faith in the future

For every worry under the sun,

There is a remedy, or there is none;

If there be one, hurry and find it,

If there be none, never mind it.

–LeGrand Richards, CN 31 March 1979,4

We must have faith in the future regardless of the ultimate eventualities. There could be no greater calamity in this world than the calamity of sitting down and waiting for calamity. We must not let the things which we can’t do keep us from doing the things we can do…. The future will always be better for those who are best prepared.


Richard L. Evans, Church News, June 25, 1988, p.2 as found in Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-day Saints by Neil H. Leash. Cedar Fort. 1999. p.184

a why to live for

"Hat man sein warum? des Lebens, so verträgt man sich fast mit jedem wie?" or "If we have our own why in life, we shall get along with almost any how." - Friedrich Nietzsche “Götzen-Dämmerung; oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt” 1889 

As found in Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. "There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy."

sticking to a 'core competency'

In Kyoto, the video game company Nintendo is known across the globe for the way it revolutionised at-home entertainment with its electronic gaming system back in 1985.

But most people don’t know that the company predates its massive global commercial success. Despite being thought of as a tech company, Nintendo was founded back in 1889, as a maker of playing cards for the Japanese game hanafuda. First imported by the Portuguese in the 16th Century, the game involves collecting cards with various flowers printed on them, each worth different points.

Kyoto University’s [Yoshinori] Hara says Nintendo is a great example of a company sticking to what he calls a “core competency”. That’s the basic concept behind what a company makes or does, which helps the company survive – even as the technology or world around it changes. In Nintendo’s case, it’s “how to create fun”, Hara says.

Bryan Lufkin
"Why so many of the world’s oldest companies are in Japan" BBC.com Feb. 12, 2020

what is above knows

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. 

René Daumal

A Night of Serious Drinking.  1979. Shambhala.

water the roots

In 1968, I was traveling with Thich Nhat Hanh on a Fellowship tour during which there were meetings with church and student groups, senators, journalists, professors, business people, and — blessed relief — a few poets. Almost everywhere he went, this brown-robed Buddhist monk from Vietnam, looking many years younger than the man in his 40s he was, quickly disarmed those he met...

But there was one evening when Nhat Hanh awoke not understanding but rather the measureless rage of one American. He had been talking in the auditorium of a wealthy Christian church in a St. Louis suburb. As always, he emphasized the need for Americans to stop their bombing and killing in his country. There had been questions and answers when a large man stood up and spoke with searing scorn of the “supposed compassion” of “this Mister Hanh.”

“If you care so much about your people, Mister Hanh, why are you here? If you care so much for the people who are wounded, why don’t you spend your time with them?” At this point my recollection of his words is replaced by the memory of the intense anger which overwhelmed me. When he finished, I looked toward Nhat Hanh in bewilderment. What could he or anyone say? The spirit of the war itself had suddenly flled the room and it seemed hard to breathe.

There was a silence. Then Nhat Hanh began to speak — quietly, with deep calm, indeed with a sense of personal caring for the man who had just damned him. The words seemed like rain falling on fire. “If you want the tree to grow,” he said, “it won’t help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots. Many of the roots of the war are here, in your country. To help the people who are to be bombed, to try to protect them from this suffering, I have to come here.”

Jim Forest

"Nhat Hanh on Meditation: Like Rain Falling on Fire." Jim & Nancy Forest Blog.  November 13, 2018