Keith Hudson wrote:
>
> Hi Futureworkers,
>
> Although my success rate in getting letters printed in the Financial Times
> is now down to a lamentable 25%, I'm hoping to raise it to 40% with the
> following.
>
> Ponder on your mortality indeed!
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/everyman.html
>
> <<<<<
> Sir,
>
> As someone who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer recently, I turned
> to Michael Prowse's article ("Why death should lead to a better life", FT
> Weekend 18/19 November) with more than usual interest. Indeed, I am already
> actively pondering on my personal mortality as Prowse enjoins us all to do.
>
> However, he seems to have a grudge against those who, like Rupert Murdoch,
> have amassed great wealth and power. There was a rather nasty element of
> Schadenfreude in Prowse's article when he reminds us (as if we didn't know)
> that Rupert Murdoch will one day die without being able to take a single
> share certificate with him. To take Prowse's article to a logical
> conclusion, he seems to suggest that there's not much point in living at
> all�because we are all going to die anyway.
I do find some lamentable satisfaction in Thomas Kuhn's somewhat
similar notion that the way new scientific theories gain ascendancy
is not thru the adherents of the new theory *converting* those who
support the old theory, but rather because the supporters of the
old theory all eventually die off without being able to recruit
members of the next generation to carry on their work.
If I ever found anything hopeful about mortality, it is this
thought that one day all my tor-mentors will be dead, and their
less-than-world/less-than-worldview with them. I of course
hope to live long enough to enjoy their absence from the scene.
The rich are less of a problem than the powerful -- especially
the petty tyrants in our immediate social surrounds, e.g.,
un-alma maters, etc.). The most lamentable thing is that
they ever got the chance to be born, or, to be more
precise, that there was a social surround that could
shape babies into such adults.
>
> I write as someone without much power or wealth, but I don't begrudge
> Murdoch one iota of his. What I am envious about is that he has been able
> to play a fascinating game of life.
[snip]
One son of a very rich man once told me that the value of money is
the *opportunities* it opens up.
Unless one has been hurt so badly that one feels it is too late
to still have a life, it seems to me that the problem is less
what the "haves" *have* than what the "have-nots" *don't* have.
I think that all a person to whom much has been given needs
to do to have a reasonably good conscience is to help others
to enjoy as bounteous life as they enjoy. And this need
not be a "deprivation" for the rich person: e.g., teaching (mentoring
as opposed to tor-mentoring...) helps others while also
giving oneself pleasure.
>
> Finally, I'm very bothered about Michael Prowse's conclusion�that, as
> individuals, we should invest our time and energy in strengthening those
> social and cultural institutions that will outlast us. Surely, mankind has
> only been able to progress by the overturning of institutions! All such
> become outdated and, indeed, dangerous, in time. It is the undue longevity
> and intractability of many of our present-day institutions that is our
> greatest danger. The world is in constant change. We cannot preserve
> civilisations in aspic.
[snip]
Alain Resnais' film "Mon Oncle d'Amerique" expresses this well.
As I seem to recall the words of a certain hymn from my
Episcopal prep-schooling:
New situations teach new duties;
New knowledge makes old wisdom uncouth.
"Non carborundum legitimi" (Don't let the duly
appointed agents of institutional power grind you down!)
Finally, I trepidantly hope that my faith in *conversation*
will help sustain me, when I find myself [directly] addressed
by that offer no mortal can refuse. I find the ending
of Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal" a powerful
statement of what I hope will prove true for me, and
perhaps it will appeal to others to hope for the same:
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/thoughts.html#Karin
As Elie Wiesel said:
Don't compare! All suffering is intolerable.
Good luck, Keith!
"Yours in discourse..."
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
