Hopping On The Merry-Go-Round

I haven't posted recently, not because I haven't had thoughts and impressions to share but because I've had too many.  Like a child on the playground, I just couldn't decide where to jump on the merry-go-round:  The European debt crisis, the inability of the U.S. Congress to get anything done, the Occupy movement, the Cain Train, Newt, Hillary in Burma, Egypt & Syria, China insinuating itself everywhere.  I thought I had a way in with a quote from Jürgen Habermas, "Our politicians have long been incapable of aspiring to anything whatsoever other than being re-elected. They have no political substance whatsoever, no convictions."  Well, we've suspected that for a while.  But I think I may have found it in a quote from Catherine Mann of Brandeis International Business School on the PBS NewsHour this week.  She said, "Nobody is making investments in the stock market thinking they're getting a long term investment in the company that they're buying a stock for."  I've wanted to believe that the stock market is where companies go to raise capital to be used in productive activity which also advances the common good.  Maybe it never was.  But even Andrew Carnegie, ruthless cutter of operating costs and financial manipulator, left us beautiful libraries all over North America.  I can't imagine J. P. Morgan Chase doing anything comparable.  Now that I'm finally on the carousel, maybe it's time for me too to put my body "upon the gears and upon the wheels" and make Mario Savio proud.  It's just that, these days, it's so hard to know which part of the apparatus to start with.

My New Chair

But it has no arms!?  That's the genius of it.

Chai Teas All Around

Today I saw four ministers (of God, not the Crown; three men and a woman) sitting together outside Starbucks.  Although it shouldn't have, the sight surprised me.  I usually picture ministers alone, tending their flock.  To my thought, expressed in the comment thread of the previous post, about who mentors the mentor I could add who ministers to the minister?  Looks like it may be through peer dialogue.  For some reason the sight of them cheered me immensely.

Upon Further Reflection

It's definitely the name - 'Life' Coach.  Maybe if they called themselves Mentors instead?  Mentor was left in charge of Odysseus' son Telemachus when Odysseus went off to the Trojan War.  Yes, I think that's much better.  Now let's pretend, just for fun, that I were to hang out a shingle as a Mentor.  What would I advise my clients?  I'll mull that over for future posts...

Next!

Since writing my previous post, I have read articles on the Loeb Classical Library and the scourge of Postmodernism.  Based on these readings I am now prepared to throw off the chains of 'whateverness' and declare the 'Life Coach' to be a modern day mutation of the snake oil salesman; and to proceed, refreshed, in my search for higher meanings and things of permanence.

Send Me In Coach!

I have tremendous respect for the ancient schools of philosophy, particularly the Greek and Roman ones, where children (albeit, of wealthy parents and exclusively male) were sent, or from which tutors were sought, in order to develop their argumentative and speaking skills; and generally to learn how to live a better life.  On the other hand, nothing annoys me more than the unmitigated gall of a thirtysomething to build a website and hang out a shingle as a 'Life Coach'.  Are they actually much different, one from the other?  That's what I've been chewing on today.

Rainbow Connections Continued...

A rainbow before me all at once fills me with the greatest confidence.  What a sign it is, over and in front of he who walks.  Everyone should Walk.

                                      From Werner Herzog's 'Of Walking in Ice',
                                      quoted in Paul Theroux's 'The Tao of Travel'