Well, we have about two weeks until Christmas. I am in shock at how quickly the time has flown this first semester. It seems the older I get, the faster time goes. My elders have been telling me this for years, but being that they are older and youth possesses a tinge of arrogance, I have listened with only one ear. They are right. It is easy for this time of year to go by very quickly. One of the ways to slow the time down is to take the time to remember tradition. Each of us has our own set of traditions that have either been started with our own immediate families or started with the previous generations.
These traditions are what root us to the family tree. These, more than anything, shape our belief systems, build our stories, and define who we are and will be. In my family, we have many traditions. One of our traditions is that I host Christmas Eve dinner at my house. I invite my family that lives near by or is town for the holidays. If everyone comes, I usually cook for about 25-30 people. It is wonderful to have everyone one at my home. Another tradition is rolled into the food. Like most, I make candy: chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered Oreos, and chocolate covered peanuts. I make pumpkin roll, and the usual cut outs for my kids to decorate. I also make snicker doodles. These are a family favorite. Christmas would not seem like Christmas without them.
About seven years ago, my grandmother passed away. I was in the middle of making this cookie when my dad called to tell me his mom had died. It was a very hard time. I tell you this because whenever I make this cookie and continue the tradition, it is more than just baking. It is about remembering those who have impacted us in ways we can never find the words to appropriately describe. It is about slowing time to spend one more moment with the ones we love and to build future memories for our children. My brother once made the statement when he was younger that he wanted a good "Look back to his future." We all laughed at the illogical nature of the statement. But it is true. Everything we do is about a "look back to our futures."
Your blog this week is for you to explain one family tradition at this holiday time and what "look back to your future" it has given you. What will you remember and what has it taught you?
You have many Ayn Rand quotes listed below. She is the author of many books: Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, and Anthem to name a few. Her books have created and caused many emotion filled conversations. I would like to pick one quote from the list below. Copy the quote into your comment box and then respond to it. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? Does it ring true? Why or why not.
It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another — their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man — the function of his reasoning mind.
Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself. If a drought strikes them, animals perish — man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish — man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them animals perish — man writes the Constitution of the United States. But one does not obtain food, safety or freedom — by instinct.
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received — hatred. The great creators — the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors — stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.
So you think that money is the root of all evil? ... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? —Ayn Rand
