Fresh ideas...

I have so much I've been thinking about and need to share...reading some Mark Twain, who is one of my all-time heroes and one of the most brilliant men of his time...coming to terms with some imperfections of the world that may or may not change by the end of my lifetime...

But one of the most interesting reflections I have had is about fresh ideas...

How stale old debates about ideas get...how in policy discussions, conservative and liberal romanticism of their ideologies as right and wrong, as with sectarian religions of the past and still today, is a long stale discussion unlikely to reap benefits greater than the benefits of looking for the strengths and weaknesses in various ideologies and ideas and applying ideas with the greatest strengths...

And how, as my advisor at Washburn has said, fresh blood does seem to freshen the outlook of people who have been in the field awhile...

How much people cling to old ideas because they reflect a stale position that they don't recognize for its dead ends...
And how so many people are engaged in older and less meaningful debates because they think that at the end of the rainbow will be the pot of gold they've been looking for all along:

That they were right...and others were wrong...

When really...people just learn from us what they have to learn from us...and they leave behind what is less useful...

No matter who we are and what ideas, new or old, we have to offer...

As Pat Riley says in his interview at the end of Glory Road...we are all just making footprints in the sand...and no matter how lasting our footprints might be, there are always new civilizations to be built and ours will always be but a whisper in the ears of future generations...

Hubris, the Greeks whisper to us, today...

Hubris...

It makes all people overestimate their importance...and the importance of their decisions and stay here on this planet...

Though passivity makes us slaves...

I've got to get to class:):)...

Have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben