Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

Obama's Dreams from My FatherDreams from My Father by Barack Obama

I certainly would not have begun, much less finished, this book if the author and subject had not become so important. It is disjointed and rambling, parts memoir and parts abstract essay, and needed a firm edit to clarify its message. Separate from all that, however, is Barack Obama’s keen insight into race, belonging, and living a meaningful life. Listening to such a brilliant and compassionate person is time well spent. Also evident is his intuitive recognition of the power of conversation to create a world and a future, a foundation distinction for executive coaching. My favorite examples:

p. 287 That’s what the leadership was teaching me, day by day: that the self-interest I was supposed to be looking for extended well beyond the immediacy of issues, that beneath the small talk and sketchy biographies and received opinions people carried within them some central explanation of themselves. Stories full of

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© Tony Mayo 2008 except as otherwise noted.
Posted in For Executive Coaches, Quotes and Aphorisms.

Perception

Anais Nin

We do not see things as they are.

We see things as we are.

Anaïs Nin

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© Tony Mayo 2008 except as otherwise noted.
Posted in Quotes and Aphorisms, Recommended Books.

The Pudd’nhead Maxims

PuddnHead Maxims

These wisdoms are for the luring of youth toward
high moral altitudes. The author did not
gather them from practice, but from
observation.

To be good is noble,
but to show others how
to be good is nobler
and no trouble.

–Mark Twain in
Following the Equator

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© Tony Mayo 2008 except as otherwise noted.
Posted in For Fun, Quotes and Aphorisms.

The Meaning from Life

Stuart Kauffman

Is it more astonishing that a God created all that exists in six days, or that the natural processes of the creative universe have yielded galaxies, chemistry, life, agency, meaning, value, consciousness, culture without a Creator. In my mind and heart, the overwhelming answer is that the truth as best we know it, that all arose with no Creator agent, all on its wondrous own, is so awesome and stunning that it is God enough for me and I hope much of humankind.

Thus, beyond the new science that glimmers a new world view, we have a new view of God, not as transcendent, not as an agent, but as the very creativity of the universe itself. This God brings with it a sense of oneness, unity, with all of life, and our planet - it expands our consciousness and naturally seems to lead to an enhanced potential global ethic of wonder, awe, responsibility within the bounded limits of our capacity, for all of life and its home, the Earth, and beyond as we explore the Solar System.

Stuart A. Kauffman, PhD. in
BEYOND REDUCTIONISM:
Reinventing The Sacred


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© Tony Mayo 2008 except as otherwise noted.
Posted in Quotes and Aphorisms.

The Meaning of Life

MacBeth

Lady Macbeth’s suicide note, read by her husband:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

Macbeth, the king, reacts with:
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.





Thanks for this interpretation is due to David Blixt.

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© Tony Mayo 2008 except as otherwise noted.
Posted in Quotes and Aphorisms.




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