Monday, May 12, 2008

Here's an interesting meme.

C.G. Hill is passing on a little challenge: you have up to 150 characters to say a message to the world.

I like his - not only because he used precisely 150 characters, but also because I agree with the sentiment:

The mind begins to perish at the exact moment its owner becomes incurious: no matter how much you think you know, you will always have more to learn.

If I did not believe that I would not have become a college professor. (Nor would I own the 4500 or so books that I do).

So I spent a little time thinking, and I came up with two. The first one is a little more nicely crafted; it expresses only one thought:

Other people are not mere obstacles to your happiness: that person you now curse as a fool has hopes and dreams, loves and fears, just as you do.

(I believe that clocks in at 146 characters counting spaces).

However, I could also go into end-of-semester-cram-it-all-in mode and telegraph things I hold dear, if I'm willing to sacrifice organization or continuity:

Be kind. Give no one back evil for evil. Keep learning. Work hard. Value honesty. Follow the Golden Rule. Have interests outside of “making money.”

That's at 148 but it pretty much encapsulates the Most Important Things for me. (And yeah, if some of that sounds like it's stolen from the book of Timothy, it is.)

Or perhaps even shorter (and even more lifted from the before-mentioned epistle): "hold fast to that which is good, give no one back evil for evil."

That's only 66, but it pretty much sums it up. (Provided we can all agree on the definitions of "good" and "evil.")

1 comment:

dragon knitter said...

is that with or without spaces, lol?