Category Archives: Musings

In Defense of a Breadth of Knowledge

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(Possibly the last in the quotes to start the week series?*)

I had this week’s quote all picked out on Sunday, but got busy and didn’t write and post this yesterday as I should have.

Why should I have posted it yesterday? Because yesterday was the birthday of Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), whose quote I wanted to focus on (or “on whose quote I wanted to focus,” if we’re feeling more grammatically pedantic this afternoon). Pascal was a renowned mathematician, invented a series of calculating machines, and was also a prominent Catholic theologian. In his Pensees (1669; literally, “thoughts”), he wrote,

Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best. If we can have both, still better; but if we must choose, we ought to choose the former.

I like that a lot. It’s one thing to develop some sort of expertise, and even to be recognized as an expert, but life is so grand and glorious that to stay cloistered in one thing — no matter how expansive and rewarding that one thing might be — would be to miss out on so much more that the universe has to offer.

At the very least, knowing a little bit about a lot of things makes it easier to converse with a wider variety of people; and that in itself can expand our personal horizons.


(Image: “Knowledge-sharing,” from Wikimedia Commons.)

So, let’s learn something new this week!

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*This series has been running a little over a year. It was fun when it started, and I’ve enjoyed finding quotes that I thought were interesting, but I’m not sure how much value it has for other folks. If it has any value for you, let me know, because I’m considering moving on to different things. Thanks! GR

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New Video: “Stand Up, If You Can” (a Public Speaking Tip)

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It may seem a bit self-evident, but standing up to give your formal presentation can make a lot of difference in how your audience receives it — especially if the points you’re making are at all important.

One-on-one, or speaking only to a few people? Sitting down is often fine. But speaking to a bunch of people at once? You’re better off standing up, if you’re physically able to do so.

Unless you don’t care that much about your message, in which case go right ahead and sit on your butt to give your speech, or your presentation … or your sermon.

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Related:
– Video: Public Speaking Tip: The Value of Inflection
– More videos: My YouTube channel

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The Inescapable Conclusion About Freedom

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, made famous by his challenge to Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev: “if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Earlier in that speech, Reagan contrasted the “free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history” with “the Communist world, [where] we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind–too little food.” And he said

There stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

We could make the same observations today about the benefits of freedom. Where people are free to associate, to collaborate, and to trade, more of them prosper than do not. But where people are not free, whether they are forced to comply with others’ demands or restrained from acting in their own best interests, fewer of them thrive and more of them suffer.


President Reagan speaking in Berlin, 12 June 1987. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

I hope you exercise your freedom well and wisely this week! And don’t let anyone take it from you.

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New Video: The Dickensian Duo

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The beginning of June seems an odd time to hearken back to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but that’s where Dickens sets out a pair of conditions that I call “The Dickensian Duo.” In this video, I introduce them, consider the relationships between them, and discuss the importance of education in addressing them.

Let me know what you think!

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Education-Related Stuff:
– Video: The Musashi-Heinlein School
– Text: Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It

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The Author and Politics

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

This past Saturday, at the ConCarolinas science fiction and fantasy convention, I was part of a panel called “Author and Politics” which was both well-attended and well-run. We agreed on some points, we disagreed on some points, but we did so like grown-ups — respectfully and without rancor.

It was, in the end, quite refreshing.

So when it came to figuring out a good quote to start the week, I thought of this one from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, which I copied out of The Gulag Archipelago many years ago.

Is it not true that professional politicians are boils on the neck of society that prevent it from turning its head and moving its arms? And why shouldn’t engineers have political views? After all, politics is not even a science, but is an empirical area not susceptible to description by any mathematical apparatus; furthermore, it is an area subject to human egotism and blind passion.

That quote has always resonated with me, mostly because of the imagery in the first sentence but also because I was trained as an engineer and still to a small degree think of myself as one. And it hasn’t lost any of its power: certainly we saw in our most recent election plenty of instances of “human egotism and blind passion.”

Republican Elephant & Democratic Donkey - Icons
The parties don’t often see eye to eye, do they? (Image: “Republican Elephant & Democratic Donkey – Icons,” by DonkeyHotey, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

But when I have experiences like the panel on Saturday, and I recall the adage that “all politics are local,” I am a bit more hopeful that if we conduct ourselves well we can avoid (at least in the small circles of our friends) the worst excesses of either side, and chart a course that’s mutually beneficial.

I admit that I may be hopelessly naïve about such things.

After all, I’m The Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

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Related Items:
– Listen to “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”, from the album Truths and Lies and Make-Believe
– Listen to “The Anti-Candidate Song”, from the album Distorted Vision

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New Video: Perspective and Self-Improvement

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I’m not big into self-help or self-improvement — a little goes a long way in that regard — and I’m certainly not in any position to be a “guru” to anyone, but in this video I share some thoughts on what kind of perspective helps or hinders our efforts. Plus, I get to unpack another of my favorite quotes from samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi.

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Related Stuff:
– More Musashi, of course, in The Musashi-Heinlein School video
– Not a “self-help” book, but a helpful book: Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It

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Liberty, and Remembering

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

Memorial Day 2017 happens to fall on the birthday of two key patriots in American history: Patrick Henry (29 May 1736 – 6 June 1799) and President John F. Kennedy (29 May 1917 – 22 November 1963).

Henry is perhaps best known for a 1775 speech he gave at the Second Virginia Convention, in which he famously said

Give me liberty, or give me death!

Today we remember those who made just that sacrifice, “who more than self their country loved,” as “America the Beautiful” puts it, and who, we might imagine, loved liberty “more than life.” The price they paid is beyond reckoning, as is the gift of liberty they bestowed upon each of us.

Kennedy, of course, was a renowned orator and as President took advantage of many opportunities to stir crowds with his speeches. In a speech at Amherst College less than a month before his assassination, Kennedy said:

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.

Though he said it to honor the poet Robert Frost, Kennedy’s sentiment holds true as we honor our fallen warriors … among whom no doubt there were more than a few warrior-poets.


(US Defense Department Image, 26 May 2017.)

May we never, never, forget.

All together now: “To absent friends ….”

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New Video: The Dimensions of Sphericity

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A follow-up to last week’s video about “sphericity” as a metaphor for helping students grow and develop in multiple dimensions. What dimensions might we choose?

Let me know what you think!

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Related Stuff:
– Last week’s Two-Dimensional Characters, and Education video
– The Musashi-Heinlein School video
– And, for good measure, Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It

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Half-Brained Things, Trying to Make the World a Little Better

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(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)

Today is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930). The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Doyle has been celebrated by fans and writers for decades, so of course starting the week with a quote from him would be appropriate.

To follow on the heels of last week’s entry, L. Frank Baum’s quote about “the betterment of the world”, consider these two 1894 quotes from Doyle. First, an admission that we as human beings may not be all we think we are:

What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts.

And second, a bit of his desire to improve some small part of the world simply by being a person of good character:

I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one’s weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can’t all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.

Your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does.
(Image: “Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does,” by SoniaT 360., from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Even though very often I feel both “silly” and “half-brained,” I do hope that I can do more to improve the world than to harm it. I hope you can, too.

Have a great week!

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New Video: Two-Dimensional Characters, and Education

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In writing, we try to make sure our characters are realistic; rather than “flat” and two-dimensional, we want them to be lifelike. So too in education, we want students to grow and mature in multiple dimensions. But is “well-rounded” the best metaphor?

I’d already posted the video to YouTube when I caught an error in it, so this version includes a correction I inserted.

Hey, nobody’s perfect.

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Related Stuff:
– As mentioned, The Musashi-Heinlein School video
– A lot of this derives from what I wrote in Quality Education: Why It Matters, and How to Structure the System to Sustain It

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