Poking through 14+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

I used to have a feature called Quotable Quotes and may bring it back. Bertrand Russell, 1872 – 1970,  (use the link if you aren’t familiar with him; it is a good use of your time) spoke on many subjects. Considering current societal upheaval and forces at work today, it seems like a good time to review his comments on fear. I find them extremely timely, probably even more so than when they were written.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Most of us live with one kind of fear or another, although few of us admit it. Fear often masquerades as something else—envy, arrogance, failure, success—to name just a few. Bertrand Russell provides interesting commentary on fear in it’s many guises.

“Fear makes man unwise in the three great departments of human conduct: his dealings with nature, his dealings with other men, and his dealings with himself.” This explains much of what’s going on in the world today.

Fear not only paralyzes us it builds in our minds until it’s many times its original size; as Russell points out, “Until you have admitted your own fears to yourself, and have guarded yourself by a difficult effort of will against their myth-making power, you cannot hope to think truly about many matters of great importance . . .” I would add that ‘of great importance’ doesn’t necessarily mean global in scope or world-changing—unless you mean your own little corner of the world.

These days superstition is rampant and cruelty—physical, mental and spiritual—abounds in epic proportions at every level of human interaction. It’s worse now than ever before because technology has shrunk the world, given a louder voice to these evils and muted what wisdom is available. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom . . .

Envy is another form of fear; fear that someone has more, but as Russell points out there is always someone with more… “Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Fear feeds off fear and can be overwhelming. Fear of technology is usually well masked, but it can be substantially diluted if you remember that technology is finite, while humans deal in the infinite. There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.”

Fear drives ideology, ideology preempts thought and not thinking kills or, as Russell said, “Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”

Russell didn’t name it, but he had a wonderful take on ideology, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

Image credit: Wikipedia

Startup or not, people are working longer hours even if they aren’t in an office.

Millennials are burning out, because they feel guilty unless they are working.

People of all ages, even those well into their seventies are working longer and proud of it. Having spare time has become a symbol of low value, while being always busy equates to high status.

So it’s no surprise that companies and individual bosses are taking advantage and always pushing people to increase productivity.

When what they should be doing is sending them home, since working longer hours has been proved to lower productivity.

As countless studies have shown, this simply isn’t true. Productivity dramatically decreases with longer work hours, and completely drops off once people reach 55 hours of work a week, to the point that, on average, someone working 70 hours in a week achieves no more than a colleague working 15 fewer hours.

But that doesn’t stop various media from writing job shaming articles making fun of successful, well-known people working retail jobs.

Fans wondered why it was deemed newsworthy that a mother of two had taken a job in a different sector when her best-known role as an actor had wound down. (Soap stars, even on massive hits like EastEnders, do not earn early-retirement-level salaries.)

The fiasco echoed a similar attempt at job-shaming by another British tabloid last year, when the Daily Mail published photos of American actor Geoffrey Owens bagging groceries as a cashier at a Trader Joe’s, a retail chain known for its excellent job benefits. Fox News picked up the story in the US and both media outlets were ridiculed for it.

And, for a change, the trolls crawled quietly back under their rocks. Will wonders never cease.

Many of those working so-called low-level jobs are college graduates.

McKinsey findings show that 48% of employed U.S. college grads are in jobs that require less than a four-year degree.

Geoffrey Owens summed it up best.

“There is no job that’s better than another job. It might pay better, it might have better benefits, it might look better on a resume and on paper. But actually, it’s not better. Every job is worthwhile and valuable,”

Image credit: Kat

We live in a time of peril.

Not from the outside, but from within.

Politicians pander to our fears.

Trolls threaten, bully and abuse freely and anonymously.

Speech is free only if you are one of “us” and not one of “them.”

Hate and bigotry thrive.

Fear runs rampant.

What should/can you do?

Live the words of a true thought leader.

Image credit: Quotation Box

Yesterday we looked at how our society moved from a culture of narrow connections to one of mobility and a broader acceptance of those totally unconnected to us to the current regression back to responding mainly (often only) to those to whom we are already connected — no matter how tenuous or irrelevant the connection.

In other words, we went from silos to free-range and back to silos.

Ola Joseph says, “Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.”

But today we reinforce our particular silos through social media.

Where once we were broadened, 21^st Century media provides the means to assure ourselves that our opinions are shared by both followers and followed.

Trolls aren’t new, either; they are the modern version of poison pen letters.

According to Auden, “Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.”

However, the anonymity of online communications allows us to unleash our thoughts with no civilizing or cultural leavening.

And so we join the ranks of trolls in one area, while bemoaning their existence in another.

Image credit: Roshan Vyas