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Thursday, August 9, 2012

"Good, Better, Best? Bronze, Silver, Gold..."'Michael A. Herr' (Aloha Friday)


Renowned author Michael Herr is back guest-blogging on this awesome Aloha Friday talking  about how society seems to rank everything under the sun and then some... Make sure and check out Michael's website at; http://www.michaelherr.com/
ALOHA FRIDAY
 
 
Good, Better, Best ?Bronze, Silver, Gold ?Aloha folks,

It's a race issue, but wait, keep reading, it's not what you think.
My issue today is a Human Race issue. And my question for the day is, why do we, humans, try to categorize and prioritize and rank everything under the sun? We number things continually . . . 1st planet from the sun, 2nd planet from the sun, etc. We put things into groups . . . dairy products, vegetables, good things for you and bad things for you. And then we break those groups down even further . . . leafy vegetables, tuberous vegetables, root vegetables, and etc. We argue constantly about where to place various things, about which category something belongs in. The tomato, for example. Declared a vegetable by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883, even while being acknowledged by that same Court as botanically a fruit.

And we rank things continually too. The ten best cars . . . the seven best retirement cities . . . the fifty most-handsome men/women. And in ranking we judge. We put together lists such as the Forbes 500, without regard to whether being on that list, having so much money, is good . . . or not. We admonish our children to get "good" grades in school . . . so they can go on to high levels of education . . . and then? If they get those "good" grades, but do not truly learn, what purpose is served? Did you "cram" for finals? I did. I stuffed my head with knowledge so that I could pass a test . . . and then that knowledge slowly leaked out until all that remained was what truly mattered to me.

Are humans going to change? No. We will continue to put things into categories. We will continue to number the many things in our life. And we will continue to judge.

And I will continue to watch the Olympics; because what it all comes down to there is bronze, silver and gold. Good, better and best. And the Olympics is one of the few venues where I think counting, and ranking are appropriate.

Okay folks, see you next week.
 
Hana Hou,  (Encore) Shared from Facebook...



check out Michael's website at http://www.michaelherr.com/ 

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