corner of a locked room:  I don't want to start a panic, only some sane talk among the occupants about how best to put the thing out.

-Martin Gurri,  The Revolt of the Public

"of the whole people".................

"Here is the thing you must bear in mind,"  Roosevelt said, clearly irritated.  "I do not represent public opinion:  I represent the public.  There is a world of difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public's opinion of these interests.  I must represent not the existed opinion of the West, but the real interests of the whole people."

-Edmund Morris,  Theodore Rex

Warren Weaver..........................

     Warren Weaver is not a household name, but he may be the most influential scientist you've never heard of, actively shaping three of the most important scientific revolutions of the last century—life sciences, information technology, and agriculture.   In 1932 Weaver joined the Rockefeller Foundation to lead the division charged with supporting scientific research.  Funding was scarce during the Great Depression, and the Rockefeller Foundation, with an endowment nearly twice the size of Harvard's at the time, was one of the most important patrons of scientific research in the world.  Over his nearly three decades at the Rockefeller Foundation, Weaver acted as a banker, talent scout, and kingmaker to support the nascent field of molecular biology, a term he himself coined.  Weaver had an uncanny knack for picking future all-stars.  Eighteen scientists won Nobel Prizes for research related to molecular biology in the middle of the century, and Weaver had funded all but three of them.

-Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt,  Simple Rules:  How To Thrive In A Complex World

Doesn't it seem................................

...........................that the "elites" of this age, aren't very elite?

It is really difficult to oppose the hipsters when they say they care about the poor and about minorities.

But actually, they are very much complicit in relegating the working classes to the sidelines. Not only do they benefit enormously from the globalised economy, but they have also produced a dominant cultural discourse which ostracises working-class people. Think of the ‘deplorables’ evoked by Hillary Clinton. There is a similar view of the working class in France and Britain. They are looked upon as if they are some kind of Amazonian tribe. The problem for the elites is that it is a very big tribe.

The middle-class reaction to the yellow vests has been telling. Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.

Now the elites are afraid. For the first time, there is a movement which cannot be controlled through the normal political mechanisms. The gilets jaunes didn’t emerge from the trade unions or the political parties. It cannot be stopped. There is no ‘off’ button. Either the intelligentsia will be forced to properly acknowledge the existence of these people, or they will have to opt for a kind of soft totalitarianism.

A lot has been made of the fact that the yellow vests’ demands vary a great deal. But above all, it’s a demand for democracy. Fundamentally, they are democrats – they want to be taken seriously and they want to be integrated into the economic order.

-As culled from here

Be careful with the next step.................

". . . people have a way of making the decisions they want to make regardless of nudging from politicians."

-as culled from here

via

Better....................

"For the most part we make better "things" nowadays but I wonder if we are making better people."

-Michael Wade

Unearth it......................................

"Fear dressed up as wisdom provides poor counsel.  It lures you into thinking that if you will just trust it, it will afford you some level of control.
     But guess what?  You're not in control.  So I'm calling bull on that illusion.  It's time for a wake-up call.  Maybe a little cold water in the face wouldn't hurt.
     Life isn't safe, remember.
     But life can be wonderful if you choose adventure rather than fear.
     I get where these fearful tendencies are coming from, I really do.  Humanity has, by and large, come to the conclusion that the world is getting worse and worse every day and that people are ultimately bad.  No wonder everyone's scared to death.
     Life feels altogether different when your perception shifts, though.  It's amazing how gorgeous the landscape of life looks when we choose to believe that all people have good in them and every situation has potential for a positive outcome.  It may be buried or dormant, but I truly believe it's there - most likely waiting for someone to look for it, to help unearth it, to expect it, maybe even to demand it."

-Chip Gaines,  Capital Gaines:  Smart Things I Learned Doing Stupid Stuff