11-4-13 RMB NPR Article

11-4-13 RMB NPR Article

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

It is Monday and I awoke at two in the morning with a massive headache, from caffeine or lack thereof? Or from life… or lack thereof? Who’s to know?  

Time and a bit more rest, and yes, coffee too, make all right in the world once again. I am in awe of the human body, an incredible machine.

So what have you been up to, Rita Mae Brown, hm? I did a bit of poking around and found this article online, brought to us by NPR and one RMB http://www.npr.org/2013/10/27/240556239/guilty-pleasure-lives-of-the-caesars. Leave it to you to answer a question about your favorite reads with something out of Roman History. Here are some words I found interesting:

“Few rulers have overcome the washing away of reality, and in his work Suetonius makes this hideously clear. Without restraint, honest debate and consideration for human life and economy, not only will the person in power be destroyed — finally so will the state, the civilization.”

I also liked how you compare the contents of work written long, long ago, to that which makes for a bestseller today. Both examples show we are an animal slow to change and slow to understand our own limitations. Here now, in all our wisdom, with all our years, we have yet to capitalize on our strengths.

And what might those strengths include? Our own magnificent bodies for one, our voice for another, our kinship among humankind, perhaps even our ability to write our past and to right our future.

Write on,

 
Loraine