Nothing too prosaic on my mind lately, so here are some random thoughts and images.
Recently I was asked to do a little exercise in preparation for an upcoming discussion at work:
The list on the back page is a list of individual values. It is not an all inclusive list and you may have additional values to add. Begin by circling 10 or so values from the list that reflect what is important to you.
Focus on those 10. Which are the most important? Which are least important? Which can you let go? Reduce your list by 5 values.
Can you remove 2 more? If you struggle, rank the remaining values and focus on the top 3. Define and describe that those values mean to you.
I didn't spend a ton of time fretting over it, just quickly went with my gut. A few were easy to immediately eliminate. My initial list of 10 or so:
- Caring
- Compassion
- Competence
- Democracy
- Empathy
- Excellence
- Helping Others
- Integrity
- Public Service
- Responsibility
- Spirituality
- Trust
- Wisdom
I found I didn't have to gradually reduce the list from there, but could pick out three that were most vital and, as much as possible, incorporated the spirit of the ones I'd have to eliminate. My top three:
- Empathy
- Responsibility
- Wisdom
The idea being that if you're responsible, you'll hopefully also strive for competence, integrity, and excellence. If you have empathy, you'll also have caring and compassion. With wisdom comes spirituality. If you have wise, responsible empathy, you'll be motivated to help others and enjoy public service. And if everyone demonstrates those values, we should be able to build trust and democracy. In theory, anyway.
It’s in those moments of admitting and accepting your own terribleness that you realize other people can be terrible too. And if they can be terrible too, then maybe they can be vulnerable too, caring too, and all the things that you are and hope to be.
Speaking of random thoughts and images, lately I've really been enjoying playing around with
InspiroBot, which describes itself with:
I am an artificial intelligence dedicated to generating unlimited
amounts of unique inspirational quotes for endless enrichment of
pointless human existence.
I found it through the article
AI Trying To Design Inspirational Posters Goes Horribly And Hilariously Wrong. InspiroBot was apparently created to invent inspirational sayings and share them with accompanying images, assuming it was fed a plethora of real examples to learn from. The random combinations it produces, though, are hilariously skewed and sometimes quite scarily dark. Every so often, one comes up that's actually profound. Here are some of my favorites, starting with wonderful nonsense:
And now for a few that are particularly inspirational:
Here's one for cooks and chefs that's quite accurate and true:
I think these contain some pretty meaningful philosophical thoughts:
Though if I could cut off my addiction to the infinite possibilities, I wouldn't keep obsessively visiting InspiroBot.
Speaking of empathy, this one says so much:
Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.
― J.K. Rowling
And, finally, the truest, most accurate piece of inspirational advice ever:
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