Category: meaning

Kushner Created Meaning

I learned from the linked article in the Washington Post that Harold Kushner, a rabbi whose books brought solace to millions, died at 88. He was a hero of mine. I have read most of his over a dozen books and found them all helpful. I was especially touched by his most famous Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It meant a lot to me as I recovered from a near-fatal car accident in 1984 that killed the driver and the other 2 passengers in the car. I have re-read that book many times, each time learning more. His books helped me contemplate meaning and purpose.

Meaning & Purpose

Meaning and purpose in life are desires of most of us. Rabbi Kushner provides us with many clues on how to find it. I have contemplated questions about meaning and purpose in these posts: Meaning from Meaninglessness, Making Sense of Chaos, Meaninglessness, Disorientation, and Randomness & Creating Outcomes. Also, the post, Everything Happens for a Reason! Make it Good! relates to what I got from my many readings of Harold Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”

Although the book became a bestseller, the obituary stated that Kushner wrote the book to “redeem my son’s death from meaninglessness” and to try to understand why the world is not fair. His son died as a teenager from progeria, the rapid aging disease. As he contemplated the bad things that happened to him, his conclusions were another example of an undoing of tradition. Kahneman and Tversky’s extensive scientific work demonstrated breakthroughs generally break with traditional practice. Michael Lewis reviewed their work in his book, “The Undoing Project,” and I discussed their work in my “Undoing” Needed to Create Better!” post.

Rabbi broke with traditions by giving up the belief that God was good, but not all-powerful. As he explained,

…“If I, walking through the wards of a hospital, have to face the fact that either God is all-powerful but not kind, or thoroughly kind and loving but not totally powerful, I would rather compromise God’s power and affirm his love,” Rabbi Kushner once told NPR.

…“The theological conclusion I came to is that God could have been all-powerful at the beginning, but he chose to designate two areas of life off-limits to his power,” he continued. “He would not arbitrarily interfere with laws of nature, and secondly, God would not take away our freedom to choose between good and evil.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/05/04/harold-kushner-bad-things-good-people/

Below is a short video summary of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People:”

I hope this helps in your search for meaning and purpose. If you have not read his book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” I strongly recommend you do. It is a short book, just over 100 pages, but very powerful. It helped lay the foundation for how I work to create meaning and purpose in my life. I do this by working to generate comprehensive benefits by creating regenerative, net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. Please share how you generate meaning and purpose in your life.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Valuable Skills & Steve Jobs

Did you ever think that you might have been better at something else? Do you have multiple interests? In Emilie Wapnick’s interesting TED Presentation about her many interests, she makes a persuasive presentation about the value of having multiple interests. In this presentation, those with multiple interests are called Multipotentialites.

In a very convincing way, she points out that multipotentiality leads to the development of superpowers. The specific superpowers developed include:

  1. Idea Synthesis – the ability to synthesize multiple concepts and ideas from different areas
  2. Rapid Learning – as noted in previous posts, being able to learn fast is a sign of high intelligence (See here). Rapid learning becomes a superpower because of how many times multipotentialites are beginners and endeavor to learn something new. These repeated learning experiences help multipotentialites become rapid learners as repeated exercises become habitual.
  3. Adaptability – the ability to morph into what is needed because of the ability to take on different roles as needed for each endeavor. Of course, new skills are needed for these roles, and this enhances one’s capacity and potential.

Interestingly, it is the3 skills developed by multipotentialites that can help us be successful in the 21st century, thus validating pursuing and developing multiple interests and related skills. These skills are valuable because today, we need innovators and creative thinkers to make tomorrow better. Being able to use idea synthesis, becoming a rapid learner, and being adaptable means we can more quickly generate comprehensive improvements by creating interactions so everyone and everything benefits (which is the practice of paneugenesis).

I encourage you to watch her TED Presentation:

As I listened to EmilieWapnick’s presentation, it kept reminding me of Steve Jobs’s amazing Stanford Commencement speech. In this speech, he shared 3 stories. One was about the ability to connect the dots. He related this to when he went to Reed College and took a calligraphy class because he found it interesting, beautiful, and amazing. He then related it to how that then later led to the Mac having multiple fonts and beautiful typography (which Windows and the whole computing world copied), highlighting the value of following his interest and being a multipotentiality.

After all, it was the ability to pull together multiple interests that made the modern computing world the most advanced living idea possible. Below is his Stanford presentation. If you have never seen it, or even if you have, I encourage you to watch it and share the overlap you see or don’t see. I look forward to hearing from you. Enjoy.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com