One might rewrite the history of the world every day, slap dash, for practice thinking big. If I were to try today, I'd try from the standpoint of hope, defined as that wet paint sort of smell. (Philosophers are very precise about defining.) I'd want something on Tesla and rural electrification, on Vatican II, on penicillin, on pre-writing and the revolution in writing teaching in my lifetime, on Google, on the mail service, on Margaret Wise Brown and the re-imagining of childhood, on Wittgenstein and John Wisdom and Austin as liberators of philosophy from constricting programs and constricting prose, on Jane Goodall and the serious thought that humans are not alone, even if the Martians never land.
My teacher David White used to say of karma yoga: "Even a little of this practice is beneficial, and the effects are permanent." There are a few things in the world like that.
Posted by shea0017 at April 8, 2004 9:50 AM