SUPPORT SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS TO DELIVER POSITIVE IMPACT ON SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Reflections
Introduction: Social entrepreneurs constantly struggle with work, life balance; below is some brief material to prompt reflection and hopefully spark a helpful insight.
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WORK/LIFE BALANCE - Oct 2025
Note to Readers: The following song puts work life balance into perspective.
Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think, Carl Sigman. Herb Magidson
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?
Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try my friend to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blond
You never go to night clubs and you just don't care to dance
You don't have time for silly things like moonlight and romance
You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack
But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn't kiss you back.
Enjoy the Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFxjnUPRwx4
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE - Oct 2025
You Only Live Twice - theme song for James Bond film
By: John Barry & Leslie Bricusse
You only live twice, or so it seems
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams
You drift through the years and life seems tame
Till one dream appears and love is its name
And love is a stranger who'll beckon you on
Don't think of the danger or the stranger is gone
This dream is for you, so pay the price
Make one dream come true, you only live twice
Note to Readers: The ultimate goal of a social entrepreneur is to solve or abate a social problem. Undertaking the arduous work this goal requires demonstrates the “love” described by the great Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran “Work is love made visible.” … And work is how the social entrepreneur realizes their dream of making the world a better place.
6 Japanese Mental Models That Rewire Your Brain for Calm and Clarity- Sept 2025
Note to Readers: One benefit from learning a new language is being introduced to new ways of thinking. Lightly edited for length.
Here are 6 Japanese mental models to help you think clearly and calmly:
1. Ikigai
The internet calls it your reason for being.
Ikigai is Just four quiet questions:
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What do you love?
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What are you good at?
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What does the world need?
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What can you actually get paid for?
2. Kaizen
Kaizen is a small improvement over time. Small, steady improvements. Small increments that add up over time.
Make a difference today, another tomorrow, and don’t give up on yourself.
It’s unsexy, slow, and not very Instagrammable. (Sic)
3. Shikata ga nai + Ma
Shikata ga nai is “it cannot be helped.”
There are things you can’t fix. People who will never apologize. Algorithms that hate you personally.
Life gives you a pile of rocks. Shikata ga nai is, you stop yelling at the rocks for being there and start figuring out if you can build something with them.
4. Wabi-Sabi
When You Feel Like You’re Too Flawed to Move Forward
Wabi-sabi says: beauty is in the broken bits.
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Your flaws are features
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Cracks tell stories
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Enough is a myth
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Highlight your mess
We are in a world that teaches us to fix ourselves. Better yourself. Optimize.
5. Zanshin
Be Present…. Even After the Action Is Completed
Zanshin is what you then do after the arrow hits the target.
It’s the stillness that follows the strike. The attention you keep, even when the action is over.
6. Yugen
Not Everything Needs to be Understandable in Order to be Felt
Yūgen is the term for such a sentiment, e.g. a Haiku by Basho
“A crow
has settled on a bare branch —
autumn evening.”
RIGHT & WRONG - Sept 2025
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
“Background: The original toast by Stephen Decatur in 1816, "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!", and the amended, more famous version by Carl Schurz in 1872, "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right". While Decatur's quote expresses unwavering loyalty to one's nation, Schurz's version emphasizes a citizen's duty to improve their country, whether it's already perfect or needs correction.
NOTE TO READERS:
“How to Use This Famous Quote, "My Country Right or Wrong!"
In the world we live today, with growing intolerance and terror breeding in every dark alley, one has to tread carefully before using jingoistic phrases purely for rhetoric. While patriotism is a desirable quality in every respectable citizen, we must not forget that the first duty of every global citizen is to set right what is wrong in our country.
If you choose to use this phrase to pepper your speech or talk, use it diligently. Make sure to spark the right kind of patriotic fervor in your audience and help to bring about change in your own country.”
Crazy Dreamers - Aug 2025
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. […] And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
— Rob Siltanen & Lee Clow
Note to Readers: Social entrepreneurs apply the discipline of business to solve a social problem.
Their first step is targeting a social problem and then identifying a potential solution.
These steps cast them in the role of a reformer or change agent.
As a general rule, people do not like change, and change agents are often referred to as troublemakers, or crazy dreamers, often by the people suffering from the problem they are trying to solve.
Takeaways, start developing thick skin and expect criticism before receiving any praise.
Means and Ends - Aug 2025
Many readers are probably familiar with the Lord of the Rings written by J.R.R. Tolkien.
In the following passage the wizard Saruman, who has joined the dark side, is attempting to convince Gandalf, his fellow wizard, to join their enemy.
His argument is a masterpiece of twisted logic deploring; while accepting, evils committed in the service of noble goals.
Social entrepreneurs can expect to encounter arguments to defer/delay trying to solve social problems by settling for a status quo that maintains injustice and inequality. Often these arguments emphasize retaining original goals while radically changing the necessary means, It’s easy to focus on our means and overlook the “ends” aka goals, we originally set.
“…….but our time is at hand…which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will for that good that only the Wise can see…..
“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all.”
We may join with that Power. It would be wise……There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it.”
“As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I ,may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it.”
We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.”
- Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
TIP: Suggest consulting Module 8 in the Practitioner Guide and review material on building a culture that balances staying on course to solve your targeted social problem.
TRUE TRANSFORMATION - Aug 2025
You fill my heart and head with daring dreams of radical reforms,
Calling me to true transformation,
And still I struggle with simple steps,
Paralyzed by pains of paper-cut proportion,
Sulking in my own selfishness,
A ship sunk by sin.
Yet I believe the dreams you plant will prosper,
I will sail through the struggles,
Those within me,
Those of my own making,
And those I have inherited from the world.
Still, I listen to dreams
As I step through my sinful sludge to true transformation.
- Sister Kathleen Nealon, CSR
THE EXAMINED LIFE - July 2025
Note to Reader: inspiration can come from the most unexpected sources.
The following excerpt comes from Ten Principal Sufi Thoughts. For those of faith or atheists the questions posed in IX assists addressing “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates
N.B. God to the Sufi is not only a religious belief, but also the highest ideal the human mind can conceive. (Principal I)
IX. There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of all wisdom.
Hazrat Ali says, "Know thyself, and thou shalt know God." It is the knowledge of self, which blooms into the knowledge of God. Self-knowledge answers such problems as:
Whence have I come?
Did I exist before I became conscious of my present existence?
If I existed, as what did I exist? As an individual such as I now am, or as a multitude, or as an insect, bird, animal, spirit, jinn, or angel?
What happens at death, the change to which every creature is subject?
Why do I tarry here awhile?
What purpose have I to accomplish here? What is my duty in life?
In what does my happiness consist, and what is it that makes my life miserable?
Click here to read more: https://inayatiyya.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Ten-Sufi-Thoughts-Hazrat-Inayat-Khan-upd10.09.2016.pdf
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR AS REBEL? - June 2025
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR AS REBEL? - June 2025
Greg Dees, referred to as the father of social entrepreneurship education, defined social entrepreneurs as, “Change agents in the social sector: Social entrepreneurs are reformers and revolutionaries…”
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e145/2007_fall/materials/dees_SE.pdf
The terms change agents, reformers and revolutionaries define the essential nature of a social entrepreneur’s mission.
However, I personally think the term Rebel , as defined by philosopher Albert Camus, emphasizes an often-overlooked aspect of a social entrepreneurs’ work.
“What is a rebel? A man* who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion.
A slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying “no”?
He means, for example, that “this has been going on too long” “up to this point yes, beyond it no”, you are going too far” or again, there is a limit beyond which you shall not go,” In other words his no affirms the existence of a borderline……a limit that infringes on the rights of others.” - Albert Camus, The Rebel
Like the Rebel who says no, the social entrepreneur also attempts to solve or ameliorate a social problem that maintains social conditions that support pain and suffering in marginalized populations, aka “a limit that infringes on the rights of others.”
Greg Dees, referred to as the father of social entrepreneurship education, defined social entrepreneurs as, “Change agents in the social sector: Social entrepreneurs are reformers and revolutionaries…”
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e145/2007_fall/materials/dees_SE.pdf
The terms change agents, reformers and revolutionaries define the essential nature of a social entrepreneur’s mission.
However, I personally think the term Rebel , as defined by philosopher Albert Camus, emphasizes an often-overlooked aspect of a social entrepreneurs’ work.
“What is a rebel? A man* who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion.
A slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying “no”?
He means, for example, that “this has been going on too long” “up to this point yes, beyond it no”, you are going too far” or again, there is a limit beyond which you shall not go,” In other words his no affirms the existence of a borderline……a limit that infringes on the rights of others.” - Albert Camus, The Rebel
Like the Rebel who says no, the social entrepreneur also attempts to solve or ameliorate a social problem that maintains social conditions that support pain and suffering in marginalized populations, aka “a limit that infringes on the rights of others.”
Self Discovery - June 2025
Note to Reader: We all wrestle with self-doubt, anxiety, and attempts at self-improvement.
The following excerpt on Individuation was taken from, 5 Carl Jung Concepts That Beat Pop Psychology By 100 Years.
Carl Jung is one of the most influential psychologists that ever lived and his thoughts on Individuation can complement therapy as well as guide personal reflection.
Individuation Is Not Improving Yourself, It Is the Birth of the Whole Self in Suffering
Self improvement asks:
“How can I fix what’s wrong with me?”
Individuation asks:
“Can I live with the parts of me I’ve spent my whole life trying to hide?”
I want you to Try this instead of another to do list:
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What part of you are you trying to change right now?
Write it down without judgment. Is it your anger? Neediness? Anxiety? -
Now ask: Why do I want this part of me to disappear?
What fear is underneath that? -
Imagine that part of you could talk.
What would it say? What does it need? What is it trying to protect? -
Who taught you that this part of you was unacceptable?
Was it a parent? A teacher? Culture? Yourself?
You might ask why So why does that matter? Because the more you reject parts of yourself, the more those parts run your life from behind the scenes. You don’t heal by deleting traits. You heal by understanding them. And doing it over and over again until it becomes second thought.”
Danger of an Unbalanced Life - May 2025
“Eternally chained to only one single fragment of the whole, Man himself grew to be only a fragment….
Instead of imprinting humanity upon his nature, he becomes merely the imprint of his occupation.”
- Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 1794
Note to Reader: Schiller is warning us of the danger of a one-dimensional life aka the absence of work life balance.
The absence of work life balance leads to burn out, one of the reasons why social entrepreneurs fail (see Module 5 Practitioners Guide).
The Life Space Diagram below illustrates the main dimensions of a quality of life that reflects wellness, “a holistic sense of well-being”. (AI Overview).
As we mature our life goals change with time e.g. at some point our primary focus is on work, at other times it may be on family. The challenge is to meet immediate (present)needs while not losing sight of living a balanced life. The outer arrows symbolize how our focus can change over time.
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Buddha - May 2025
Buddha: Three Poisons that cause suffering
Anger
Greed
Ignorance
Buddha advises us to counter the poisons by pursuing enlightenment which leads us replacing the poisons with
Compassion
Charity
Wisdom
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS’ VS the current DARK AGE - April 2025
Social entrepreneurs are one of the ways we may get through the Dark Age described below.
Social entrepreneurs strive to solve/ameliorate social problems to improve our quality of life.
They pass on to future generations that which is worth preserving by “trying to be a wide-awake human during a Dark Age and keeping alive what is beautiful and important.”
“We are living in a dark age. And we are not going to see the end of it, nor are our children, nor probably our children’s children. And our job, every single one of us, is to cherish whatever in the human heritage we love and to feed it and keep it going and pass it on, because the Dark Age isn’t going to go on forever, and when it stops those people are gonna (sic)need the pieces we pass on. They’re not going to be able to build a new world without us passing on whatever we can – ideas, arts, knowledge, skills, or just plain old fragile love, how we treat people, how we help people: that’s something to be passed on…and all of this passing things on, in all its forms, may not cure the world now – curing the world now may not be a human possibility – but it keeps the great things alive. And we have to do this because who are we to decide that it is hopeless?
If you wanted to volunteer for fascinating, dangerous, necessary work, this would be a great job to volunteer for – trying to be a wide-awake human during a Dark Age and keeping alive what you think is beautiful and important.”
- James Hillman and Michael Ventura, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy—And the World's Getting Worse (1992)
Apolitical Intellectuals - March 2025
Social Entrepreneurs apply the discipline of business to solving or ameliorating a social problem.
In doing so they will at some point need to engage in politics at some scale.
The following poem eloquently makes clear why this is necessary.
APOLITICAL INTELLECTUALS
One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.
They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly
like a sweet fire,
small and alone.
No one will ask them
about their dress
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with “the idea
of the nothing”
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.
They won’t be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward’s death.
They’ll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.
On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who mended their clothes,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and who worked for them,
and they’ll ask:
"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out in them?"
Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.
A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute
in your shame.
By: Otto Rene Castillo (Guatemalan Poet, Revolutionary)
What Change Requires - March 2025
Social entrepreneurs have been described as reformers, change agents, and revolutionaries as they seek to improve or solve social problems.
Sometimes as social entrepreneurs get caught up in fine tuning their solution and increasing their revenue, they lose sight of the fact that social change ultimately requires mobilizing popular support.
Here is a reminder.
I Am the People—the Mob
I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.
By: Carl Sandburg
Jamshid - February 2025
Jamshid
All looked upon the throne, and heard and saw
Nothing but Jamshid, he alone was king,
Absorbing every thought; and in their praise,
And adoration of that mortal man,
Forgot the worship of the great Creator.
Then proudly thus he to his nobles spoke,
Intoxicated with their loud applause,
"I am unequalled, for to me the earth
Owes all its science, never did exist
A sovereignty like mine, beneficent
And glorious, driving from the populous land
Disease and want. Domestic joy and rest
Proceed from me, all that is good and great
Waits my behest; the universal voice
Declares the splendor of my government,
Beyond whatever human heart conceived,
And me the only monarch of the world."
--Soon as these words had parted from his lips,
Words impious, and insulting to high heaven,
His earthly grandeur faded--then all tongues
Grew clamorous and bold. The day of Jamshid
Passed into gloom, his brightness all obscured.
What said the Moralist? "When thou wert a king
Thy subjects were obedient, but whoever
Proudly neglects the worship of his God,
Brings desolation on his house and home."
--And when he marked the insolence of his people,
He knew the wrath of Heaven had been provoked,
And terror overcame him.
By: Shah Nameh by Hakīm Abol-Qāsem Firdawsī Ṭūsī, translated by James A. Atkinson
Note to Reader: The Shah Nameh, aka, The Book of Kings, is a Persian epic poem.
Jamshid is an example of the destructive arrogance described as Hubris by the ancient Greeks.
Many enterprises fail due to the decisions made by arrogant founders/CEOs.
Consult Module 5, Failure, in the Practitioner Guide for sources of failure by founders and CEOs.
Desiderata - January 2025
GO PLACIDLY amid the noise and the haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
By: Max Ehrmann © 1927 Original text
I Watch People In The World - January 2025
Note to Reader: Thoughts on work, life balance.
I watch people in the world
Throw away their lives lusting after things,
Never able to satisfy their desires,
Falling into deeper despair
And torturing themselves.
Even if they get what they want
How long will they be able to enjoy it?
For one heavenly pleasure
They suffer ten torments of hell,
Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.
Such people are like monkeys
Frantically grasping for the moon in the water
And then falling into a whirlpool.
How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.
Despite myself, I fret over them all night
And cannot staunch my flow of tears.
By: Ryokan, Zen Poet
Configuration of Education - January 2025
Configuration of Education is an educational concept popularized by Lawrence A. Cremin in his book, Public Education.
Cremins noted that formal schooling is responsible for only part of a person’s education.
Other aspects of the configuration that contribute to a person’s educational development include sports, hobbies, parenting, community life, religion, travel, reading, volunteering, summer camps, play, friendships, part-time and full-time work, apprenticeships, military service.
Cremins also compares the configuration to an ecosystem. This comparison assists us to see the configuration from a holistic perspective of different components interacting as a self-sustaining functional system where the whole is greater than any one part.
For the social entrepreneur (SE), targeting educational issues, the configuration of education (CoE) can assist with the following tasks.
· Planning: The SE can utilize the CoE related to their targeted problem to consider how unconventional teaching and learning activities can complement formal schooling.
· Organizing: The SE can utilize the CoE ecosystem to recruit collaborators and resources.
· Marketing: The SE can utilize the CoE to market the benefits of integrating unconventional learning with formal schooling to funders, politicians, and other stakeholders
Additionally, all successful social enterprises develop valuable knowledge, skills and allies that can be utilized to Collaborate/Contribute to a CoE’s educational effort.
Source: Joseph J Szocik
The Most-Sacred Mountain - December 2024
A reminder of the perspective that can be gained by stepping away from the routine of daily life.
The Most-Sacred Mountain
Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven,
And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand
steps of climbing!
This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.
Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green;
and lower down the flat brown plain, the floor of earth, stretches away
to blue infinity.
Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs cut their slow curves
against the sky,
And one black bird circles above the void.
Space, and the twelve clean winds are here;
And with them broods eternity -- a swift, white peace, a presence manifest.
The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.
Here, when Confucius came, a half a thousand years before the Nazarene,
he stepped, with me, thus into timelessness.
The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that says: "On this spot once
Confucius stood and felt the smallness of the world below."
The stone grows old:
Eternity is not for stones.
But I shall go down from this airy place, this swift white peace,
this stinging exultation.
And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm
of the daily round.
Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time
ravel thin about me;
For once I stood
In the white windy presence of eternity.
- Eunice Tietjens
What Violence Is, Newton Garver - December 2024
Newton Garver was a philosopher and author. The following brief passage is from his essay What Violence Is.
I think it stimulates the awareness of social entrepreneurs on overlooked consequences of social injustice such as:
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We are not islands unto ourselves but rather social beings.
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Socially determined options play a critical role in our quality of life.
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The institutional role of quiet violence in denying options results in social injustice.
Recognizing the role of quiet violence in creating social injustice may inspire some social entrepreneurs to target the social problems they seek to address with their social enterprise.
“Perhaps denying options would not do violence to people if each individual person were an island unto himself and individuality were the full truth of human life. But it is not. We are social beings: our whole sense of what we are is dependent on the fact that we live in society, and have open to us socially determined options. What access we have to the socially defined options is much more important than what language or what system of property rights we inherit at birth. The institutional form of quiet violence operates when people are deprived of choices in a systematic way by the very manner in which transactions normally take place. It is as real, and as wicked, as the thief with a knife.”
Reflection - November 2024
NOTE: Our society tends to credit the CEO with the success of an enterprise while overlooking the essential contribution of most of the employees.
The following poem should serve as a reminder/warning to the Founders of a social enterprise to create a work culture that values and supports all employees.
Nobody can succeed alone.
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?
Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?
So many particulars.
So many questions.
- Bertolt Brecht
Reflection - November 2024
“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
- Attributed to Mother Teresa
In the Name of Identity - October 2024
In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, by Amin Maalouf
"[In] the age of globalization and of the ever-accelerating intermingling of elements in which we are all caught up, a new concept of identity is needed, and needed urgently. We cannot be satisfied with forcing billions of bewildered human beings to choose between excessive assertion of their identity and the loss of their identity altogether, between fundamentalism and disintegration. But that is the logical consequence of the prevailing attitude on the subject.
If our contemporaries are not encouraged to accept their multiple affiliations and allegiances; if they cannot reconcile their needs for identity with an open and unprejudiced tolerance of other cultures; if they feel as if they need to choose between the denial of self and the denial of the other - then we shall be bringing into being legions of the lost and hordes of bloodthirsty madmen."
"For it is the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free."
- Amin Maalouf
Danæ and the God of Gold - October 2024
Whence arises this excessive impatience in our day which turns men into criminals even in circumstances which would be more likely to bring about the contrary tendency? What induces one man to use false weights, another to set his house on fire after having insured it for more than its value, a third to take part in counterfeiting, while three-fourths of our upper classes indulge in legalized fraud, and suffer from the pangs of conscience that follow speculation and dealings on the Stock Exchange: what gives rise to all this?
It is not real want, —for their existence is by no means precarious; perhaps they have even enough to eat and drink without worrying, —but they are urged on day and night by a terrible impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly, and by an equally terrible longing and love for these heaps of gold.
In this impatience and love, however, we see re-appear once more that fanaticism of the desire for power which was stimulated in former times by the belief that we were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which bore such beautiful names that we could dare to be inhuman with a good conscience (burning Jews, heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire cultures superior to ours, such as those of Peru and Mexico).
The means of this desire for power are changed in our day, but the same volcano is still smoldering, impatience and intemperate love call for their victims, and what was once done “for the love of God” is now done for the love of money, i.e. for the love of that which at present affords us the highest feeling of power and a good conscience.
Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
The Problem with Meaning - September 2024
The Problem With Meaning, John Gardner
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/david-brooks-the-problem-with-meaning.html
“The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character."
“You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you; they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling and then really quite relaxing.”
Gardner goes on in this wise way. And then, at the end, he goes into a peroration about leading a meaningful life. “Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you. ... You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life.”
Gardner puts “meaning” at the apogee of human existence.
Note to reader here is a suggestion for thinking through discovering your meaning.
“Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. Without philosophy, thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.”
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
REFLECTIONS - September 2024
NOTE TO THE READER: On the night of 9/11 I started writing what became a short suite of poems to express some of my emotions.
Below are two from that time.
MEMORIAL NYC-SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 by Joseph Szocik
INVICTUS
Fire, Death, Ashes.
Smoke rises, passes.
We remain.
ALL races, creeds.
ONE shared dream
the world enthralls,
beckons, calls,
LIBERTY
And JUSTICE
For ALL.
THE NEW YORK 300 by Joseph Szocik
(In memory of the NYC First Responders)
The Spartan 300
A tyrant defied,
they died together
side by side.
Across time
Across space,
the New York 300
took their place.
The New York 300
terror defied,
they died together
side by side.
Go tell the Spartans
they’re no longer alone,
their brothers by blood
are marching home.
The Bridge - August 2024
The Bridge Builder, by Will Allen Dromgoole
An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide.
Through which was flowing a sullen tide
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?”
The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followed after me to-day
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - Andre Gide
Satisfaction - August 2024
Satisfaction. Otto Rene Castillo
The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.
Only in this way do men become men,
women become women,
fighting day and night
for people and for life.
And when these lives come to an end
the people open their deepest rivers
and they enter those waters forever.
And so they become, distant fires, living,
creating the heart of example.
The most beautiful thing
for those who have fought a whole life
is to come to the end and say;
we believed in people and life,
and life and the people
never let us down.
“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.” - Guy Debord