LATEST CULTURED NEWS

Make a New Friend

May 19, 2008

Today I met a new friend, and I think you’d like him as well. We can’t talk to him because he died in 1975, but he left us some interesting thoughts. Arnold Toynbee (1889 – 1975) was an English historian and philosopher. Here are some quotes I found at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/:

— It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.

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4 Ultimate Goods: Aristotle for Smart Divas

May 16, 2008

Don’t let your eyes glaze over. I promise Aristotle has something for you. As you probably are aware, Aristotle was the star student of Plato, way back a couple and a half of millennia ago. We will not hold it against Aristotle the fact that he did not allow female students into his school like his master, Plato, did. Everyone makes mistakes.

Aristotle made enormous contributions to Greek thought, much of which still affects us today. Part of his contribution was to write out 4 ideals that all human persons strive for: Beauty, Goodness, Justice, and Truth.

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My Inspiring Grandmother

March 26, 2008

I’m developing a workshop for some of my students entitled (tentatively), Smart Divas’ Guide to Life. It’s dedicated to my grandmother, who celebrated her 90th birthday this past Christmas.

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Coaching Exercise: The Characters Within You

March 24, 2008

This post is adapted from an exercise in The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart, by Julia Cameron, and was recommended on Christine Kane’s blog. It’s worth hundreds of dollars in psychotherapy, so read carefully. It explains a lot about yourself.

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Fear of Rejection in Communication

March 14, 2008

Think about these two philosophies of communication. Ancient wise man, Publilius Syrus (catchy name, I know!), wrote: Speech is the mirror of the soul, as a man speaks, so he is. Writing roughly 2,000 years later, James Carey, dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism writes that we create ourselves in conversation. Our communication, writing and speaking, reflect and shape our very selves. It’s not something to take lightly.

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