We are the 53%

Inspirational way of being

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”

 

-John Quincy Adams

Looking for a few good men

The media fails to present young men with honorable role models and instead suggests that they're superfluous--when now is the time that they're needed more than ever before! With all of the single-parent homes, abuse, and familial instability, we need responsible, committed, loving dads more than ever.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/09/primetimes-looming-male-identity-crisis/244692/#slide1

Samizdat has engaged with similar topics before featuring a number of posts about men's need to be needed, the rise of drifting boys, and misandry.

Guiding lights

"Are my guiding principles healthy and robust? On this hangs everything."

-Marcus Aurelius

Conviction

"If it is good to say or do something, then it is even better to be criticized for having said or done it."

-Marcus Aurelius

Family: The Fundamental Unit of Society

"Families create a crucial organizational level between the individual and the massive structures of government and business conglomerate. The family is the "little platoon" that gives each individual a sense of personal meaning for his or her life. Other than teaching us our basic citizenship duties, it is not the place of government of the marketplace to tell us what our most personal lie purposes should be. Rather, government and business are supposed to maintain the political and economic stability that will allow each of us to pursue the life purpose we draw from such meaning-generating sources as religion and family life.

So we have historically given the family the immensely important power of deciding which personal values children should learn. We would never allow state control over childrearing, as was a characteristic of Soviet communism, because that control destroys the diversity and range of free choice that democracy is designed to protect.

Without the decentralized authority that lets families and churches play this mediating role between individuals and society's megastructures, we are vulnerable to totalitarianism, which imposes on society one comprehensive order of meaning. Even if our government remains democratic, however, the nation's family and religious structures can grow weak, as they are now becoming. When that happens, people wander in search of personal purpose, often falling prey to the meaningless addictions of materialism and pleasure-seeking."

-Bruce C. Hafen
"Covenant Hearts," pp. 246-247

Measure of a Man

"Bear in mind that the measure of a man is the worth of the things he cares about."

Marcus Aurelius

Wisdom in intervention

"One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."

-Master Ugui

from the movie "Kung Fu Panda"

Public servants

"Public business must always be done by somebody...If wise men decline, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not." 

-John Adams

Efficiency and preparation

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

-Abraham Lincoln

The Noblest Labor

"It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."

-Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish Statesman and UN official

Religion is the foundation of democracy and prosperity

http://www.mormonperspectives.com/2011/02/08/religion-is-the-foundation-of-democracy-and-prosperity/

A post by Clayton Christensen

Politics and War

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.


John Adams

1 hour to save the world

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, if you have an hour to save the world, spend 55 minutes of it understanding the problem and five minutes of it trying to solve it.

It is the soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press. 
It is the soldier, not the poet, 
who has given us freedom of speech. 


It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, 
who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. 
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, 
who has given us the right to a fair trial. 


It is the soldier 
who salutes the flag, 
who serves under the flag, 
and whose coffin is draped by the flag, 
who allows the protester to burn the flag. 


-Father Dennis Edward O'Brian

Art Value

"The value of an artwork is rooted in assumptions about the human performance underlying its creation."

-Denis Dutton

Four levels of listening

From Otto Scharmer's Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges

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Downloading

“Yeah, I know that already.” I call this type of listening “downloading”—listening by reconfirming habitual judgments. When you are in a situation where everything that happens confirms what you already know, you are listening by downloading.

Factual

“Ooh, look at that!” This type of listening is factual or object-focused: listening by paying attention to facts and to novel or disconfirming data. You switch off your inner voice of judgment and listen to the voices right in front of you. You focus on what differs from what you already know. Factual listening is the basic mode of good science. You let the data talk to you. You ask questions, and you pay careful attention to the responses you get.

Empathic

“Oh, yes, I know exactly how you feel.” This deeper level of listening is empathic listening. When we are engaged in real dialogue and paying careful attention, we can become aware of a profound shift in the place from which our listening originates. We move from staring at the objective world of things, figures, and facts (the “it-world”) to listening to the story of a living and evolving self (the “you-world”). Sometimes, when we say “I know how you feel,” our emphasis is on a kind of mental or abstract knowing. But to really feel how another feels, we have to have an open heart. Only an open heart gives us the empathic capacity to connect directly with another person from within. When that happens, we feel a profound switch as we enter a new territory in the relationship; we forget about our own agenda and begin to see how the world appears through someone else’s eyes.

Generative

“I can’t express what I experience in words. My whole being has slowed down. I feel more quiet and present and more my real self. I am connected to something larger than myself.” This type of listening moves beyond the current field and connects us to an even deeper realm of emergence. I call this level of listening “generative listening,” or listening from the emerging field of future possibility. This level of listening requires us to access not only our open heart, but also our open will—our capacity to connect to the highest future.

Lies

Some of the most deceptive and effective lies are concealed in a masterful mimicry of truth.

Repression does not lead to virtue

"Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason."
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Conscience

"To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice." 
-Confucius