A Work Progressing

In 1991 a couple were hiking in the Orztai Alps, on the Austrian/Italy border, going slightly off trail. They found what appeared to be a hikers body in a crevasse, with his lower body still encased in ice. They hurried back to the lodge to report they had found a hiker from several seasons ago, and that the body was still mostly frozen.

Five days later an archaeologist determined that the body was approximately four thousand years old based upon the style of copper ax that was found with his remains.

The Age of Copper only lasted about 2000 years. Of course stone tools existed before copper, and they existed all through the Age of Copper, and still were in existence well after the Bronze Age. New technology does not completely replace old technology in an instant.

The generally agreed upon standard is that the Age of Copper was from 3500 BC to about 2300 BC. Although in some places copper smelting may have occurred several thousands of years earlier.

Otzi lived about two or three generations after copper became widely known. In fact, the Battle Ax culture had stone axes that were shaped like copper long before they had copper. For Otzi this was new technology, incredible technology. Otzi had a copper ax. This would have been as if he had an iPhone and everybody else had public phone booths.

Otzi was not a thief, at least he didn’t have to steal the ax. From chemical analysis of his hair they found trace elements of copper and arsenic. Considering that the copper ax was 99.7% pure, it was concluded that Otzi worked it, smelting the copper from natural formations or copper ore.

For at least 3.3 million years humans have used stone tools. We had used the rocks as they were, and after a million years we had developed very good flaking techniques. Two million years later we had the knapping technique down pat, and include notches the tie the stones to shafts or wooden handles.

Otzi probably did this as a young man. But now he was a man of copper, he didn’t have to flake or knap, he poured liquid copper into a mold, then hammered the result. Conquering metal was the first step in the race to the future.

The mummified corpse of Otis has been poked, prodded, x-rayed and scanned more than any living human. They have discovered what he had eaten for the last week and even what he ate just hours before his death. They looked at his teeth, his nails, the 61 tattoos on his body. Everything together gave a fairly complete picture of a man that was very used to going for long walks in the mountains.

One possible story for Otis, is that he was traveling with one or more friends when they were attacked by another party. There were four different blood types found through DNA testing. Two different types were found on one arrowhead that was found with him. This could have meant that Otis had killed or wounded one individual, then retrieved the arrow to wound of kill another. Another blood type was found on his flint bladed knife, he still used stone tools. The fourth blood type was found on the back of his coat, which may have come from carrying a wounded comrade.

We are not sure how far he carried his friend, there was no trace of other bodies. It might not have been very far because was thought to have bled to death from an arrow found in his shoulder. The shaft was missing but the arrowhead was deep in the shoulder, causing massive hemorrhaging. There were also cuts and bruises that were made shortly before death. Ottis had collapsed on his stomach, perhaps in order to pull out the arrow shaft.

Whoever killed Ottis did not take his clothes, his quiver of arrows, his shoes, or his fabulous copper ax. It is possible that they were thankful that he was dying and they were still alive. So Otis lost blood, lost consciousness, and froze in place for the next 5000 years.

We do know a few things. His clothes were very specialized and high tech for the times. At least four different skins were used for different purposes, his cloak was of woven grass. His leather loin cloth and coat were made from sheepskin. His leggings were made from goat, and his hat from bear. His shoes had top sides of deer and the sole was bear. The shoes were so well designed that a Czech company asked for the rights to reproduce them.

We also know that Ottis ate a large amount of grain, probably as bread and that he was lactose intolerant. Wheat, barley, flax and poppy were all present. He had also portions of antelope and deer meat that were eaten just hours before his death.

From the pollen evidence, it is thought that Otzi died in the summer, and was frozen that winter, completely covered in ice.

As far as we know there were no towns or cities. Villages probably were know for their specialized trade goods. Leather produced here, metal workers in another village. The constant travel meant that communication was widespread. It also meant that travelers could be set upon be those that wanted your goods if they could take your life.

We don’t know what Otzi and his friends carried, all we know is that Otzi never completed his trip.

Oh, by the way, DNA testing found 19 living relatives of Otzi in the local area.

“Ruminant manure constituted an important factor in American settlement on the Plains, providing fuel for heat and cooking in the near total absence of wood or coal, and serving as a medical specific for injuries and medical complaints ranging from the reattachment of severed members and snake bite to hiccups and sunburn.”

“Travelers on the Plains, European Americans and Native Americans alike, erected cairns of buffalo chips to serve as landmarks. As a fuel, cow and buffalo chips offered the advantage of not throwing sparks into bedding or clothing, which was especially important in military tents and tipis.”

One early settler reported, “Don’t feel sorry for us cooking with cow chips. They had their advantages– didn’t need to use pepper.”

It may have been Tom Robbins that once suggested that cooking with buffalo chips changed brain function. Instead of focusing on the burned pancakes, the thought was, “Go West!” And west they went, only to find and burn more buffalo chips. They continued west until there were no buffalo chips, just the Pacific Ocean.

I wish I could remember the exact book. It sounds like something Tom Robbins would write. It was funny at the time. Imagine that the smoke would induce a thought, or perhaps it was induced by the eating of small microbes. Go West, indeed!

Then I remember the Cat Lady theories.

“Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii. Infections with toxoplasmosis usually cause no obvious symptoms in adults. … The parasite is only known to reproduce sexually in the cat family.”

Jaroslav Flegr is the Czech biologist that suggests that the parasite can cause unique brain activity, causing increased traffic accidents, schizophrenia, and other problems with auto-immune issues. By conjecture, the parasite wants the host to die so a cat will eat it, and the parasite will complete it’s sexual cycle. Wonderfully complex, and just too weird to be true.

Still, it nags at the back of my brain. What if it is true? What if buffalo chip smoke keeps you headed west? What if copper smelting fumes changes your brain chemistry into experimenting with more metals, thereby creating bronze, iron and eventually steel. It would explain a lot of things.

Of course it is the height of lunacy to think that mere smoke can alter the way the brain thinks.

I know a man who knows copper. He knows copper, but he also knows the meaning of copper, where it fits in today’s world, where it fit in yesterday’s world, and how it came into history.

I am a student of the “ages”, some of this is structured knowledge from coursework, most is eclectic reading. Our earliest “age” is called “the Stone Age” but it could also be called “the Bone Age”, because our tools were made of stone and bone.

We really don’t have an accurate timeframe, the beginning of the Stone Age could be millions of years ago. Using stone without “working the stone” may have just been as natural as throwing rocks.

The earliest “worked stone” tools are now thought to be 3.3 million years ago, according to a recent find. Previously it was thought 700,000 years later. It is safe to say the our progress in developing tools was as slow as the glacier that we lived near.

But then, something happened, we discovered metal. It could have been a nugget in the stream, or a natural ingot exposed in a river bank. If it was gold, we discovered it could adorn our bodies, but not much use for anything else.

If the metal was copper, that was a different story. It could be formed into jewelry, it could also be formed into tools. It was discovered that hammering copper actually made it harder. A copper tool could also make more copper tools. An actual sharp knife could be made.

As soon as metal was discovered, our tool making skills took a logrhythmic turn. There is much disagreement, but most scholars date the earliest copper artifacts were in Turkey approximately 7000 bc, give or take a 1,000 years. In any case, it only took 10,000 years to get to our modern age. For 3,000,000 million years we had only improved our flaky techniques in stone.

Most general knowledge is centered on the “Bronze Age” or the “Iron Age”, and I can completely understand this. Hard to compete with the Trojan War, and medieval knights. What do we really know about “the Copper Age”?

It may have been just a Mediterranean phenomenon, existing primarily from 3500 to 2300 bc according to some scholars. There are copper workers in other areas of the world, in the Americas and Asia, but certainly the Mediterranean cultures took the metal to new heights.

Yes, it is true that copper weapons were sharper and more deadly than bone or obsidian, but copper allowed the culinary art to form. Copper vessels were not very toxic and water could be easily boiled.

Changing the eating habits of a people has a far greater impact then you might imagine. The inedible could be come edible. Foods could be rendered and mixed. In general, before copper, food was eaten one individual bite at a time. Cooking allowed stews and soups to be created, mixing various foods in that one bite.

I’ve seen demonstrations of wooden bowls of water being heated by hot stones. Well, perhaps they worked, but not half as well as a copper kettle, suspended on a tripod over the fire. And later, perhaps the kettle became a helmet. I recall heating water for coffee in my steel helmet while in the field, True now, probably True then.

Why such a short age? Barely over 2000 years before becoming erased by history? It was simply the art of metallurgy. Instead of relying upon naturally formed ingots, we discovered the ability to smelt copper ore. It wasn’t long before someone experimented with adding other metals to the liquid copper. With tin added, copper became bronze.

Imagine the shock of Egyptian troops with their copper scythe-like swords being cut in half by the sharper bronze swords in the hands of their northern barbarians. It must have been the same as the bronze wielding armies when they faced the far northern barbarians that had iron swords.

There was a time that I fenced quite a lot. I preferred the saber over the epee, or foil. It wasn’t life or death in the heat of the match, but sometimes it felt that way. One time I raised my blade in defense to block a downward head cut. My blade snapped about six inches up from the guard. My sword was cut in two.

In that one moment I felt all the emotions of thousands of individuals that had trusted their weapon, and then realizing that their life hung in the balance because of a superior metal. It was devastating.

Someone needs to give me more information on that first age of metal. Someone who knows the meaning of copper. Perhaps my friend?

Just heard a radio commentary about Rishi Sharma, a young man who has dedicated himself to contact living WWII veterans, and then document their lives. He started doing this when he was seventeen. There were over 16 million veterans in WWII, there are approx 650 that die each day. Only 2.8 percent of the veterans are still alive. He has just over 840 interviews done.

Check out his page, http://www.heroesofthesecondworldwar.org

It reminds me of my father-in-law. I found his WWII diary in his bookcase. It was the standard diary issued by the army. I was given one and left it blank. Al filled his out, sometimes in pencil. It took a long time to know his handwriting.

Al was part of five “hot landings” on beaches from Australia, up through New Guinea, Philippines, and then Japan. Every few weeks Al would update his diary, not only on what he saw, but on what he did, and what he ate. It was an honest soldier’s diary.

I asked to borrow it for awhile and he said “Sure!” It was more like three weeks, I don’t type very fast. I got the book back to Al, but then I began to research what he had written. I used several sources to create a “pull out” section to give additional details. Then I laid out the copy to create a paperback book. This was several years before the “vanity press” companies. I had to do it the old school way.

It was fortunate that I had several friends in the printing business. One friend printed the four color cover on the margin of another job he was already running. I cut the covers to match the interior pages. Another friend printed 500 copies, and yet another friend collated and trimmed the final product.

After about a month I could give my father-in-law 500 copies of his book, titled “My War”, with a $75.00 price tag. A bit high for a paperback but still a bargain, it didn’t matter because he simply handed them out to anyone who was interested.

Thinking back, it was one of the best things I’ve done for a variety of reasons. And Sharma has done this 840 times. I am so impressed.

Check out Al Goldstein

http://www.algoldstein.wordpress.com

My War

and a collection of letters to his wife Anne.

Hildegard von Bingen was a real person. We know so much because she wrote and was written about. History calls this time, from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 to the Renaissance of the 14th century, as the Dark Ages. Actually there are several Dark Ages within the Dark Ages.

It is not because we forgot how to make candles, or that burning cities created dense black clouds, (although this is also true). It is the Dark Ages because very little was written, or saved, if it was written. Without the trappings of Roman culture, with their scribes and libraries, very little writing was going on. The system of scriptoriums in the Catholic Church hadn’t reached its potential. Yet there were a few written examples. The written works of Hildegard, also the story of Abelard and Heloise.

There are several good books with some excellent recent research available, and the general story is widely known. It is about love, societal standards, perseverance, tragedy, and faith. It is also about power.

Ever since Alcuin stood in chambers with Charlemagne, most of Europe’s leaders sought out learned men to give advice. Armies gave power, but knowledge kept power. Men who knew things were honored. If you ruled, you wanted your children to be educated. In this case, Heloise’s uncle wanted his niece to be educated. Why? Was it cynical? Did he want his niece to be worth more in the typical arraigned marriage in order to build empires? Or did he simply want her to be able to expand on her already considerable knowledge? We don’t know, but we do know that he hired a young, and very famous academician that was currently teaching at Notre Dame.

Fulbert, Heloise’s uncle, was a powerful man, and Abélard wanted to align himself with his House. He also boasted of his ability to seduce Héloïse. Fulbert stepped in to separate the lovers. They went around him. Heloise became pregnant and Abélard sent her to his relatives to have the child. It appeared to Fulbert that Abélard was not serious about the relationship, Abélard had proposed a “secret” marriage but Heloise wasn’t going for it. Abélard then sent her to a convent to protect her from her uncle.

Fulbert was not amused and sent some of his men to find Abélard, and then castrate him. Obviously this was going to change his life. The first thing was that Abélard became a monk, and he insisted that Heloise take the vows of being a nun. We have the letters that Heloise wrote that asks why should she submit to that life, when she did not feel the calling. This was a tragedy of epic proportions.

It gets worse, the arrogant scholar became a theologian and began irritating monks, bishops, and even Popes. His fame grew even more, and his students multiplied. He even rejoined with Heloise. She was now the leader of her group of nuns, and they came under Abélard’s order, although now as brother and sister.

Abélard continued to write books that were challenging to authorities. Pope Innocent finally excommunicated him and ordered all his books burned. A life’s work gone up in smoke. Fortunately, before he went home to France, he stopped at a friend’s who ran the monastery at Cluny. Abélard was getting old by this time, and his friend convinced the Pope to rescind the excommunication because Abélard was in “retirement” at Cluny.

He died soon after and Heloise arranged his burial, with plans for her own burial beside him. Probably a template for dozens of fictional lovers that could never catch a break.

Tristan and Isolde was also written at this time. The beginnings of the story of Lancelot and Guinevere was also being developed. Maybe even Shakespeare was thinking that Romeo and Juliet had a connection.

Not exactly the Dark Ages. I need to read more on this.

I got to thinking about Hildegard. I rented a car at the airport and it has this feature of charging my iPhone and somehow accessing my music library. Actually, I know nothing about the process beyond plugging in my phone. This is why I was suddenly surprised to hear Hildegard von Bingen playing while I was crossing the snow laden valley of Spokane. Instead of the local aired “oldies but goodies”, I was listening to my collected music.

Approaching Idaho with Gregorian chants.

Hildegard von Bingen was born 1098 and died on Sept 17, 1179. According to Wikipedia she was an abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath (meaning a knower of many things).

Many scholars believe that Hildegard may have been the most intelligent human ever born, including past and current scientists. In fact Hildegard is still considered the founder of scientific natural history..

Hildegard may have been the youngest of ten children, records only exist for seven. She was quite frail and experienced visions. Her parents decided to place her in the church at the age of eight. She was raised by the nun Jutta, who taught her to read and write Latin.

When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected leader of the sister nuns. By 1150 she was the first abbess that had her own independent monastery not run by a priest.

The reading of her accomplishments are truly amazing. She wrote about plants and herbs for medicinal purposes, she invented a language with accompanied alphabet, she popularized the use of Arabic numerals, including the concept of zero. She wrote music, plays, books on astronomy, geometry, and grammar.

Her opinions were sought by Kings Emperors, and Princes. As she said, “woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman.” She obviously influenced James Brown when he wrote “It’s a Man’s World”.

She had four speaking tours, preaching against corruption by those in power. This was unheard of in the time. No women could bring correction or the gospel. Except that she did.

Pope Benedict made her a Doctor of the Church in 2012, and after eight hundred years, she is being studied in colleges regarding her impact in the world, particularly by feminists.

And, I really like her music, set to the frozen gravel of the glacial plains of Spokane.

I am alone in Spokane, fending for myself. There is still six inches of snow on the ground. There is a heighten sense for the need to find warmth and food. I have a really nice, comfortable room, but I am in search of food.

Of course this is more than just a travelogue. The take-away is finding the analogy that lays deeper.

I find a grill with lots of hanging lights, giving a warm holiday sort of vibe. And it doesn’t disappoint. It has a varied menu with interesting sandwiches, appetizers and entrees. I’m thinking that my red meat quota for the week is done, and the fish or chicken doesn’t grab me. So, it is either Mac & Cheese or the Portobello Parmesan. I go with the Parmesan. The soup was a tomato basil that made me want a grilled cheese sandwich, but I must accept the Parmesan instead.

It’s funny how some “parings” are based upon tradition and personal life experience. Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese is probably the most general comfort food that exists. But I’m only half comfortable.

The Parmesan comes in a bowl with a side of baby broccoli. The broccoli was first rate. The bowl was a challenge. On the plate, behind the bowl, was the largest steak knife that I’ve ever seen outside the kitchen. It could have been presented with its own sheath. Hmm, I didn’t order steak, I ordered the mushroom.

Hiding below the marinara was the mushroom. It neatly covered the mozzarella and pasta, being exactly the size of the bowl. I first tried the fork, but the mushroom completely blocked me, only allowing a thin taste of the marinara. It was good, but I needed the mozzerela and the pasta. I also needed the mushroom. I viewed the steak knife with new appreciation.

After briefly considering lifting the mushroom up to scoop the delicious underneath, I picked up the knife, tested the sharpness, and prepared to go to work. It was a disaster.

This mushroom was grilled wonderfully, but it was also resilient to attack. The more pressure I exerted, the more it slid out of the way, causing pasta, marinara and mozzarella to be displaced almost like an eruption. After many tries to cut the mushroom into manageable bites I gave up. I couldn’t see the mushroom anymore, it was buried and laying at the bottom of the bowl.

Not giving up on my consumption, I exchanged the knife with my fork. The broccoli was handled, the Parmesan was eaten. And here is the analogy. Because the mushroom was not professional diced, the pieces that I could fork were larger than normal. The mouthful was at times mostly Portobello, at other times is was pasta and mozzarella, rarely was it the balanced portions were the taste was designed. In the end I ran out of mushroom and the rest of the Parmesan was left uneaten.

Why wasn’t the mushroom diced before serving? The chef was trapped into the cute and creative “covering” quality of the mushroom. True, dicing was also another step, but should I ever order a grilled portobello again, I will ask for the dicing.

Don’t let style or coincidence take you away from the original intent.

(Okay, so maybe at my age I need my steak cut by the chef as well.)

The 1965 film was a masterpiece, detailing of the life of Michelangelo and his relationship with his patron Pope Julius II. It was my first introduction to Michelangelo and began my sincere appreciation to this day.

The title has always intrigued me. It describes a vast amount of emotional range, almost the perfect picture of bipolar. It’s no accident that an artist can feel this ecstasy so deeply, and sometimes so quickly. After hours of working in stone, ecstatically carving just the right line, then a miss hit with chisel, and a chunk flies off into the corner. The agony comes even quicker. I have experienced this first hand. Well, maybe not the ecstasy, but certainly the agony.

This range of emotion is not for the faint hearted, and for some it is crippling. What has been intriguing me lately is the more common and less dramatic range of comfort and discomfort. It is the lesser cousin of agony and ecstasy.

I’m comfortably walking to the store. I feel a chill because my jacket is unzipped, this makes me discomfortable. I zip the jacket and it is resolved, I am again comfortable. I sit in my recliner expecting the comfort of raising my feet, only to find that my wallet is poking my right butt cheek. I adjust it and I’m back to being comfortable.

This is generally the case, comfort can come quite easily. All one must do is remove the source of discomfort. I’m not sure that ecstasy is created by removing agony.

I think perhaps the potential ease of being comfortable is the trap that causes so many people to chase comfort with such vigor. Ecstasy is so far away, too much effort, but comfort? Comfort is just a simple adjustment. Why not be comfortable 100% of the time?

That is a reasonable question! And take a look at the efforts of most folk to be more comfortable. The opioid crisis doesn’t come from the desire to remove pain. It comes from the desire to attain comfort. Alcohol is perhaps the first historical example of seeking comfort. Even Noah succumbed to the desire. Life was harsh, why not grow a few grapes and remove the discomfort with the fermented juice?

I suppose the answer to the basic question is… Would Noah have built the ark if he had fermented the grapes first? Metaphorically, if he didn’t build the Ark, there would be no people. That’s a fairly large consequence to the desire for comfort.

I have taught art for many years and have experienced the creative process of thousands of students. Mostly it is hard work and persistence. Often it is breathtaking. Some of the most breathtaking have been from students describing their concepts beforehand. Sometimes this conversation is just “smoke talk”, from students who regular smoke a little creative encouragement. Unfortunately the art concept never finds reality, except as smoke.

The projects that get done are the result of dedication, planning, and painful practice. Musicians are used to this practice, visual artists also need training to master their tools, so we call them “studies”. Hehe, I guess writers call them blogs.

The point is that creative folks understand that discomfort is part of the process of bringing art to life. So many other examples exist, that I’m a little confused why discomfort is so avoided. Maybe it is an issue that our lives aren’t bouncing between comfort and discomfort. Maybe we spend far too much time in the region between, “the Great Dull Void”, where nothing is done, and nothing is felt.

It’s not that we are comfortable there, we are just not uncomfortable enough to move. The Great Dull Void keeps us captive so that even in our activity we move as automatons. We derive no comfort from work, or social interaction, but it’s not awful either. It’s almost like we are in line, waiting for life to happen.

One of the quotes on discomfort I like particularly well. “Discomfort is very much a part of my master plan.”

Two things that I bring from my life lessons…

1. It may be fine to have milk from “contented cows”, but contentment (comfort) rarely creates art.

2. Often we enjoy the beauty of art, but we don’t see the discomfort behind the creation.

It suddenly struck me one year, that most of the photographs that I really admired were taken by photographers in very uncomfortable places. Not only was there the years of uncomfortable training for the skill, but now they were kayaking in icy Arctic waters to take the one special iceberg image, or hanging out of a plane at high altitude to shoot storm clouds.

It adds to my appreciation to see the possible discomfort behind the beauty.

This was discomforting. I hadn’t recognized any of the names, (well, one seemed familiar), yet I was drawn to their quotes. A little Wikipedia check has made me very interested to read more.

1. Discomfort is very much part of my master plan. –Jonathan Lethem

2. All discomfort comes from suppressing your true identity. –Bryant H. McGill

3. I often feel a discomfort, a kind of embarrassment, when I explain elementary-particle physics to laypeople. It all seems so arbitrary – the ridiculous collection of fundamental particles, the lack of pattern to their masses. –Leonard Susskind

4. We’re so preoccupied with protecting children from disappointment and discomfort that we’re inadvertently excusing them from growing up. –LZ Granderson

5. I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it. –Yann Martel

6. I wish for a world where everyone understands that discomfort is the price of legendary. And fear is just growth coming to get you. –Robin S. Sharma

7. Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. –Martha Beck

8. If you’re never able to tolerate a little bit of pain and discomfort, you’ll never get better. –Angela Duckworth

9. Still today, I cannot cross the threshold of a teaching institution without physical symptoms, in my chest and my stomach, of discomfort or anxiety. And yet I have never left school. –Jacques Derrida

10. Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort. –Peter McWilliams

Jonathan Lethem- American novelist, Gun, with Occasional Music

I must read. Never heard of him but the Wikipedia article was fascinating.

Bryant H. McGill– His articles have reached more people on social media than any top shared article, by any other writer or media outlet including the New York Times, Barack Obama, Huffington Post, or CNN. 12+ MILLION Social Subscribers!

I should check him out!

Leonard Susskind- is an American physicist, who is professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, and director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Okay, clearly I missed the boat here, and I need to read more about him.

LZ Granderson- is an American journalist, a contributor at ABC News and a columnist for ESPN.

Nope, never heard of him, but I will look for him now.

Yann Martel- Spanish Canadian author.

Yes, I finally remembered one. Life of Pi author

Robin S. Sharma- is a Canadian writer and motivational speaker known for his The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari book series.

Sounds interesting!

Martha Beck- is an American sociologist, life coach, best-selling author, and speaker who specializes in helping individuals and groups achieve personal and professional goals. She holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology, both from Harvard University. Beck is the daughter of deceased LDS Church scholar and apologist, Hugh Nibley. She received national attention after publication in 2005 of her best-seller, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith in which she recounts her experiences of surviving sexual abuse. In addition to authoring several books, Beck is a columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine.

Wow, I just had to paste the whole Wikipedia article.

Angela Duckworth- American academic, psychologist and popular science author. She is Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania,[1] where she studies grit and self-control.

Grit and self control? Well okay!!

Jacques Derrida- was a French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.

Applied and sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, political theory ??? I should have known about this guy.

Peter McWilliams– American author of self help books, and a prime advocate of the legalization of marijuana.

Hmm, I let his quote in, even though he mentioned “comfort zone”. I disagree with him but I should read what his argument is.

I went to BrainyQuotes on the net to cull the best quotes on comfort. I did use a filter, anytime anyone used the phrase “comfort zone” I immediately rejected the quote. Probably unfair, but to me, it just sets my teeth on edge. Interestingly, using that filter allowed the following gems to stand out.

1. Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. –John F. Kennedy

2. The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort. –Confucius

3. Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. –Hippocrates

4. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. –C. S. Lewis

5. The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master. –Khalil Gibran

6. A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar. –Lao Tzu

7. The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others. –Aesop

8. Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. –Finley Peter Dunne

9. You can’t comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable. –Princess Diana

10. Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort. –Marshall McLuhan