Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Start of a Project

I'll begin this blog with one of the most profound writings that I've ever come across. This will help you in understanding me. I read this piece in 1966 for the first time and it has had an impact on me ever since.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips! Sew them up with packthread, do. Else if you would be a man speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood....
Ralph Waldo Emerson


As Emerson also says in the same essay, "To be great is to be misunderstood"

Try to keep up
Enjoy the journey.