As I’ve traveled across the globe for nearly six decades, I have found that people exhibit remarkable similarities that by no stretch of the imagination can be construed as resulting from culture, history, language, or chance. All people appear motivated by an inbred striving for self-esteem that is in large part fostered by the approval of others … People have an inbred need to interact with other people. It is essential if we are to receive their approval, which we all seek. The true hermit is a rare aberration. What contributes to self-esteem depends on the broad range of learned or consciously chosen values that people believe, correctly or mistakenly, enhance their lives. We cannot function without some set of values to guide the multitude of choices we make every day. The need for values is inbred. Their content is not. That need is driven by an innate moral sense in all of us, the basis upon which a majority have sought the guidance of the numerous religions that humans have embraced over the millennia. Part of that innate moral code is a sense of what is just and proper. We all have different views of what is just, but none can avoid the built-in necessity of making such judgments. This build-in necessity is the basis of the laws that govern every society. It is the basis on which we hold people responsible for their actions.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Alan Greenspan On Self Esteem, Our Nature and Our Need For Connectedness

My hat goes off to Andrew Zuckerman who interviewed, photographed and filmed the 51 writers, actors, artists, designers, politicians, musicians and religious and business leaders who contributed to the project.  Holding this book, it’s obvious how much hard work and care went into its production and delivery. I’m actually a bit surprised that Andrew was the first to take a crack at something like this. It seems intuitive that we should always look to our elders (first) for guidance and inspiration on life’s most important lessons. Hopefully, this won’t be the first project of it’s kind.

If you’re now curious about the book, here’s a quick synopsis. The format of the book is simple – seven questions to each  subject, who are all over 65 years of age.  The responses are candid and authentic and, in many cases, inspirational. And there’s no B.S. or puffery. You only hear about what they’ve learned along the way – it all feels very human and humble. I found the contributions of Robert Redford, John Hume, Andrew Wyeth and Clint Eastwood particularly notable.I can also attest to the fact that the trailers are representative of the quality of the final product. Considering the book comes with a 60 minute DVD of clips from the interviews, it’s a steal for $30 new on amazon. Interested? Check these out…

THE TRAILER:

HOW IT WAS MADE:

BEHIND THE SCENES:

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Cracking Open The Wisdom Project

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Revering Randy

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Think No One’s Listening? Think Again.

The intended effects of the deliberate display of symbolic artifacts like this statue in public areas is undoubtedly to send a very clear message to the public – that certain ethical and moral values, for instance, are good for society. And why not remind the public of the virtues of non-violence, helping the poor and selflessness?? By any of these measures, Gandhi is a legend – which is why it makes perfect sense that this particular statue was chosen to stand amid a cluster of over 50 international embassies in D.C. – it’s the perfect political marketing message for international cooperation and peace.

That said, here are some interesting questions for those of you reading this. What if you learned something about Gandhi today that you found shocking and offensive? Would it change the value of the statue’s symbolism for you? After all, what the statue means to you (or any of us) is directly related to what you know of Gandhi (and, most importantly, how you feel about what you know). You have a relationship, so to speak, with the object based on your knowledge of it.

I, like most I’m sure, associated this statue with all of the positive P.R. Ganhdi gets. In fact, in Western pop culture it’s rare that you would hear Gandhi’s name associated with anything but praise, so our collective opinion as a society is (naturally) overwhelmingly positive. But the reality is, on an individual level, all I really know of Gandhi is what I’ve been exposed to in popular media and from books and TV. And to be honest, those opinions, until recently, have been unanimously positive. After reading Robyn Meredith’s The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India & China and What It Means for All of Us, my eyes have been opened to a new side of this great man – a side characterized by stubbornness, backward thinking, and, for lack of a better word, fundamentalism. Most importantly – and this is what blew me away – Meredith, in brilliant journalistic style, makes a very persuasive argument for why Gandhi’s ideals and politics and focus on isolation and protectionism gradually crippled a nation (of now, 1 billion people) with backwards rhetoric and autarkic policies. Here’s Meredith giving us a slightly darker picture of Gandhi:

Admired around the world for his advocacy of nonviolence and for his moral insistence on helping the poor, Gandhi supported policies that were meant to ensure India’s economic independence from the industrialized West. He advocated traditional means of production, symbolized by his own daily use of a wooden spinning wheel and asked Indians to stop wearing imported clothing and using imported goods, as a revolt against economic ties to a colonial power. Gandhi’s insistence that only natural medicines be used led many, including his own wife, to forgo available vaccines and medicine. When his wife was dying of bronchitis in 1944, the British flew a supply of penicillin to her, but Gandhi refused to allow doctors to inject her with it, because he believed the use of needles violated his principles of non-violence. He held her head as she died. Gandhi practiced celibacy for the last forty-two years of his life and believed that abstinence was the only acceptable form of birth control. The result? India’s population boomed and it’s scant resources were stretched because others were not as disciplined. His economic policies, too, grew to be just as impractical, for all their wealth of symbolic meaning…

– Robyn Meredith, The Elephant and The Dragon, pg 42.

Does reading any of this affect you as much as it affects me? One thing’s for sure, being Gandhi’s wife couldn’t have been easy.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Things You May Not Have Known About Gandhi