“When the solution is simple, God is answering.” - Albert Einstein

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

30 November

“The winner enjoys simple pleasures with his wife and kids.” – Arnold Kunst

“It is always in season for old men to learn.” - Aeschylus

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

30 November

Now is the only now I've got, the only now that counts. After all, there is only so much I can learn from the strengths and weaknesses shown yesterday; there is only so much I can do by way of preparation for tomorrow. For there is no more benefit from yesterday's dinner than there is from tomorrow's oxygen. If I want the thing to happen, then I pick the thing up and go with it NOW. 

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” - Mark Twain

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 30

“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both.” – Alice Stone Blackwell

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

29 November

“Around me I saw women overworked and underpaid, doing men’s work at half men’s wages, not because their work was inferior, but because they were women.” – Anna Howard Shaw

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person,” – Mother Teresa

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

29 November

Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiver-in-Chief, Final Installment

The takeaway: there’s no great secret to Lincoln’s leadership in particular - or to leadership in general. The principle is simple even if the execution is apparently so difficult that few “leaders” choose to employ it: become a servant leader, not the leader from hell [note: there’s no third alternative]. 

Here’s what Lincoln’s example shows: 

·      Servant leadership is always hard but it never fails. 

·      Lincoln’s goals were rock-solid, his gratitude sincere, his follow-through consistent. 

·      Make sure you encourage/affirm/validate your troops when they become despondent, as they invariably will, as Lincoln did. 

When you do all that for your troops they will go through hell for you – just like his did for Lincoln!

“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” - Mark Twain

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 29

The foreign press was scathing of the new Lincoln administration. The London Morning Chronicle, at the end of 1861, wrote: “Abraham Lincoln, whose accession to power was generally welcomed on this side of the Atlantic, has proved himself a feeble, confused and small-minded mediocrity.”

“If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.” - Plato

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

28 November

“With guns you can kill terrorists. With education you can kill terrorism.” – Malala Yousafzai

“Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up.” – Dorothy Day

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

27 November

“Trust in God – She will provide.” - Emmeline Pankhurst

“May God protect me from gloomy saints.” – St Teresa of Avila

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

26 November

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.” – Charlotte Bronte

“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.” - Mother Teresa

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

28 November

Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiver-in-Chief, Third Installment

The common Northern soldier during the Civil War reacted to the bedrock sincerity of Lincoln like a flower to sunlight. As the 1864 election approached one veteran on furlough was asked whether the soldiers wanted Lincoln re-elected. He said enthusiastically. “Why, of course we do! He mustered us in and we’ll be damned if he shan’t stay where he is until he’s mustered us out!”

Would you believe, it was the soldier vote that insured Lincoln’s re-election in 1864! That’s all the more remarkable because 

·      the Civil War resulted in astronomical casualty figures [the Civil War has the grim distinction of producing over 620,000 casualties, more all other armed conflicts in American history combined, from the Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan!], and

·      his Democratic opponent, General George McClellan, known by his troops affectionally as “Little Mac,” promised an end to the war.

Stay tuned: final installment tomorrow.

“Hello. My name is Consistency. If you’re a leader you already know me.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

27 November

Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiver-in-Chief, Second Installment

From our perspective, everybody knows the North won the Civil War, so what’s the big deal: slam-dunk, right? Actually, no. For one thing, the vast majority of America’s military talent sided with the South, following the lead of arguably the most able field commander in American history, the dazzling Robert E. Lee. The North, by contrast, was left to build its military talent from the ground on up, and that was destined to take time. In those early months when the fumbling, bungling giant known as the North suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of Lee, Lincoln consistently visited his troops in the field – not merely to consult with his generals but to shore up his demoralized troops, reminding them time and again how essential was their work of preserving what he himself once called “the last, best hope of earth.” I’m sure each visit represented the need, yet again, to ignite a soggy match.

Let me say that again: there’s no arguing with “consistency.” Think of it this way: a husband prepares a cup of coffee for his disgruntled wife; she might then throw it in his face, but she cannot take away the fact that he prepared it for her in the first place. 

Like I say, there’s no arguing with “consistency.”

Stay tuned: third installment tomorrow.

“If you want to launch big ships, you have to go where the water is deep.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

26 November

Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiver-in-Chief, First Installment

The Civil War broke out a few weeks after Lincoln’s inauguration in 1861. To fight that war required volunteers who were prepared to interrupt their lives in a most profound way. That degree of commitment called forth gratitude from the Commander-in-Chief, but unlike other Presidents thanking troops for going into harm’s way [“the enemy is disorganized and has land we want;” “we need to get our oil from under their ground,” etc.] Lincoln’s gratitude was real. That’s why, in that first year of the war when volunteer regiments arrived in Washington, D.C. in ever-increasing numbers, the President made it his business to thank each one of those regiments personally.

Stay tuned: second installment tomorrow.

“The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end there it is.” - Winston Churchill

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 28

“Still, to use a coarse, but an expressive figure, broken eggs cannot be mended. I have issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and I can not retract it.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Hiding in my room, Safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.” - Paul Simon

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 27

“I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying; and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be block-head enough to have me.” - Abraham Lincoln

“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”- The Buddha

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 26

“Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in the bonds of fraternal feeling.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.” – Helen Keller

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

25 November

“Every now and then it helps to be a little deaf… That advice has stood me in good stead, not simply in dealing with my marriage, but in dealing with my colleagues.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.” - Alexis Carrel

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

25 November

“One of the inestimable benefits of an education – everything from a GED to a PhD - is developing the capacity to handle what’s called delayed gratification. Employers may not be interested that you got an A in molecular biology or that you know how to divide fractions, but they’ll pay top dollar for someone with a secure handle on that delayed gratification thing.” -Arnold Kunst

“No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.” - Muhammad Ali

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 25

“Truth crushed to the earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.” - Jefferson Davis

“Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember: all men would be tyrants if they could.” – Abigail Adams

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

24 November

“Learn to forgive/ask for forgiveness – they’re two equal sides of the same thing. Forgiveness is nature’s way of taking out the emotional garbage. Remember: Pobody’s Nerfect.” - Arnold Kunst

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

23 November

No goal is achieved, no dream realized, until it written down – as they say, “when you think it, ink it.” And if you’re REALLY serious, share your dream with a friend who will hold your feet to the fire. Remember: if it just sits there inside, it is dead. An unspoken, an unwritten, dream is no more real than a one-sided coin.

“Inch by inch it’s always a cinch; yard by yard it’s always hard.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

24 November

“Develop a small, but growing, investment portfolio at the very start of your career. [It’s called ‘paying yourself first.’] Make sure the money is taken out of your pay check before you even see it so it’s never available for you to spend. Smart!” - Anonymous

“I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.” - Cicero

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

23 November

 “Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it, or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conductive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all things – that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” - Buddha

“Humor is also a way of saying something serious.” - T. S. Eliot

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 24

“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.” - Abraham Lincoln

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 23

One man, looking decades back on his slave days as a youth of 9, recalled his first awareness of the existence of the thing called the Emancipation Proclamation: “As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night.... Some man who seemed to be a stranger [a United States officer, I presume] made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.”- Booker T. Washington

“Calmness is the cradle of power.” - Anonymous

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

22 November

“Time is an infallible corrosive. It will invariably show a thing to be what it really is: ripe with promise, putrid with death. And the winner’s patience goes far beyond what the casual observer might think is ‘enough.’ Take his pursuit of what’s known these days as a significant other. Like you and I, he’s seen yawning evidence that that choice is so often followed by emotional disaster extending to the furthest frontier. So he refuses to commit to until he knows, and he’ll know with the passage of time. An infallible corrosive.” – Arnold Kunst

“I’m on the hunt for who I’ve not yet become.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

22 November

Mozart deserves his middle name, Amadeus – “Amare” means “To Love” in Latin; “Deus” means “God” – figuratively translated “Love gift of God.” My daughter Simone, a voice major who has far more experience at this sort of thing than I do, says Mozart is so easy to sing - everything seems always to flow with such effortless mastery, every sfortzando in exactly the right place. I am standing in line for my decaf at the local Starbucks, earplugs in place, listening to his “Requiem.” The “Dies Irae” is truly terrifying, the “Rex Tremendae Majestatis” [translation: “King of tremendous majesty”] the standard by which all men might measure “majesty.” You can't help but be swept up into the emotional state he weaves with such consummate mastery - from beginning to end you are swept along inexorably. In fact I’d go even further, extrapolating beyond Mozart: the outpouring of genius feeds our souls. As a result I think a case can be made that you and I need to put ourselves in the presence of genius on a daily basis, for genius is the gift of the gods themselves. 

And if Mozart isn’t your thing, bear in mind genius is a many-splendored thing. 

It encompasses not only the visual and performing arts, but also sports, mathematics, politics, child-rearing – you name it. A daily exposure to genius will of necessity impact you and me in a most profound way. The cumulative reward for that exposure is that that genius, the part that has your name on it; as water into parched soil so will genius seep into your soul. Just like it should. 

Mozart is always right here in my cell phone, and all I need at my local Starbucks is my earphones and a properly formed sense of values, and profound enrichment is but a click away!

Sure, I agree life is piled high with intractable problems – but, please, don’t miss what feeds your soul!

“Do the best you can, leaving others to talk of you as they will.” - Anonymous

  

From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 22

Has mathematics ever been more grim? In the first 30 days of the 1864 Civil War campaign between the principal army of the North, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Ulysses S. Grant and the principal army of the South, the Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of Robert E. Lee, the North lost 50% more than did the enemy, and yet there was sense in the awful arithmetic propounded by the President. “If the same battle were to be fought over again, every day, through a week of days, with the same relative results,” observed the President a few months earlier, “the army under Lee would be wiped out to its last man, the Army of the Potomac would still be a mighty host, the war would be over, the Confederacy gone. No general yet found can face the arithmetic, but the end of the war will be at hand when he shall be discovered.”

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” – Atticus Finch, “To Kill a Mockingbird”

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

21 November

“Be very careful to share your goals only with people you’re sure have your best interests at heart - people who are level-headed, who listen well, who encourage well, who will keep your feet to the fire. Keep your own counsel around the others.” – Arnold Kunst

“Work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt, dance like no one's watching.” - Anonymous

“The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

21 November

Clearly Lincoln just couldn’t pass up the chance to have a bit of fun. According to Ward Hill Lamon, a fellow attorney and an old and trusted friend, Mr. Lincoln was the light and life of the court. As Lamon says, “The most trivial circumstance furnished the background for his wit. The following incident which illustrates his love of a joke occurred in the early days of our acquaintance. I, being at the time on the infant side of 21, took particular pleasure in athletic sports. One day when we were attending the circuit court which met at Bloomington, Illinois, I was wrestling near the courthouse with someone who had challenged me to a trial and in the scuffle made a large tare in the rear of my trousers. 

“Before I had time to make any change in my trousers I was called into court to take up a case. The evidence was finished, I, being the prosecuting attorney at the time, got up to address the jury. Having on a somewhat short coat my misfortune was rather apparent. 

“One of the lawyers for a joke started up a subscription paper which was passed from one member of the bar to another as they sat by a long table fronting the bench with the object of buying a pair of pantaloons for Lamon, ‘He being,’ the paper said, ‘a poor but worthy young man.’

“Several lawyers put down their names with some ludicrous subscription, and finally the paper was placed before Mr. Lincoln who, being engaged in writing at the time, glanced quickly over the paper, and immediately taking up his pen, wrote his name and then the following: 

“’I can contribute nothing to the end in view.’”

“Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 21

“I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.” - Abraham Lincoln

“The most important thing a girl wears is her confidence.” - Anonymous

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

20 November

I used to teach in a girls’ Catholic high school. It was quite simply the best girls’ college prep school in all of northern California. A number of our girls took Advanced Placement classes in everything from Chemistry to French; a good grade in one of these classes represented college credit. When the end of the year came around and it was time to take the all-important AP exams boys from the near-by Jesuit high school would come by to study with our girls. [Note: our girls didn’t go to them, their boys came to us.]  In fact, one of my former students went to Stanford with 24 units as a graduating high school senior. [I used to take credit for that kind of dazzling success until I realized she would have achieved that success if, instead of me as her Sophomore English teacher, she had Daffy Duck!]

As a natural corollary we also fielded a first-rate basketball team – you know, All-City, All-Conference, etc. And every year at one of the rallies in the gym we’d stage a game between the varsity team and a “team” made up of faculty members. Their team, of course, was composed of the regulation number of players. By contrast we needed every faculty member on the team that could stand upright just to stay “fresh.” Each of us would play flat out – for a good two minutes. Then our coach – the head of the math department was 6’ 4” – would rotate individuals out as we became deflated and rotate others in. 

The girls, of course, played consistently, and smoothly. I remember like it was yesterday how I needed to concentrate big time on just getting that damned ball to bounce up and down. The girls, though, would weave between us like we were statues – and never once look down at the ball they handled with consummate ease. The experience of getting trounced by our students was quite a switch from teaching them, say, how to write essays. Trying to put an essay together over a three-week period was, for them, like pushing a soggy noodle in a straight trajectory. 

Is life unfair, or what?!?

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a let? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

20 November

According to the Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, Cabinet discussions went on without order or system, notes Welles, “but in the summing up and conclusions the President, who was a patient listener and learner, concentrated results, and often determined questions adverse to the Secretary of State, regarding him and his opinions, as he did those of his other advisers, for what they were worth and generally no more.” 

“Spectacular achievement is always preceded by less spectacular preparation.” - Arnold Kunst

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 20

The main speaker at the dedication ceremony of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Edward Everett, sent this note about what came to be called the Gettysburg Address to President Lincoln: “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

19 November

You and I must choose to bloom where we’re planted because the only life we’ve got is the life that’s left, and that’s where it starts.

“I never met a man I didn’t like.” - Will Rogers

“The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

19 November

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” - John Muir

“The farther backward you can look the farther forward you can see.” - Winston Churchill

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 19

“Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” - Abraham Lincoln

“…For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” – The Bible

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

18 November

"Make sure that ’Winner" is never far from your mind. You are one, so think, and talk, and listen like one. Lead, and inspire, and impel to independent success like one. In your generosity of spirit be aware that those around you are winners too. Tell them so, often, and in different creative ways, thus engendering the thing. I think that’s very close to the reason we were put here in the first place.” - Arnold Kunst

“If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath

“The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

18 November

“Life often presents a fairly simple choice: do I want to cling to the security of what was once appropriate, or do I want to be abundantly wealthy? Think about it - clinging fiercely to antiquated appropriateness, to apparently validated self-pity, may seem oh, so seductive, but it comes at far too high a price. Instead, surely I am meant to adjust to the changes life offers like a sailor who trims his sails to fit into his purpose any moment's turn in the weather – and like that sailor, I must refuse to abdicate my sovereignty by letting some ad-hoc commotion in the elements dictate my destination.” - Arnold Kunst

“Strike when the iron is hot.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 18

The principal speaker at the November 19, 1863 ceremony dedicating the Gettysburg cemetery was Edward Everett from Massachusetts. As an afterthought the organizers invited Lincoln “to make a few appropriate remarks.” From Lincoln’s perspective, the dedication of this cemetery offered him the opportunity to lay out succinctly the North’s war aims – to explain why all these dead had not died in vain. This opportunity was particularly appealing in that virtually every Northern governor would be in attendance, and such a grouping, at that time, was a rarity indeed.

“Dazzling dreams deserve more than Mickey Mouse effort.” – Arnold Kunst

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

17 November

“I know my head is screwed on straight when I enjoy paying in the proper coinage the price[s] demanded by success.” – Arnold Kunst

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” - Aesop

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

17 November

We live in a world of inter-locking dependencies. Thus

·      I am called on to accept gratefully the parenting I need as and when I perceive it offered; 

·      I am called on to offer generously the parenting I can as and when I perceive it needed.

“When the winner walks into a room, somehow everybody in that room knows instinctively that something just happened.” - Anonymous

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 17

“I have no other goal so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed,” said Abraham Lincoln, age 23, in his very first election speech. If they elected him, he would regard it as a favor. If not, “I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.”

“The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.” - Len Yu Tang

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

16 November

“An inexperienced but loving, adventurous daddy will find the Mommies and Daddies School right next door to the Walking Academy on the campus of the College of Hard Knocks. If you do it right it is, as you’ll quickly learn, a fun campus to bring your child to and romp about on.” – Arnold Kunst

“Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.” – Hunter S. Thompson

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

16 November

When you went to Mozart for a piano lesson you played what he had assigned at the last lesson, of course, but you did one other thing: you sat and watched/listened. Do the same thing: put your pride in your pocket and get comfortable with sitting at the feet of the master. Get used to the fact that, even if you’re very good at what you do you're not at the top of every aspect of your field - somebody else is. Make it your business to find that person/those persons and learn from him/her/them.

“Always read the glass as half full. Empower, encourage, praise. And the rest of us, like flowers in the sunlight, surely will bloom just because we’re in your presence.” - Arnold Kunst

 From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst

November 16

“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates, to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his growing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing. His success in dealing with the strong egos of the men in his cabinet suggests that in the hands of a truly great politician the qualities we generally associate with decency and morality – kindness, sensitivity, compassion, honesty, and empathy – can also be impressive political resources.” - Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Collect moments, not things.” – Anonymous

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

15 November

“The winner teaches his kids that it’s ok to give money away to worthwhile causes. After all, as they’ll learn soon enough, it’s only money.” – Arnold Kunst

“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‘I'm with you, kid. Let's go!’'' - Maya Angelou

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

14 November

I wrote the following in my journal in 1978 when my daughter was four and my son was one: “I take great delight in the free expressions of my children as they unfold - life-long blossoms exhibiting ever-new wonders, each a universe as multifarious and beautiful as any external universe they grace with their wondering attention. Innocent, thorough, simple - each of them a god, as Emerson says somewhere, playing the fool.” 

“Our only enemies are guilt, fear and shame. Such unresolved negatives prevent us from living fully.” - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

From “Me Too, 365,” by Arnold Kunst

13 November

“Choose your wife and friends very carefully, but once chosen, stay true to them through thick and thin.” – Arnold Kunst

“All men having power ought to be mistrusted. ” - James Madison

15 November

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

I remember like it was yesterday a long-distance flight some years ago on which I was served a chicken dinner. What was so memorable was the fact that the trapezoidal space on that little plastic plate had a piece of chicken of uncannily accurate trapezoidal measurements, the one as plastic as the other. It was as if that chicken, the proud finished product of genetic engineering, had been tailor-made for this plastic plate, its ultimate residence. Like, it was an EXACT trapezoidal fit. 

By contrast let us pray that you and I – neither of us plastic - continue to be the proverbial round peg in all the proverbial square holes of life.