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Green Building Discussion
Topic: New Years Greetings
Discussion Participants:
All postings are the opinion of the writer, and BuildingGreen can take no responsibility for their accuracy or appropriateness.
Marc Rosenbaum and Vaclav Havel
From: Marc J. Rosenbaum
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 1996 8:32 AM
Sometimes I wonder why I do what i do when it seems as though the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Of course the lesson is not to be too ego involved in the outcome! The best writing I've seen on this was in Barbara Kingsolver's novel Animal Dreams, in which Hallie (who goes to Nicaragua to help the Sandinistas learn IPM!) tells her sister, who worries about her in a war zone, that "you're on the road because you know how to drive."
Well , most of us here have our learner's permits, and it does seem to me as though all the traffic is on the other side of the median strip! Anyway - here is a quote from Vaclav Havel that was helpful for me:
"Either we have hope or we don't; it's a dimension of the soul. It's an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. [It is] the ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense.
What faith means to me is simply this: it is a particular state of mind, a state of persistent and productive openness. ...Everything meaningful in life, though it may assume the most dramatic form of questioning and doubting, is distinguished by a certain transcendence of individual human existence - beyond the limits of mere 'self-care' - toward other people, toward society, toward the world. Only by looking outward, by caring for things that, in terms of pure survival, one needn't bother with at all... [only] by throwing oneself over and over again into the tumult of the world, with the intention of making one's voice count-only thus does one really become a person, a creator of the 'order of the spirit,' a being capable of a miracle: the recreation of the world."
Wishing you all a 1997 which finds you peaceful and at ease and well.
Marc Rosenbaum
Top of file
John Abrams
From: John R. Abrams
Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 1997 1:17 PM
An addition to Marc's (and Vaclav Havel's) provocative thoughts:
In the Frank Capra movie from the 30's, Mr Smith goes to Washington, James Stewart plays a young man just elected to the Senate. His fathers' encouragement, as he leaves for Washington, "Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."
That's because they tend to be the most important and humane ones, right?
Happy New Year, and onward to new and greater lost causes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 508 / 645-2618 (W) jabrams@smc.vineyard.net John R. Abrams 508 / 645-3182 (F) P O Box 359 Chilmark, MA 02535
Patty Ballentine
From: Ballentine
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 1997 4:26 PM
Greenbuilders: Thank you Marc for your greetings for 1997 so beautifully expressed and for sharing Vaclav Havel's quote:
Thank you, Greenbuilders for helping to make sense of the many issues you've discussed during this past year--it's needed, it's interesting. I have benefited and learned.
I think learning IS the hope refered to above. I believe that learning is the hope of overcoming the institutional inertia in the building industry, and for redirecting it onto a sustainable soft path.
For 1997--More! More!
Patty Ballentine Lansing, MI
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