Whose Land is This?

This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island; From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.  I was born in 1956. Firstborn of my parents. Old enough to be drafted 18 years later, but young enough to […]

What Does It Mean to Be A “Man?”

In these benighted times, do we dare even pose such a question? What does it mean to be a man? Should we not instead find another term . . . Fully Realized Adult Functioning Member of Society Credentialed Human Unit Responsible Humanoid Grown Soul Something else? I find myself at this cultural tripwire of a […]

Song of Myself

I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. Walt Whitman I’ve had a long and varied career in business. I’ve started companies and folded companies. Given advice and sometimes even taken some. Made money […]

Curation vs. Compassion

We see what we want to see. We see what others want us to see. We think we show what we want to show (but do we really?). Multiply by a zillion if it’s on social media. A “curated” life is a mirage. A facsimile. It’s the green grass on the other side of the […]

Where Does the Fire Go?

Where Does the Fire Go? A cold night. A cozy room. A fire lit in the fireplace. You fall asleep by the fire. When you wake, the fire has gone out? But where did it go? You set the table for dinner. The candles are lit. Conversation ensues. The candles finally go out. But where […]

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

Franklin D Roosevelt launched his presidency (the first term) with a spare 20-minute, 1,883-word address. The most famous bit was a riff on Henry David Thoreau’s observation . . . “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” Roosevelt was elected in the teeth of what is now called “The Great Depression.”  His opening […]

It’s Easier to Be Critical Than Creative

Criticizing, correcting, editing, rejecting—these are easy compared to the hard work of creating, originating, and inventing. In every human endeavor I can think of, there is a time and place for both. What’s also true is they don’t go together. It seems intuitively obvious that the correct order of operations is to create first and […]

The Second Arrow

There is a Buddhist teaching called the two arrows. Our lives are full of “stuff happens.” Some of it we like, some of it pains us, and some we hardly notice. It’s the rhythm of life. The first arrow is the pain or discomfort we experience from something we don’t want or like. It’s enough […]

The Next Time You’re Shot with an Arrow

A famous Buddhist parable (sutta) relates a conversation with a man called Malukya. It begins with Malukya demanding answers from the Buddha to what were then referred to as the “fourteen unanswerable questions” —e.g., is there life after death, what is the nature of the cosmos, etc. These are the same questions we’re still asking […]

Don’t Be Clickbait

A headline is an advertisement for an article. It makes a promise: New, better, cheaper, faster, Going Fast, fascinating, shocking. The lead (or lede) sets the hook. The best leads put across the key insight or big idea. They communicate both an understanding of what interests the reader as well as what’s important to know. […]