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Thursday, June 22, 2017

Responding to injustice and uncertainty


I very much appreciate the weekly Blog Brain Pickings.



"Maria Popova is a Bulgarian writer, blogger, and critic living in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her blog BrainPickings.org, which features her writing on culture, books, and eclectic subjects off and on the Internet." Wikipedia

I sometimes find it hard to keep up with all the wonderful topics she writes about and the links she provides. It's no wonder she has been awarded a prize for Blogging!

In this week's Blog I highlighted two quotes, both of which seem very appropriate to the world we currently live in.

The first is from Albert Einstein speaking about how to respond to the enormous injustices that sometimes feel overwhelming:

"Einstein suggests that the power to speak out against injustice need not be reserved for those professionally devoted to human rights work, nor manifested in grand deeds of activism. He reflects on his own simple, steadfast commitment:
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
'In a long life I have devoted all my faculties to reach a somewhat deeper insight into the structure of physical reality. Never have I made any systematic effort to ameliorate the lot of men, to fight injustice and suppression, and to improve the traditional forms of human relations. The only thing I did was this: in long intervals I have expressed an opinion on public issues whenever they appeared to me so bad and unfortunate that silence would have made me feel guilty of complicity.' " (Underlining mine.)

The second quote from Brain Pickings relates to living with uncertainty:

Albert Camus (1913-1960)
"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present,” Albert Camus wrote in his 1951 meditation on what it really means to be a rebel. At the heart of this sentiment are the two complementary forces of love and will, for a loving regard for the future requires a willful commitment to rising to the problems of the present and transcending its tumults — a dependency as true in our personal lives as it is in our political lives, and one which demands a capacity for withstanding uncertainty.