Many people put a lot of stock in their bloodlines. They like to tell tales of famous ancestors and are excited to learn that their great-great-great-uncle performed a heroic deed. I find this tendency rather curious. Why do we care so much about the lives of long-deceased people we’ve never met, simply because we inherited some of their genes? Do we believe their greatness has been passed down to us? What about the ancestors with less admirable stories — do we believe we inherited the shame of their misdeeds? (And if we go back far enough, aren’t we all part of the same family tree?) Whatever the reasons, there’s no question that our biological and genetic descendancies form key parts of our identities.
The Weekend Listen
I listen to a lot of podcasts while driving, working out, and doing chores around the house. In this weekly feature, I’ll tell you about one episode I particularly enjoyed that week.
My choice for this week is Your Weekly Constitutional’s episode, “The Original Black Elite.” Your Weekly Constitutional is a public radio show and podcast hosted by a constitutional law professor, Stuart Harris, that addresses a variety of timely and controversial constitutional issues. In this episode, Stuart interviews scholar and author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor about her research into a largely overlooked period of black American history: the era between reconstruction and Jim Crow, when there was a proud “colored aristocracy.” I learned a lot from this discussion, and I hope you will too.
Are you listening to a podcast I haven’t mentioned yet? Tell us about it in the comments!
“When I’m in the Middle of a Dream, Stay in Bed, Float Upstream…”
I had planned a different post for today, but I awoke this morning in the middle of a dream and decided to write about dreams instead. I’ve always been fascinated by dreams. I view them as windows into my subconscious. They often reveal anxieties of which I hadn’t been consciously aware. I experience and remember dreams often, probably a few times a week. After I wake, I lie in bed for a few moments and think through the details of my dream, attempting to understand it and tie it to my waking life.
Infusing our Environments with Reminders of our Values
You may have noticed that in each Monday’s Quote of the Week post, I usually include a link to an item bearing the selected quotation or other words of wisdom spoken or written by the same person. I do this not because I want to encourage you to buy things (I am not compensated for these links), but because I like to surround myself with statements of my values and important lessons. Read more
Quote of the Week
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for . . . .”
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
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