Just like software, there is always a beta edition that we are experiencing. It’s called life as we live it. You can always rest assured that it flows on, and not necessarily as you would please. Now I know that most of us desire our “Pie in the Sky by and by” now, not later. But we’ll never get it tomorrow if we don’t lay the foundations today.
I got up this morning, had coffee, fed the pets, and went to the garden to drink my coffee. I have four great adult children, a wife I nearly worship, my supervising dog, and two domineering cats. Not too bad for a former folksinging Pius Itinerant who most people wrote off. This was not just handed to me. I have no clue about what the future may hold, and there will always be something that lies just over the horizon that I’ll never likely see. But what I do now, and in the future will hopefully help lay the foundations for better things.
Oh, you say you can’t influence the items on the great stage of life, the international, or the political in our nation. I’d reply that you should, in the words of the old quote, ” Think globally, work locally.” You may not bestride the earth, but great things are initiated from small beginnings. Freedom Marches started with individual ordinary people banding together.
Cultural Judo
I was lucky enough to have a career adapting my training as an anthropologist. First, I led a small Heritage Center in a community near Boston. We worked on research projects and public programming for five local ethnic groups. The issue that my bosses saw was getting the different groups into the same room. The anthropologist in me saw that the groups had intermarried, had kids, and shared similar cultural traditions. We used a sort of cultural Judo by appealing to what they had in common rather than what they had as cultural isolates. We viewed this as building a foundation. Want to build community? Build it on commonality rather than differences.
I used the same logic wherever I went, and it was a foundation for other people to build on and with.
Don’t pine away for what you can never see. Be hopeful and build foundations for things that you feel should come into existence.
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That’s good advice, Lou.
What a beautiful angle to approach the prompt with, Lou. I love it! Hugs
This is lovely — as for the future? I figure it’s not my problem though I did spend forty years helping others launch theirs. It’s cool how — one way or another — this is a relay.
We’ve done our part by and large with teaching, programs, research, and maybe even the blogs. But lots of people think it’s just going to fall into their laps.
They’ll learn 🤣
Yes, when it comes time to pass the torch, let us hope we leave behind great beginnings
Very good summation of how life should be Lou
This is also a test run to see if I can comment from Reader. I couldn’t before either on your post or here.
Another thing. Did you ever do that post on caring for wooden kitchen utensils?
I think I’ve done several, but this one from 2023 covers it pretty completely: https://loucarrerascarver.com/2023/08/27/recipe-for-woodenware/
Thank you 👍🏼😀
‘Build community on commonality rather than differences’ — that’s a foundation I’d happily stand on. Your ‘cultural Judo’ at the Heritage Center is such a hopeful, practical version of think-globally-work-locally. Travelling as a family has quietly taught us the same thing: the more places we visit, the clearer it becomes how much more people share than divides them. Thank you for the reminder that the big future is built from small, present-day foundations, Lou.