Thoughts on Time and Individuality

Today my younger child celebrated her 13th birthday (actual date was March 4). Tuesday my older child turns 21. My thoughts about how fast time has changed, and what has changed are fast, furious and fleeting insights into the finite and the infinite. As Einstein said (to paraphrase) "The only two things that are infinite are the universe and human stupidity." As to the latter, what strikes me are arbitrary judgements made in politics and business that are driven by ego, dogma or simply misguided and incomplete thought processes. The herd mentality comes to mind.

President Obama has some hard decisions to make. We don't know how to fix the economy because we don't know how to change public sentiment overnight. Markets function wonderfully when people are rational, optimistic and think for themselves. i remember a time when i was an undergraduate at Yale watching Igor Stravinsky conduct a rehersal of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. Looking at the violin section he was extremely frustrated--the violinists looked and acted like clones of each other rather than tapping their individual talent. "Individual bowing..." he stated--and immediately the intensity and urgency of the music increased with mechanism replaced by passion. A lesson we should all take note of now...