….Does the best of everything makes the best people? …

Grandmothers memo when they had a child:

Here is the baby.

Take it home and let it grow.

Let it speak when spoken to.

carry on with your liver.

Today’s memo: Here is the baby: Never allow anything difficult to happen to your child.

what should be the new memo :

Here’s your baby

Love her at home, at the polls, in the streets.

Let everything happen to her/him

Be near.

I like the Grandmothers memo, I think kids these days speak to much and listen to little.

From Glennon Doyle book, I do not subscribe to most of her ideas but the chapter about raising kids is a must read.

From GROK synopsis. In Glennon Doyle's memoir Untamed, the central message is a powerful call for women to break free from societal expectations, cultural conditioning, and the "cages" that dictate how they should live, love, and behave, instead embracing their authentic selves by trusting their inner voice, intuition, and wild instincts.

WOW

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." Lao Tzu

I am currently reading Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts, and it has revealed how little I truly knew about Napoleon Bonaparte. Far more than just a brilliant military leader, Napoleon was a transformative figure whose impact extended well beyond the battlefield. He achieved victories in 55 of the 60 battles he fought, largely due to his innovative strategy of concentrating his forces rather than dispersing them, combined with his remarkable speed in military maneuvers. However, his contributions were not limited to warfare. Napoleon established the Napoleonic Code, a revolutionary civil code that replaced thousands of fragmented local laws and was adopted across Europe, providing a foundation for modern legal systems. He also reformed education, built roads, and reduced the church’s influence over civic life, promoting secular governance. A patron of the arts and sciences, Napoleon’s vision reshaped society.His personal tolerance was extraordinary. For instance, he forgave the treacherous Talleyrand and retained a drunken coach driver who had proven crucial in a battle in Italy. Napoleon himself was abstemious, rarely drinking and preferring diluted wine when he did. Yet, despite his sweeping reforms and enduring legacy, his downfall was swift. At Waterloo, he deviated from his core principle by splitting his forces, a critical error. His earlier decisions also contributed to his demise: at the Tilsit summit with Tsar Alexander, he spared Prussia, which later attacked him four times. At Waterloo, Marshal Blücher’s role proved decisive. While it’s tempting to reduce Napoleon’s success to a simple system, I believe his genius lay in his ability to combine strategic simplicity with bold, multifaceted leadership.

Søren Kierkegaard: “The more a person seeks to secure himself against every contingency, the more he loses the possibility of living.” (Paraphrased from Works of Love, 1847)

quoting from David Senra , twitter page

"From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed."

Roald Amundsen, who prioritized speed and minimalism in his successful 1911 South Pole expedition, contrast with Robert Falcon Scott’s overburdened and ultimately tragic attempt.