Quotes as Design Agents

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"In those places where we're most alive, we are questions, not answers. These questions change as we age. One has to listen carefully, again and again, to detect new questions, which may announce themselves in a whisper. At any age, the questions we're asking define our growing edge. So long as we've got even a single question, we're not dead. If all we have are answers, we might as well be." Robert Fuller, Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank

I am often invited to provide quotes to people or for an event.  I love quotes. Note that each of my Journal entries begins with a quote. Each reminds me that I am not alone in my thinking; there are others musing over similar challenges and insights...  I have hundreds of quotes and each is an instruction or insight for me.  They are far more than words; they are ideas to build on and to take as instructive commands.  They give added voice to  my own thinking or to that of a group. I can remember many of the moments where "words jumped off the page" and introduced themselves to me.  Sometimes I have been lucky enough to meet the authors and thank them for their gift. Sometimes, the authors have been surprised and delighted with my insights into their words.  I have added meaning they never considered!  Good exchanges between author and myself  bring forth even more meaning. 

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Must be present to win

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"The poet Rilke asks, Why are we here? Why do we have to be human? And he answers: '. . . because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.' Everything living gives and receives according to its nature and its possibilities. What specifically is a human being designed to give—to others and to the earth itself? In a culture dominated by money and by the principle of personal gain, could there arise a wholly realistic way of giving and serving beyond the clichès of altruism and hidden fears for our own safety or the opinions of others? What could Rilke mean by speaking not just of our 'being here,' but of truly being here? Is there a quality of awareness that is itself something we receive as a gift, and is there a quality of awareness that we can give to our world without needing to take anything?" -Jacob Needleman, Money and the Meaning of Life, pp. xxi, 1991

Shopping at my local Trader Joe's last weekend, I caught a glimpse of a t-shirt that offered me the title of this journal entry:

Must be present to win

Now there is a useful re-minder, I thought to myself with a smile and a nod. I've no idea of the particular cause or context of the t-shirt slogan. It is, of course, a play on the all too familiar message, "need not be present to win," embedded in the inescapable daily barrage of advertisements, promotions and giveaways that fill our air waves, television screens, and mailboxes (both electronic and snail).

Well, you may not need to be present to win that classic Stratocaster with whammy bar, the six-piece stainless steel fondue set, or the 5-night / 6-day all inclusive Vegas vacation, but when it comes

to recognizing the sublime in everyday experience;
to walking in new shoes and creating new experiences;
to understanding our role in the emergence of an unfolding future;
to learning and making meaning of the world ...
for these, present we must be.

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Coming to Knowing Ecotopia

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"None of the happy conditions in Ecotopia are beyond our technical or resource reach of our society" Ralph Nader, 1975

Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach was first published in 1975... before the internet, recyling bins, before we knew California was the 4th or 5th or 6th largest economy ... while many of today's activists in northern California and Washington and Orgegon were still preteen. When I first read Ecotopia, I lived in Kansas City, Missouri. I am not sure where or how I found the book but it captured my imagination and I am sure perturbed me into a new quest for meaningful community. Now here I am living in Northern California, Mendocino County, the heart of Ecotopia.

I recently purchased a used, heavily yellow-marked copy and am winding my way through Ecotopia again. I am awe struck, really with how many Ecotopian-suggestions are happening here.

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