Vision is a powerful sense. Whether the capacity for vision is the product of thousands of years of evolutionary development or the result of an original design modified over time by the aforementioned invisible hand, vision is a marvelously powerful tool. While roughly 0.3% of the American public is legally blind, I have heard it said …
Tag: united states
The Highest Common Denominator
We are incredibly complex creatures. From macro to micro, our design is beautiful, intricate and marvelous to behold. I remember watching a short video in physics class in high school similar to the one below which showed the wave dynamics of a crowd of people: People, when moving in an aggregated mass, tend to "go …
Play to Open Space
I spent much of my youth on the soccer field, first as a defender and then as a midfielder. While I learned many lessons during the first twenty-five years, I can say that one of the most valuable lessons I took home with me came from an English coach who taught a summer camp …
Satisfying Restfulness
"Here is a country lovely and unspoiled. Here is a simple and satisfying restfulness...a place to charm the mind while nature mends nerves worn thin by living too fast and too hard. Here, in short, is peace, and play, and freedom." ~ Howard Coffin If you've ever had the good fortune to visit Sea Island …
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!
The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive. ~ V.S. Pritchett I spent a number of years close to the Canadian border in Michigan as a young man and it never ceases to amaze me how different Americans are from Canadians, despite their proximity. One of my best friends and …
Healthy Parts, Healthy Whole
Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves. ~ Herbert Hoover Herbert Hoover's response to the Great Depression- a fiscally conservative approach that relied more on a call to confidence and …
Is Charity a Moral Failure?
I read a fascinating article in the New York Times yesterday titled "Kindness of a Stranger that Still Resonates." The article described the kind and selfless acts of a successful businessman in the depths of the Great Depression during an era where charity was seen as a moral failure. The secret philanthropist, Samuel J. Stone, …
No when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em
I read an article yesterday morning that stood out to me as being a particularly clear example of how we as a society can end up pouring good money after bad, for an apparently good reason. We are on the verge of a health crisis. I'm not speaking of health care reform, but instead of …
Fathers of Invention
You may remember Eli Whitney as the inventor of the cotton gin, but there was so much more to him worth noting. Mr Whitney, born in Massachusetts and a 1792 graduate of Yale, was a father of invention. More common than you would think, fathers of invention are the minds and hands behind many of …
Managing Change without Judgment
It is not my usual custom to bang on sacred cows, but while we're on the topic of change and judgment, I thought I'd add another nickel to my earlier two cents. I'd like to look at why change is so difficult for people, but before I do so I feel it important to give …
Gregory Hake 