A Pause For Beauty
Goodwill longs to be recognized and cultivated.
The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins night and day and dances in rhythmic measure. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth into the numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of flowers.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Heron Flying Off Water
I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence. They want to be told about this publicly. . . Goodwill longs to be recognized and cultivated. For it to develop and have an impact it must hear that the world does not ridicule it. . . I never try to give people practical advice about how to deal with the evil around them, nor could I even if I wanted to -- and yet people want to hear that decency and courage make sense, that something must be risked in the struggle against dirty tricks. They want to know that they are not alone, forgotten, written off.
- Vaclav Havel, former President of Czechoslovakia, from the book Summer Meditations
. . .
The most recent draft of a chapter of my upcoming book,
The Gentle Arts Of Living A Quality Life On Your Own Terms,
There will be many revisions prior to publication, projected for November.