A Separate Peace

     As much as we desire an orderly and predictable life in which we can go about our daily business and face our future, events can and do occur that set off a chain reaction that—at the very least--cause uncertainty and trepidation, but can also lead to cataclysmic consequences for us and those around us. The cause of the calamity, the reason for the change in trajectory of unfolding history, can be an individual act; one seemingly unrelated at the time to our situation and circumstance.

  

    A case in point. 

    On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to that country’s throne, along with his wife Sophie. The royal couple was paying a state visit to Sarajevo in Bosnia.

What's It All About?

“What’s it all about, Alfie?”

  

  That was the opening lyric of a popular song from the mid-1960s, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and sung by Dionne Warwick.

   Only recently, many years later, did I realize that it also qualified as a metaphysical question.

   Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and fundamental properties of being. What is existence? and What is it comprised of? would be two basic questions to start out with in a metaphysical inquiry.

Sharing of Power

    While the axiom that “power corrupts” has shown its validity in many instances, it would not be fair to extrapolate that every person possessing power or occupying a position of power is corrupt. What might be closer to the general rule is that those holding power, without any effective checks or balances, have a tendency (if I might borrow a basketball term) to “hog the ball.”

   The test of power—and of integrity of character--is the degree in which there is a willingness to share it as opposed to hoarding it and using questionable means to perpetuate and institutionalize it.

   Our ancestors here in Michigan, no doubt aware of this weakness, crafted Constitutions—the latest one in 1961—that in their wisdom spread out power as much as possible.