Hi David B. and Focs,
"Kids are told, 'Don't spend your
whole allowance for bubble gum
[immediate emotional impulse]
because you're going to want to
spend it for something else later
[big picture].'"
It takes discipline, but the reward is freedom.
Traffic lights may hold you up for a couple of minutes, but if everyone
ignores them, they'll be prisoners to gridlock for hours.
"Static latching" is valuable!
Order can sometimes stifle, but when it is used as a tool, the "big
picture" may offer great freedom.
I've always been ambivalent about that old expression "education
broadens the mind". In many ways, education NARROWS the mind, like the
blinkers on a horse. Education trains us to pursue certain types of
thoughts and to suppress "undisciplined" thoughts. No, it's not
education that broadens the mind - the mind does it itself. Education is
a facilitator. The uneducated undisciplined mind meanders around,
usually getting nowhere, while the educated blinkered mind runs ahead at
astonishing speed. To do that, there are rules to be learned.
"Now, at last the standard rhetoric
texts came into their own. The
principles expounded in them were
no longer rules to rebel against, not
ultimate in themselves, but just
techniques, gimmicks, for
producing what really counted and
stood independently of the
techniques--Quality. What had
started out as a heresy from
traditional rhetoric turned into
a beautiful introduction to it."
For hundreds of thousands of years, humankind lived a perilous
existence, achieving little more than its own survival. Then, in just a
few millennia, the potential of human intelligence was unleashed with
ferocious intensity.
The simple freedoms of the plains Indians have been lost, other new
freedoms have been gained.
One might argue whether or not man is more free today. Few choose to
leave the city and return to the jungle, but the choice is available
nonetheless.
I just looked again at what DAVID B. had already written:
>Love my house and the furnace works well, not
>saying we should chuck it all and live naked-in-the-woods, but there is
a
>certain oppressiveness to our well insulated lives. Or is it just me?
>
>Proper order is a liberating thing, but I'm talking about that stuffy,
stale
>air that makes you just want to rip your shirt off and scream.
I agree 100%. It's sad that the order of this moderated forum has not
yet succeeded in liberating our collective thoughts. Is there more
potential to unleash?
Jonathan
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