kaolelo/philosophy

Your perspective paves your path.

"If we do not reach out to help others when the opportunity is presented life is of no real value."

From the page: "My advice is to be thankful for each day; to make the most of the opportunities life brings your way; to endure the difficulties and enjoy the pleasures; to be thankful for the life with which you have been blessed; and finally to understand that each of us travels an individual journey and each of us are at the same time connected.
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From the page: "To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to others is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life is to do nothing.

The person who risks nothing,
does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

They may avoid suffering and sorrow,
but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.

Chained by their attitudes, they are a slave,
they forfeited their freedom.

Only the person who risks can be free"

From the page: "Emma Goldman called her "most gifted and brilliant anarchist woman America ever produced" Yet today, Voltairine de Cleyre is virtually unknown even among libertarians. She is discussed only briefly in histories of American anarchism and is not even mentioned at all in the more general studies of James Joll, George Woodcock, and Daniel Guerin. Though her writing was both voluminous and powerful, she appears in only one modern anarchist anthology.1 Only two modern collections of American radical thought include her classic "Anarchism and American Traditions"; and ironically, neither is primarily anarchist in content2.

Voltairine de Cleyre was, in the words of her biographer, Paul Avrich,3 " A brief comet in the anarchist firmament, blazing out quickly and soon forgotten by all but a small circle of comrades whose love and devotion persisted long after her death." But "her memory," continues Avrich, "possesses the glow of legend."

Born in a small village in Michigan in 1866, Voltairine plagued all her life by poverty, pain, and ill health, died prematurely at the age of 45 in 1912. The short life span of her life, ending before great events of the 20th century, is, in Avrich's opinion, the major reason why Voltairine de Cleyre has been overlooked, unlike the long-lived Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman."

From the page: "In The Challenge of Affluence you write about the quest for relief. You explain that: "Big Pharma is the most profitable sector of the America/British economies. Its most profitable treatments target the fallout of affluence: high cholesterol, ulcers, stress, depression. There is a circularity in this success story. Big Pharma is an engine of economic growth, but as an exemplar of competitive success (albeit protected by patent monopolies) it feeds on the misery that competition generates. And the more misery the market generates, the faster Big Pharma grows." This is a difficult subject to raise with the wider public isn't it? Have you observed more willingness to speak about it?"

Dan Gilbert's book "Stumbling on Happiness" is part Malcolm Gladwell pop psychology and part self-help book. What distinguishes it in the first genre is that Gilbert is a psychologist, and knows that of which he speaks. What distinguishes it in the second is that Gilbert has a sense of humor and is deeply intelligent, and expects the same qualities from his readers.

In all, the book is a thought-provoking and persuasive discussion of why a huge portion of a very wealthy, very powerful country wanders astray when it tries to find contentment. The reason, argues Gilbert, lies partly with our society but mostly with ourselves. The human mind is hardwired to guess wrong, to imagine wrong, to make wildly inaccurate predictions and assumptions. And in the end, when we find ourselves dissatisfied with the end result of a course we chose entirely on our own, we wonder why.