Coming Home

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”

-George Moore

Dear Readers,

Earlier tonight, a close friend of mine sent me a text message with this quote. So, I texted him back and asked if he wanted me to take a closer look at the quote for our Christmas Eve blog. At the time, I was walking around Diamond Head with my wife and beautiful daughters while watching the sunset. The quote hit just right with the sunset and the feeling of my daughters hand grasping onto mine and the funny sqeaks of my infant daughter enjoying the ride on my shoulders.

George Moore sure understands that the fulfillment we so deeply search for is never out there; rather, it’s always right here in the quiet moments of togetherness, the tender seconds during which we simply are with those that love us and those whom we love.

So, Jon, I hope this blog makes you smile. It’s my Christmas present to you on your final pre-parenthood Christmas. Some of your friends may be filling you with stories told in gloomy tone about how children empty bank accounts or keep you from playing at all of the time wasters that used to fill your life (video games anyone?), but let this blog put a stop to that silliness. I gladly empty out my continually slim wallet to share the best possible life with these lovely ladies, my beautiful daughters.

I’ve been all over the world. I’ve travelled and lived in all kinds of interesting places. I wouldn’t trade my travels to have rushed this life, but now that it is here…I can smile, look anyone in the eye, and say that all of this is absolutely worthwhile.

I have no doubt this will be your experience as well. You’re an awesome human being; fatherhood will come to you very naturally. I look forward to hearing trading stories with you along the way.

Jon, thank you for the perfect Christmas quote…

So, my dear readers, merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you out there in this fascinating hyper reality which we call the Internet. I will take the next couple of days off and enjoy them at home with my family. If anyone needs anything, then don’t hesitate to call, shoot me an email, and/or post a response to the blog.

I wish you all peace!

Z

Shameless Self-Promotion

“With the advent of cognitive psychology and the extremely dynamic disciplines collectively called neuroscience, conceptions of intelligence have drastically evolved. These disciplines no longer view the brain simply as a giant computational organ. Logic, while important, is not the sole summation of the myriad parts of the brain. The mind is no longer a spiritual abstraction. The mind is now considered, from empirical evidence, to be the self conscious by-product of multiple parts of the brain working collectively and often layering on, interconnecting with, and redundantly supporting the other areas of the brain.”

-Zachary Oliver, EdD.

Dear Readers,

I know that this kind of reading typically falls outside of the norm for blogs on the Internet. Thank you for bearing with me during the course of the last month. It has been my hope to use this blog to help my book develop a market.

“Falling but Fulfilled” is a gentle book. It is filled with stories designed to give voice to the learner still hiding inside of each of us, like we did in the back of a closet during an especially fierce game of hide and seek.

While it isn’t filled with complex sentences and challenging ideas like the quick excerpt I included above as the quote for the day. You may be thinking: Then, why would you use a quote like this to communicate your book?”

This is a fair question.

In this quote, I feel the intellectual message of the book is clearly articulated. Truly, there is so much more to being smart than formalized analytical skills, such as those inherent in structured logic. People exhibit intelligence in the creative ways in which we solve problems, in the domains with which we feel a connection, and in the fast fluid world of social interractions with the speed of perception and the power of a quick wit.

My book, “Falling but Fulfilled”, speaks to the stories which I’ve lived that have brought this learning into my consciousness. Throughout its pages, readers are challenged through my storytelling to sift back through their own memories looking for analagous experiences.

So, excuse me for my shameless self-promotion. The thing is: I believe in my sweet little book. I believe that it deserves a chance in this big wide world. I believe that it offers a fresh perspective for a world full of burned-out people.

I hope that it brings you as much joy to read it as it did for me to write it.

I look forward to reading your reviews here and on Amazon!

Z

Nightmares and Daydreams

Dear Readers,

I came across an excellent Japanese proverb a few years ago which has been rumbling around my brain and in several of my classrooms. I don’t typically like proverbs as a root of examination. I think that it’s because I want to velcro the words and perspectives in a quote to a person and to the time in which they lived. In this case, though, I think the proverb really reminds me of the two-sidedness needed to really see a project through to its successful completion. I leave all of you tonight with a very short and touching group of words that I feel are timely during this most dreamy season.

“Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare.”

I wish all of you the best of days leading up to our New Year’s celebration complete with all of those fresh challenges and resolutions with which we feel ready to challenge ourselves.

With respect,

Z

Redefining Business

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

-Antoine De St. Exupery

Earlier tonight, I was working with my colleague, David. David is a fantastically bright and ambitious up and comer in the business world. We were examining a business opportunity that is near and dear to our hearts, deciding whether we want this chance and whether the time is right.

As we were talking over what we have to bring to the table, I felt a bubble fighting its way to the surface of my conscious mind. Besides exhaling in relief that I knew what would be my topic for the daily blog, I felt that I had an opportunity to articulate my philosophical position about business.

You see, business, in many people’s minds, is something dirty. I hear people make comments about the scum sucking corporate world which sadden me, especially when considering my role as the Department Chair for the College of Business. I work hard, everyday, to train the future business leaders to be thoughtful and ethical individuals.

Truly, I understand that this negative reputation has come to be well-deserved in many areas; however, my contention is that this reputation is less the result of what we call the business world and more a result of unethical and antisocial behavior from individuals participating in it. In fact, I would venture a guess that this kind of behavior is among the worst common to all human beings. It would be silly to assume that this kind of behavior only exists in the for-profit business world.

So, I went casting around for a quote that would allow for me to have an opportunity to share my philosophy on why I work so hard and how I stay positive. I think this quote works nicely.

You see, I believe that the purpose of for-profit business is not to simply make money. Money is not purpose. We have to remember that money is only a measurement of value, not value itself. It is in this confusion that we begin to see convoluted ethics which often breed excessive behaviors.  

The purpose of a business is to build value. Therefore, the goal of the true business professional is to build an organization with a focused and incisive purpose in which people are motivated to work well with one another to build something in which they can believe. The profits such an organization produce are the measurement by which the owners can recognize the effectiveness of the business.

Thinking of this in the vocalublary of today’s quote, the dream of a vast ocean of possibilities is the environment which the leader tries to fashion throughout the entire organization. The profits of this are fine ships, designed to move smoothly and derive maximum efficiency, safety, and joy when sliding across the waters. Of course, the better the boats are cafted, the more value a potential consumer can recognize in the craft’s design, materials, and solid construction.

Luckily, David is patient with my long-winded protestations. We agree that the only way to progress in the way of wealth in this capitalistic world in which we live is through conscious participation in markets through entrepreneurship. More importantly, no one has to lose his or her sould in an effort to find financial success. The important thing here is that there is a clear way forward for commerce to exist without it becoming so filled with avarice that no scrupulous, talented, and creative individual would pursue business as an exciting and rewarding way to spend a life.

Let’s light the way together!

Z

If you enjoy this blog, then please subscribe. Also check out my book "Falling but Fulfilled" right here

The Fallacy of Experience

Aloha Dear Readers,

Today, I spent all day editing a new book on the development and role of China taken as a collection of newspaper articles written over the course of the last decade. It's a fascinating and deeply involved perspective into a country that remains very much an enigma in the West.

So, today, I am going to post a Mao Zedong quote. Please don't misunderstand: I am not posting this as someone with an ideology. Instead, please recognize that this is my earnest attempt to put into conversation some words from a deeply challenging figure who did much to create the New China which is so often featured in our daily newspapers and new reports.

Just like the pear that Mao speaks of, we need to dig more deeply in an attempt to digest that thing which we strive to understand.

"All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."

-Mao Zedong

I can't begin to explain my profound disagreement with his assertion that knowledge originates from experience in a single blog. But, as you who have read my tossed-off thoughts each morning have probably surmised, knowledge, for me, only begins in experience. Experience provides an inspiration, not knowledge. Knowledge is gained by pursuing an inspiration down the proverbial rabbit hole.

All kidding aside, knowledge is the product of the kind of disciplined thought that takes serious contemplation, rigor in self analysis, and absolute humility in presentation.

Hopefully, today, when I wake up, I can stay true to this and remember that the experience of anything is just that: a surface.

I want more than the surface; how about you?

Z

Deconstructing Love

“Human beings do not and cannot communicate – only communication can.”

-Hans-George Moeller (explaining Niklas Luhmann’s ideas about System’s Theory)

Bizarre, no?

Dear Readers,

Let’s examine this quote in the context of that most beautful of human utterances “I love you!”

According to Luhmann, when someone proclaims his or her love for us, we actually hear words, not love, for example. Our ears vibrate with a sound that our brain interprets. The words are not love or even the behaviors which might signify love. Words are just words: nothing more/nothing less.

Sure, words are words. However, I truly believe that our brains have to make a really interesting set of decisions when unwrapping the comments which enter into it, especially in this case.

The big questions are: Is love a real and true concept that exists outside of human cognition? Or, is love an expression that grows out of the personal narrative of a person’s life? Or, is Luhmann correct when he says that, our personal expression so tweaked and distorted by words that our internal state cannot be conveyed? 

Words are agreed-upon sounds that are supposed to stand for a feeling. This feeling, which everyone describes differently, may or may not have a basis in an objective reality. The belief that we hold clearly in our minds, as the listener, concerning whether or not there is an objective reality, though, has a huge effect on how we hear this proclamation of profound affection. From the post-positivist framework, if someone is saying that they love us, and we believe that there is an objective reality, then the words a true and authentic external meaning beyond the syllables and grammar which sent the message through the air from our lover’s mouth. Many of us want to believe that there is something profoundly eternal and constant about the love which we feel deeply within our hearts.

If we don’t believe that there is an objective reality, then we have to dig deeply to appreciate that this love, the words of which are formed on our lover’s lips, comes out of a deep analysis of one’s own story. This is the postmodern edge. In this perspective, there is no eternally permanent love; love is a deeply-felt personal emotion which no two people will ever experience in the same way twice, even from moment to moment. If we hear the message of love from our lover and we accept this narrated world view, then we understand that our lover is trying to box up something more profound than words which we cannot ever and will not ever directly experience. The words “I love you” are an artifact of our lover’s consciousness, which we, like careful archeologists, will examine, turning over for clues as to exactly what is meant.

Either way, we don’t know for sure what exactly this statement means and how it should reverberate through our own consciousness. Ambiguity abounds. Luhmann goes to great length to point out that there are certain processes which dominate us, even though these processes are developed through our own behavior. Communication, he says, dominates our ability to interact with other human beings. He says that the meaning gets twisted, not because of differing perspectives from the listener and the speaker, but because the communication has staked some kind of claim on another layer of which we may not be aware. Communication communicates directly; everything else has to cut around the edges of ideas and go through a vocabulary selection process which defeats the original message and leaves only communication I, but no meaning.

Whichever speaks to you, dear reader, I offer this silly analysis only in the spirit of trying to understand some very challenging frameworks which provide much of the framework of our world views, whether we think about them or ignore them.

For all of you out there interested in this blog, I’m sorry about yesterday morning. I seem to have had some odd computer challenges. I wrote this blog, but it never posted…

Z

Shakespeare Again

“The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”

-Shakespeare

Today was a challenging day for me; I will keep this post short, focused. This quote caught my attention through the refreshing perspective on the nature of mercy. Aren’t we usually taught that mercy is for the weak, those with no resolve? How sad and misguided!

Shakespeare, in this quote, makes an interesting observation: Not only is mercy something which cannot be measured; but also, mercy nourishes our lives. It is “a gentle rain” which provides water, an essential part of our lives.

I need life. Life is the thing that allows me to take care of my family, serve my community, and make discoveries everyday. It seems that, while all of my effort is great, mercy needs to be allowed to drizzle its magic all over me.

Z