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Duty to Enrich Other People’s Lives

The Eiffel Tower was “monstrously huge” when it was built more than 100 years ago in Paris as an exhibit for the 1889 Exposition Universelle, and years ahead of its times.

It is monstrously huge today, and still years ahead of its time.

I believe today, or someday, a boy or girl will look at the Eiffel Tower and be inspired to think/say “I am going to build something bigger and better than that.”

But if the Eiffel Tower was half as tall, that wouldn’t happen.

I want to challenge other people’s imagination, to expand their perceptions, to add to their ideas and knowledge and thereby enrich and stimulate their experience of their lives.

I believe the Eiffel Tower is inspiring and therefore enriches other people’s lives.

I believe it is everyone’s duty to enrich their own life, my life and everyone else’s lives.

I don’t believe in half measures.

Therefore, I wouldn’t want the Eiffel Tower to be half as tall as it is today.

Gift Selecting

Recently, I have been figuring out how to increase the productivity, satisfaction, joy and enjoyment of my 13 year old granddaughter.

Should I give her a conventional gift, a gift you might expect anyone to give her, or should I give her a gift that will make her and other people go “wow”?

Her father is a top echelon corporate finance lawyer.

I assume her father is preoccupied because corporate America has $1.48 trillion dollars of cash on hand to invest or return to stockholders and the tech sector – in which he specializes – has $515 billion cash on hand to invest or return to stockholders, and biotech and life sciences finance, in which he is extremely active, is red-hot.

Her mother is a senior executive in a publicly held tech company listed on the NYSE and other stock exchanges.

Her mother participates in intense and stimulating worldwide meetings and conferences at least weekly.

They live a “full” conventionally sharp life.

My granddaughter is on a lacrosse team.

Where I grew up we didn’t have lacrosse teams or play lacrosse.

My granddaughter actively participates: In addition to being on a lacrosse team, she individually competes as a free-lance swordswoman in fencing competitions; she plays the guitar and she is a fashionista who publishes a private limited circulation fashion blog.

When I was growing up I didn’t know anyone who was a swordsman or a swordswoman. Blogs did not exist. Cell phones did not exist. The Internet did not exist. YouTube and Instagram did not exist yet.

My granddaughter is interested in (1) fashion, (2) the fashion industry, (3) understanding money, (4) money, (5) finance, (6) history, (7) leaders, (8) leadership, (9) how the mind works – the science of consciousness, (10) how the mind works – why we make choices, (11) creativity, (12) peak performance, (13) persuasion and (14) art.

I want the gift I give my granddaughter to stimulate my granddaughter’s mind but not to offend her parents by being so unique they will believe I do not show love and respect to the three of them. I have been warned not to give an unconventional gift because to do so might be considered inappropriately “off-the-wall.”

Encouragement

To encourage my granddaughter’s interests in fashion, art and business I recently informed her of the following facts:

New York Fashion Week (NYFW) began as Press Week in 1943. At that time only 53 designers showed their work.
In the mid-2000s designers began pouring in to show their work at NYFW as press coverage, including on-line coverage, exploded.
In 2005, 90 online outlets covered the shows.
This year, 2014, 381 online outlets will be at the shows.
The event organizer, IMG reduced the approved media list by 20% in an attempt to restore some exclusivity.
During the latest NYFW more than 33,000 people posted almost 99,000 photos to Instagram.
This year, NYFW begins on September 4, 2014.
I also informed my granddaughter that Tory Burch started her fashion empire 10 years ago on her kitchen table. Her fashion empire now, ten years later, has 141 stores in 50 countries, e-commerce in seven languages, and will post more than $1 billion in revenue this year.

I want my granddaughter to have confidence.

I want my granddaughter to follow her passion, to do whatever she feels intensely passionate about doing.

Gift Ideas

I want to give my granddaughter a gift that is seriously amazing.

How can I do that without “offending” anyone?

Here are some of my gift ideas: (1) flower etched bracelets hand fashioned from solid brass, plated in sterling silver; (2) a 536 one-of-a-shape piece puzzle crafted of quarter-inch maple veneer plywood and archival ink and paper which portrays two Koi; (3) an authentic Japanese yukata patterned with fluid flowing carp motif – the carp symbolize strength and patience; (4) an Art Nouveau Peacock Trinket Box hand-enameled in brilliant hues and bejeweled with sparkling Austrian crystals; (5) a Saw-Whet Owl sculpture; (7) Lion and Lioness bookends; (8) “A World of Butterflies” – a 432 hardcover book, containing 245 stop-action photographs of butterflies.

Of course, the best gift would be to do things with her; a series of events and experiences that the two of us get to share together will create priceless memories.

For example, if her parents would allow it, and if she is interested in ballet, I would love to take her to NYC for a weekend to see a ballet, visit museums and see the garment district. I would love even more to take my daughter (her mother) with us.

Best of all would be to go to New York Fashion Week shows or to fashion shows in Milan together.

New York Fashion Week begins on September 4 this year.

I would like to take my granddaughter somewhere that is the “center” of something she is keenly interested in.

If she were interested in movies, that would be the Toronto International Film Festival which runs from September 5 through September 15, this year.

I want me granddaughter to personally see the “very best” of whatever she is interested in.

Self-Directed Study

In the years between 1830 and 1900 adventurous American artists, doctors, architects, politicians, lawyers and others of high aspiration set off for Paris burning to know more about everything, ambitious to excel in their work by “discovering things” while “living”, “working” and/or “studying” in Paris, which, at the time, was the center of things. Nearly all of these remarkable American men and women spent many of the happiest days and nights of their lives in Paris.

Among those Americans were Elizabeth Blackwell the first female doctor in America; Charles Summer who would become the most powerful unyielding voice for abolition in the U.S. Senate; James Fenimore Cooper (famous author), Samuel F. B. Morse (inventor of Morse Code), medical student Oliver Wendell Holmes, and writers Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe; sculptor Augustlus Saint-Gaiudens, and painters Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent.

These Americans were ambitious to excel in work that mattered greatly to them, and they saw time in Paris, the experience of Paris, as essential to achieving that dream.

They were “ambitious to learn, to live and work in the company of others of like mind and aspiration, inspired by great teachers and in a vibrant atmosphere of culture far beyond anything available at home.”

Those ambitious men and women wanted to live in Paris because Paris was a city that was so great and rich and in which life was lived on a grand scale. By comparison life in the American cities they lived in was too quiet and uniform for them.

Like those famous Americans, my youngest daughter, Leah, wants to intellectually and emotionally flourish.

On her own, Leah has plotted a course of action to satisfy her burning desire to know more about every great civilization and to see (in person) the best of everything man and nature have created.

Leah is presently 26 years old.

During the past three or four years, Leah visited 30 countries, looked at man-made and natural masterpieces of all descriptions, and when there were significant volcanoes in a place which Leah was visiting Leah took it upon herself to climb those volcanoes.

Two yeas ago, I met up with Leah to celebrate her birthday with her in Istanbul.

Leah has just “returned” to her home in California from that great journey of her own design to start going to law school.

I want my granddaughter to have the same amount of passion to explore her interests that Leah does.

That being said, what should I get my granddaughter, who lives on the East Coast, for her thirteenth birthday?

Good Writing

You may read a well written description how ambitious young Americans lived/worked/and/or studied in Paris to satisfy their hunger to better their “real selves” in the years between 1830 and 1900 in David McCullough’s book “The Greater Journey – Americans in Paris.”

David McCullough is a renown author.

Mr. McCullough has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, and twice received the National Book Award.

He is the recipient of numerous other honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian award.

Leah is not famous, but she is doing the same kind of things for the same reasons.

Leah is on her way to be like them.

Leah recently sent me the following (priceless to me) note.

Great art is designed to make people happy.

Artists like Van Gough painted flowers to make people happy, to make them smile.

No one appreciated his art. He died a tortured and starving artist unable to sell his work.

The audience did not appreciate his work until after he died. Now his art has snob appeal because the audience believes his work was ahead of his time. His art now sells in the tens of millions of dollars.

Seeing Van Gogh’s work in Copenhagen and London made me happy.

I would have appreciated the tortured artist’s work whether anyone else saw it in him or not.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Van Gough’s art housed in Copenhagen. I did not expect to see it there.

I want to thank YOU for making that possible.

I swinged CPH at the last-minute because of YOU.

Thanks for letting me go.

Leah

Effective Communication

Life is a social phenomena; the effectiveness of a communication depends 20% on content and 80% on how you feel about what you are communicating.

Good taste always generates satisfaction, joy and enjoyment of life.

That is why Leah’s “thank you note” is so compelling.

Learning/Studying Good Taste

Goethe was acclaimed as a brilliant writer while still a young man, thought a genius by his contemporaries, and lauded by luminaries around the world.

Here are some of this thoughts.

In “Conversations with Eckermann (1823 – 1832)” Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe told his young friend Johann Peter Eckermann to seek out the best of everything.

“Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good, but of the truly excellent.”
“When you see the very best, you see what a great talent can do, and when you are grounded in the very best, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value without overrating them.”

Dexterity

I agree with Goethe’s advice to Eckermann reported in “Conversations with Eckermann”:

“Inferior talents do not enjoy art for its own sake: while at work they have nothing before their eyes but the profit they hope to make when they have done. With such worldly views and tendencies, nothing great was ever yet produced.

“The style of a writer is a faithful representation of his mind; therefore, if any man wish to write a clear style, let him be first clear in hs thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

“It is great folly to hope that other men will harmonize with us.

” For it is in conflict with natures opposed to his own that a man must collect his strength to fight his way through; and thus all our different sides are brought out and developed so that we soon feel ourselves a match for every foe…..

“[Y]ou must at all events plunge into the great world, whether you like it or not.

“Concentrate your powers for something good, and give up everything that can produce no result of consequence and is not suited to you.”

Having A Felt Need for the Best

(Mozart and Goethe Desired Only What Is Really Greatest and Best)

Goethe once said: “If you see a great master, you will always find that he used what was good in his predecessors, and that it was this made him great.

In support of that observation, in “Conversations with Eckermann” Goethe argues:

“All talent must derive its nutriment from knowledge, and thus only is enabled to use its strength.

“I have lately read a letter from Mozart in reply to a baron who had sent him his composition.

‘You dilettanti must be blamed for two faults, since two you generally have: either you have no thoughts of your own, and take those of others; or, if you have thoughts of your own, you do not know what to do with them.’

“Is not this capital? and does not this fine remark, which Mozart makes about music, apply to all other arts?

“Our young painters lack heart and intellect. Their inventions express nothing and effect nothing: they paint swords that do not cut, and arrows that do not hit.”

Life Is A Social Phenomena

QUESTION: What is tasteful, what is healthy, what is best?

ANSWER: That which brings joy and satisfaction to life and that which is necessary for creativity to flourish is always tasteful, is always healthy, enriches life and is of the highest order of all creations.

The Eiffel Tower

Some 73,000 tons of iron went into constructing the Eiffel Tower over a period of 22 months (1887/1889), with 12,000 metal parts and 2,500,000 rivets.

Its success at the 1889 Exposition Universelle was unparalleled: two million visitors made their way to the top of this “gigantic and original specimen of modern Engineering.” (Thomas Edison).

Not everyone was in favor of construction of this tower in the center of the City of Paris.

Leading intellectuals signed a petition to protest the construction of it:

“We have come together – writers, sculptors, architects and painters, all of us ardent lovers of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris – to protest with all our might, with all our indignation, in the name of French taste thus so badly misunderstood, in the name of art and French history both in this way threatened, against the erection at the very heart of our capital of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower. For, there can be no doubt about this, the Eiffel Tower (which even commercial America would reject) will be the dishonoring of Paris.” – Extract from the artists’ protest, whose signatories included Charles Garnier, Alexandre Dumas, and D.J. and Guy de Maupassant. Le Temps, 17 February 1887.

In my mind, the Eiffel Tower is a symbol which represents man’s ability to strive to achieve the best he is capable of accomplishing.

In my opinion, man’s desire to do his best is as fundamental a force of nature and as powerful as that force of nature that compels plants to grow towards the sun.

In my opinion if the Eiffel Tower was half as tall, Paris would still be Paris, but mankind would be diminished.

Paris Today

Poets and writers have attested to the fact that Paris and the Eiffel Tower and have stood the test of time:

“. . . the supremacy of Paris is an enigma. Think about it. Rome has greater majesty, Trier is older, Venice more beautiful, Naples more graceful, London more wealthy. What, then, can be said for Paris? The Revolution. Paris is the king-pin city on which, one day, history turned.” Victor Hugo, 1867

“Poetry inhabits and enlivens all this material: thousands of tons of iron, millions of bolts, beams, entangled girders, 300 metres tall, a vertiginous mass, great depth. My eyes are led to the sun …” – Blaise Cendrars, IZIS, PARIS DES REVES, 1950.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” – Ernest Hemingway, PARIS, A MOVEABLE FEAST, 1964

Although Paris is a city full of natural beauty, it is things made by men that one can see today in Paris and the ideas, concepts and work of men who have been inspired by living and working in Paris and it is the ideas discussed and acted upon that originated in Paris that make Paris so much more than just a pretty place.

The Last Supper

Human Intelligence

The topic of human intelligence is receiving a lot of attention today.

Psychologist Howard Gardner and his colleagues have proven that each of us possess at least seven measurable intelligences and have catalogued twenty-five different subintelligences.

Psychologist Pyotr Anokhin has demonstrated the minimal number of thought patterns the average brain can make is the number 1 followed by 10.5 million kilometers of typewritten zeros.

Anokhin has compared the human brain to a “multidimensional musical instrument that could play an infinite number of musical pieces simultaneously.”

According to the latest research of renowned neuroscientist Dr. Candace Pert, “. . . intelligence is not located only in the brain but in cells that are distributed throughout the body. . . . . The traditional separation of mental processes, including emotions from the body is no longer valid.”

Brain scientists believe you can learn seven facts per second, every second for the rest of your life and still have plenty of room to learn more.

I find it interesting that neuroscientists believe we have brain cells in all parts of our body because a psychotherapist friend of mine told me that humans have mirror neurons which “pick-up”/ “mirror” the feelings of other people who are nearby.

This friend warns: if you are near a person who is depressed that will cause you to become depressed.

Therapists and social workers have to watch out that the their tendency to become suicidal when they are near people who are suicidal does not overpower them, that their urge to commit suicide does not become to strong.

The “mirror neuron” phenomena supports folk wisdom.

Surround yourself with people who support you emotionally.

Stay away from negative people.

I am interested in the study of knowledge.

How we think.
How we think we think.
How we “know.”
How we “think” we “know.”

I am constantly engaged in learning and study.

I am constantly having direct experiences of the world and interactions with other people from which I derive knowledge.

When people ask me what I do, I tell them:

“I am a thinker.
“I call my ability to conceive thinking.
“I call how I make use of my perceptions ‘thinking.‘
“I am constantly thinking.”

I have collected meaningful insights into human behavior and have many thoughts on how a person may beneficially increase their understanding of the world as well as their understanding of other person’s behaviors based on concepts, rules and principles I have developed during the past 68 years.

I love the study of knowledge.

I love the study of creativity and critical thinking.

See the June 10, 2014 post on the “Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange”, at http://www.garysmolker.wordpress.com, entitled How To Increase Your Perceptual Space.

If I Ran the World

I realize most people have few if any independent thoughts; that most people are robots.

Most people’s lives and what they “think” has been programmed for them by their parents, by their community, by their teachers, by their friends, by the news media, and by other intellectual influencers.

They do not know “why” or “if” their advisors believe the advice they give is beneficial or if their advisors have sound reasons for advice being given.

Most people do not seek “best explanations.”

If I ran the world, I would have everyone ask themselves: Why do we know what we do?

I would have everyone spend their entire lives trying to determine the basis of [and if there is any basis for] everything they think they know.

I am interested in meaningful insights into human behavior, in having an intellectual framework for understanding science, health, wellness, creativity and the course of social, political, and economic events.

If I ran the world, everyone would seek “best explanations.” People would try to “figure out” how things work and why things happen.

George Soros

According to stock market trader Paul Tudor Jones, II: “Four hundred seventy-one million to one. Those are the odds against George Soros compiling the investment record he did as the manager of the Quantum Fund from 1968 through 1993.”

Soros once made a billion dollars betting the British pound would be devalued.

QUESTION: How was Soros able to be so successful?

MY ANSWER: He figured things out.

A Summit of Excellence

Another note from Leah:

George Soros is an inspiration to humanity. He wrote that he wanted to put his money on hopeless places such as Burma, Sierra Leone and the Congo because he likes to fight uphill battles and win.

The Eiffel Tower was a new concept and apparently ahead of its times.

Great art is ahead of its times.

Van Gogh was light years ahead of his times.

I like thing because they are new and they change and evolve. They grow because they are alive and teeming with life.

I am now focused on acing law school and landing internships and jobs while doing yoga and keeping myself healthy.

I am also plotting future places to travel and my dreams become more and more ambitious each and every time I travel.

I am now interested in seeing Angel Falls in Venezuela and Devil’s Pool in Zambia.

Leah

Posted in Uncategorized

Creativity and the Power of Women – A Movie Review of “Belle”, “Chef”, “Million Dollar Arm” and Commentary on The Role of Good Taste, The Status of Women and Points of View by Gary S. Smolker

May 25

Posted by Gary S. Smolker

Updated June 12, 2014

Introduction

Each of these movies is a vibrant movie which has broad appeal.

Watching each one of these movies moved my mind and heart and will move the minds and hearts of other viewers too.

“Belle”

“Belle” touched my emotional sensitivities and political and social beliefs I am passionate about as an American who cares about race, gender and “affirmative action” issues that impact social, educational, and business affairs in the United States which are subject to a multitude of laws and impactful governmental and institutional gender and race related actions and practices.

“Belle” is an intriguingly profound movie of broad appeal because the story told in “Belle” touches emotionally laden sentiments among white people in America about black people and also touches extremely emotional issues about the status and treatment of women in modern day America.

Watching “Belle” was an intrinsically dramatic experience for me because of “Belle’s” direct and forthright portrayal of ideals about gender and race that are important to me.

The story told in “Belle” directly, truthfully and dramatically portrays common place cruel and unfair treatment of women and black people in 17th and 18th century Great Britain.

It is clear to me that the release of “Belle” to the general public is going to have social, political and economic effects beyond immediately observable economic consequences.

Although I am not a Millennial or a member of Generation X, I am 68 years old, it is clear to me America’s Millennials (people aged 18 to 33) and Generation X (people aged 34 to 49) who watch “Belle” will become enraged because they care deeply about justice, fairness, and equality.

They yearn deeply to live in a world where it is truly and wholeheartedly believed that all men are created equal by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

Where their hearts and minds lie on issues of race and gender is not a secret to me.

By the way, where Millennials’ minds and hearts lie on issues of race and gender is a big deal in the United States because there are more Millennial voters than Senior Voters in the United States.

In the United States there are 46 million eligible Millennials voters and 39 million eligible Senior (age 69 to 86) voters.

I am constantly in the presence of and interacting with Millennials.

Two of my three daughters and many of my young entrepreneurial friends and colleagues are Millennials.

I know from my own personal experience that Millennials are sincerely concerned about inequality, women’s rights and the status and treatment of women in society, the environment, health of the planet, their own health, education, educational opportunities, jobs, job opportunities and making a living.

Millennials are educated, concerned and “enlightened.”

They have $1 trillion in Student Debt.

Fifty percent of them consider themselves to be Independent; that is to say, 50 % of them consider themselves to be neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

Sixty five percent of them say losing their phone or computer is WORSE than losing their car.

Millennials in the 18 to 29 year old age group make up one-fifth of the eligible voting population in the United States.

Women are also a big voting block in the United States.

Black and Hispanic Females were Obama’s strongest Millennial supporters in 2012.

The group that had the largest turn out in the last presidential election in the United States was “Young Married Females.”

That being said, the rage against prejudice and bias engendered by watching the cruel and unfair treatment of blacks and women portrayed in “Belle” will impact which candidate wins the next election for President of the United States.

Watching “Belle” will make women and black people of all ages, and Millennials mad, and will spur them to support and vote for Hillary Rodman Clinton to be the next President of the United States.

Very simply put:

Hillary Rodman Clinton does a better job of connecting and communicating with the average American voter than any other person likely to run for President of the United States in the next presidential election in the United States.

Watching “Belle” will spur people who care about women to become even more fed up with the lack of respect shown to women every day. Watching “Belle” will ignite an urge in young people to be energetically and actively involved in the already existing widespread groundswell of support for the election of Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States because young people care passionately about fairness and the status of women.

The emotionally laden messages delivered in “Belle” will compel women and men who have daughters and grand-daughters to actively support the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton President of the United States.

In the United States elections are won by the candidate who best relates to the average voter.

That being said, Hillary Clinton’s message (“she gives a damn about the average person”) talks to a wide range of American voters.

The average American voter decides which candidate to vote for by asking himself or herself the following questions about each candidate:

Is the candidate someone who relates to people like me?
Is he or she someone who can handle a crisis?
Is he or she someone I can trust?
Is he or she authentic?
Does he or she have good character?
Does he or she care about people like me?

The inflammatory portrayal of the treatment of slaves, slavery, black people and of women in the movie “Belle” emphasizes the need to have someone on “your side” if you are an average American voter because the average American truly and strongly believes the phrase in the Declaration of Independence, “…we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…”

The Declaration of Independence is the heart and soul of America.

That being said, the movie “Belle” speaks directly to the “Spirit of America” because it reminds the average American voter that fairness, the status of women, inequality, gender and race bias, their health and the health of the environment are among the things they care most about.

That phrase in the “Declaration” … “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,” makes the United States different than any other country in the world.

People of all ages in the United States, especially young people, care strongly about inequality.

The story told in “Belle” directly makes the point that that is a virtuous point of view.

ASIDE: In 2008, a whopping 66 % of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for President Obama.

Recent trends reveal that voter participation among young voters is steadily increasing. They represented 18 % of all votes cast in 2008 and 19 % in 2012.

Put in perspective, 46 million Millennials were eligible to vote during the last presidential cycle compared to only 39 million senior citizens, and that figure is projected to skyrocket by 2020.

“Chef”

“Chef” is a story about commonly experienced conflicts imbedded in the human condition.

“Chef” is a story well and tastefully told about the conflicts men everywhere have between (a) the demands of their “job”, (b) their need to make a “living” and to be a “provider”, (c) their desire to be a good parent and “family man”, (d) their need to take risks and their need for security and (d) their need to only do work they believe in 100% with all their heart and no hesitation.

Women, of course, also have those conflicts.

Additionally, the story in “Chef” in dramatic fashion shows the sixth sense that women have that men don’t.

“Chef” is a “how you feel about your work catches on” story which takes place in the larger context of a multidimensional interrelated set of mutually supportive love stories.

Everyone will enjoy watching “Chef” because “Chef” is a joyful and charming story about family, friends, feelings, creativity, work and personal and professional success.

“Million Dollar Arm”

“The Million Dollar Arm” is based on a true story. The characters it portrays are real life people and the story it tells is a true story.

“The Million Dollar Arm” tells a fun, vibrant and joyful true story about a creative man’s endurance, inspiration, intensity, poise, perseverance and eventual humanity as he goes from being “broke” to becoming tremendously successful in business and in his personal life.

“Million Dollar Arm” is full of beautiful and dramatic and vibrant and educational images and humor.

“The Million Dollar Arm” portrays a journey like episode in the real life of an extremely creative sports agent.

The sport’s agent’s creativity, openness to new ideas, experiences and perceptual space portrayed in this movie are “over-the-top.”

While watching “Million Dollar Arm”, I wanted to hire the main character (a sports agent) to be my personal agent. I still want to hire that man as my agent.

The Impact of Good Taste in Movies

Men should never underestimate the “power” of women, nor should women.

People should never take women for granted or ignore the power, intelligence, character, talents and status of women.

Women are “smarter” than men.

Women have a sixth sense that men don’t have.

Women deserve a lot of respect.

The movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm” prove those points in a tasteful way through the actions of the main female characters.

Each of the main female characters in those movies is even more brilliant than the lead male character; acts with poise and gracefully at all times; has a sixth sense that the main male character lacks; and, steals the show.

Taste, Talent and the Ability to Emotionally Connect Are A Winning Combination

In communication, talent and taste matter:

Here is what Pablo Picasso had to say on that topic:

“There are painters

who transform the sun into a yellow spot,

but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence,

transform a yellow spot into the sun.” — Pablo Picasso

Watching movies that engage our minds become part of the wealth of our lived experience.

That is the reason I predict the movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “The Million Dollar Arm” will have a strong influence on the political future of Hillary Clinton and on the “woman rights” movement.

How something is said – if it connects emotionally to your heart and mind – will great impact.

Consider the influence of the following two alternative ways of talking about whether or not it is okay to smoke – which is demonstrated in the following two scenes:

“A monk asks a superior if it is permissible

to smoke while praying.

The superior says certainly not.

Next day, the monk asks the superior if it is permissible

to pray while smoking.

That, says the superior, is not merely permissible, it is admirable.” — George F. Will

The talent of the movie maker as a communicator of ideas matters a lot.

Our relationship with a movie, the characters in the movie, and the message delivered in a movie transforms us to the extent they touch our heart and/or our mind by becoming a beacon which influences the way we engage with people and everything else we do.

The messages and characters in each of these three movies will touch people’s hearts because each of these movies was made by an extremely talented movie maker.

Inevitably, people will be inspired, given hope and taught good lessons by embracing the stories told and the thoughts, processes and ideas presented in these movies.

If you see any one of these three movies and if you are a direct, intense and hardworking person highly motivated both to work and to produce, and motivated to produce entities and things that are both new and valuable and always on the lookout for new and valuable ideas and thoughts and processes and inspiration and solutions to problems, you will recommend to your friends that they see these movies too.

Each of these movies tells a story which proves that it is hard to beat a person who never gives up.

“Belle”,”Chef”, and “Million Dollar Arm” Are Masterful Movies

Each of these movies is about the power of an idea.

Each of these movies is about the power of women.

The main female character in each of these movies has a “true eye”, a penetrating perceptiveness, a seamless sense of order and perspective, and is a fully realized human being in every way throughout the movie.

In each of these movies each of the male main characters becomes a fully formed adult and a more fully realized human being under the influence of the main female character.

The story in each movie is masterfully told. Each story is so masterfully performed that it is impossible for an audience to avoid building an emotional relationship with each character.

Emotional tension begins with the first scene in each movie and never abates.

Things never settle down.

You just have to know what will happen next.

The Main Characters in “Belle”

Belle, the main character in the movie “Belle”, is a woman with practical and penetrating intelligence, curiosity, and an independent spirit.

Belle is broadly educated, very sophisticated and has fantastic intuitive decision making skill.

She is a whole brain thinker. She is a “beauty” in every sense of the word “beauty” and excels at everything she does.

Belle’s beau, in this movie, is a man who has the conviction that all people (black and white) should be treated “equally” as human beings under the law. He has Herculean persistence in advocating (speaking out) and standing for the point of view that slavery is immoral. He is a man of conviction who fully believes that slavery is an abomination.

He not only allows himself to feel his feelings, his feelings emote from him.

His is controlled by his aesthetic and moral sensibilities; he lives his life controlled by moral considerations.

He “walks the walk” and he does what he wants to do the way he wants to. This creates tensions.

The Issues of Slavery and Social Status in “Belle”

The underlying tensions in “Belle” revolve around the issue of the social status of black people.

At the time the story in this movie takes place slavery exists.

At that time, people thought of slaves as being part human and part beast at the same time.

“Society”, the gentry, people of all colors and all levels of society live in a world where “black slaves” are not thought of as being “people” but instead are thought of as being beasts of burden and no different than cattle.

The story in this movie takes place in a pre-industrialized world in which heavy manual labor is performed by black slaves who are used as beasts of burden.

At the time in history in which the story in this movie takes place black people are “caught” in the “wild” and then shipped to slave markets across oceans and seas on slave ships.

This movie follows what happens in a legal case. The audience is told at the beginning of this movie that a shipload of black slaves was thrown over board while being “shipped”/transported by sea to a slave market in London to be sold.

The owner of the cargo of slaves made a claim on its insurance carrier for recovery of damages based on total “loss” – a loss due to all slaves having been thrown overboard during the voyage.

At the time this story takes place, a cargo of slaves could be insured just like a cargo of cattle. A cargo of slaves could be insured as “cargo” just like a cargo of any other goods being shipped by sea.

The insurance company denied the slave-owner’s claim of loss and refused to pay the slave owner anything.

A lower court ruled in favor of the slave owner, ruled that the insurance company had to pay for the total loss of cargo.

As this movie takes place, this “insurance claim” case is now on appeal before the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain.

The Lord Chief Justice must decide whether this is a fraudulent insurance claim, i.e. was it necessary to throw the cargo of slaves overboard in order to save the ship or, alternatively was the cargo of black slaves thrown overboard because the slaves had become sick during the sea voyage.

If the slaves had become sick/diseased during the voyage they would be worth more to the owner of the cargo of slaves dead (via receipt of payment on an insurance claim for total loss of cargo) than the slaves would be worth to their owner if they arrived in port alive, i.e. were alive when the shipped docked in port to be off-loaded and then be sold at the slave market.

Diseased slaves would be worth nothing at the slave market.

The Chief Justice had to decide if the slaves thrown overboard became sick during the voyage or if as claimed by their owner the ship ran out of drinking water during the voyage which necessitated throwing the slaves overboard in order to save the ship.

Getting back to Belle.

Belle is the daughter of a black Caribbean slave who was married to an Admiral in the British Navy. Her father was a white man and member of the highest level of British society.

When the movie begins, her father (the white Admiral) is picking Belle up to take Belle to live with the Admiral’s uncle in England because the Admirable is about to embark on a long sea voyage and he doesn’t know if he will ever return from this tour of duty alive. Belle’s mother has passed away.

The Admiral’s uncle is the Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, the man who will decide the insurance claim case described above.

During the course of the movie, the Lord Chief Justice, who was childless, falls in love with Belle, loves her as he would love his own daughter if he had a daughter.

The Genius Use of Opposites to Make The Social Point Made in “Belle”

Part of the genius in the making the sociological point that blacks are not stupid beasts being made in the movie “Belle” is the choice of scenes to tell the story being told in “Belle”.

The movie maker chose scenes in which Belle interacts with members of the highest level of society in Great Britain, the idle gentry, to deliver the message that black people are as smart, talented and educable as white people.

In each of those scenes, Belle is far more intelligent, far more educated, far more sophisticated, far more poised, far more graceful, and far more polite and generous than the male and female members of the gentry with whom she interacts.

Proactively Disrupting the Status Quo

The main character in “Chef” and the main character in “Million Dollar Arm” proactively disrupted the status quo.

During the course of each of these movies the main character went from being “broke” and “down and out” to becoming a great business success who realized his full potential as a human being.

These stories illustrate the potential benefit of listening and that “listening” is the ability to be changed by “hearing” what the right person says to you.

In each movie the main character listened to what a special woman in his life told him, changed what he was doing as a result and became a great success by doing what she let him know would be a good thing for him to do.

In each of these movies the main character reached his full potential as a result of listening to a woman in his life who gave him guidance.

Each of these movies demonstrate their is wisdom in the advice “Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.”

Also each movie demonstrates the benefit that can be derived from following Napoleon Hill’s advice: “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

Although pennies don’t drop from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth, these movies show how much fun making a fortune can be if you do what you love do to and that no man can make a success of a business he does not love.

Each of their businesses caught fire because their businesses had a purpose beyond making money and beyond making them look “good”/effective.

They genuinely loved what they were doing.

The Main Women in “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm”

The main women in these three movies have no rough edges.

They are mellow, friendly, gentle, balanced, multidimensional, smart and easy to enjoy role models.

Listening to them speak will aid the flowering of your spirit and continue to expand your perspective long after you are done watching them perform their roles in these three movies.

Passionate Heroic Actions & Great Accomplishments

The source of great accomplishments is passion.

Behind the success and driving the success accomplished on a great adventure is a tenacious believing individual.

Behind the success each of the main male characters accomplished in “Chef” and Million Dollar Arm” were passionate believing women who “stuck by their men.”

Each of these women was a balanced understanding person who could see “nuances” which the men couldn’t see. Each of these women had a “subtly-appreciating-intelligence”, a sixth sense, an intuition, that enabled them to see an infinity of things the men couldn’t see.

These women were 100% present in everything they did. They understood the emotional connotation of what was going on while the main male characters in these movies were lost in thought without a clue of what was happening to them in their lives.

It takes a team to accomplish something significant. It takes an effective brain team.

The main male character in “Chef” and in “Million Dollar Arm” had a brain team which worked with them in a highly effective fashion.

Each of the main female characters in “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm” were a critical and crucial and essential part of the male main character’s brain team.

Without them on their teams, the men would not have been able to accomplish the great things they accomplished.

“Chef”

The movie “Chef” is a demonstration of the rule that there is no passion in playing it small.

At the beginning of this movie we see that the main character, a chef, has settled for living a life that is less than the one he is capable of living.

He has descended from being a creative chef and gastronomic guru to becoming a mainstream chef supervising a crew of kitchen helpers preparing and cooking the same dishes day after day – dishes which he creatively created ten years ago.

Supervising the cooking of a kitchen crew of the same dishes day after day is driving him crazy.

As the movie begins, the “chef’s” boss (the owner of the restaurant where the chef works) will not allow the chef to create any new dishes.

The chef is about to die from boredom. The chef is a tortured soul as a result of being a “creative chef” who has not been allowed by the owner of the restaurant where he works to actualize his creative potential or even to engage his creative impulses for the past ten years.

This “creative” chef is no longer a gastronomic influence, a gastronomic guru or pacemaker.

He has become a “hostage of his own success”/getting a regular pay-check working for a restaurant owner who does not want to take the risk of placing any new unique creative “untried dishes” on the menu.

His life is full of negative tension.

He no longer looks forward to going to work each day.

He is no longer living a fulfilling life.

“Million Dollar Arm”

The movie “Million Dollar Arm” is a demonstration of the fact that “all” great ideas are traceable to a “tenacious believing individual.”

The most difficult thing in running a value creating business is having a good creative idea and then making the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity.

Slavery

The interrelated topics of slavery, power, money, monetary interests, sex and social identity are on everyone’s mind.

Those forces unleash a tsunami of heart centered emotional tensions in the movies “Belle”, “Chef” and “Million Dollar Arm”, and are the forces driving the pending actions the National Basketball Association (NBA) is taking against Donald Sterling to strip him of his ownership of the Clippers basketball team,

Without awareness of the power of sex we are reduced to a sort of self-contained void without accurate awareness of the space around us.

Being a slave is not sexy or powerful.

Being powerless is not sexy.

Being “trapped” is not sexy.

Being powerful is sexy.

The superstar professional basketball player athletes in the NBA had to be willing to boycott the NBA Playoffs and to refuse to play in the NBA if Sterling was allowed to maintain ownership of the Clippers basketball team in order to be able to maintain their swagger and sex appeal.

If the superstar professional basketball players were not willing to boycott the NBA women would think of those superstar athletes as being “slaves” – those superstar professional athletes would lose their aura of power, their sexual attraction would diminish, they would have lost their swagger and the desirability of being seen with them and/or identified with them would have disappeared.

People would think they were losers, instead of thinking they are super human beings – they would lose the aura of “he-men-super-star winners if they didn’t act like the heroic-action-hero-men they are in the public’s imagination.

They had to act like their image, live up to their image, in order to keep their image.

They need to maintain that image in order to maintain their swagger and in order to increase their “drawing power.”

The National Basketball Association league, the TV stations that broadcast their games and the advertisers who had paid to have their advertisements shown during those games would be devastated if the play-offs didn’t happen.

The basket ball team owners’ in the NBA see the big economic picture.

Their decision on how to vote in an upcoming vote on whether to take the Clippers NBA league basketball team away Sterling’s right to own an NBA basketball team and to force Sterling to sell the Clippers is simple.

Major consumer goods advertisers have made it clear that they do not want to be associated with slavery.

Advertising revenue from TV contracts, revenue from collateral advertising contracts, revenue from endorsements and collateral merchandise contracts and a host of other gigantic cash flow big ticket money contracts were put on the line by the comments Donald Sterling made to his once upon a time “girl-friend” which were recorded then published on social media and afterwards in the the general media.

That revenue has been in jeopardy, has been on the line and and has been in play since advertisers began fleeing from the Clippers, pulling their sponsorship from the Clippers and increased further when prominent black basketball players declared that there is no place for Donald Sterling in the NBA, Sterling must go.

The NBA as we know it would have been destroyed if the basketball players boycotted the playoffs. The NBA as we know it will be destroyed if black basketball players refuse to play in the NBA.

Business 101: Make It A Rule to Not Bore or Annoy Customers

From a marketing perspective, Donald Sterling is a genius. By annoying “everyone” Donald Sterling has made himself “the man everyone loves to hate.”

Donald Sterling now gets more unpaid newspaper coverage and news media coverage that the President of the United States and the President of Russia, all as the result of Donald Sterling’s “annoying conduct.”

Meanwhile, the value of Donald Sterling’s basketball team, the Clippers, has gone from $12.5 million dollars when Donald Sterling bought the Clippers basketball team in 1981 to $2 billion dollars today.

Donald Sterling has made himself the most talked about person in the world and his “basketball team” (the Clippers) the most talked about enterprise in the world.

Donald Sterling’s annoying actions prompted some of the richest businessmen in the world to compete with each other for the “bragging rights” of being able to say they “own” the Clippers.

Donald Sterling has created a series of unique experiences/”shows” for all of us “spectators” to watch play-out by pro-actively disrupting the status quo.

Donald Sterling understands the “big picture” perfectly, is fully present living in the present moment, and has shown the rest of the world, through his annoying conduct, how to make money by disrupting the status quo by disrupting the status quo and by not following the standard business school rule, “don’t annoy your customers.”

Experiencing Success without Experiencing Fulfillment

It makes sense to choose the best role models to guide and inspire us towards the realization of our potential.

But recent lawsuits brought by professional football players against the National Football League (NFL) which cast professional football players as enslaved drugged workhorses tarnish the image of professional football players as heroes.

Recent print media, broadcast media and social media comments on profession sports make it clear that professional sports are such a big money maker for all involved that league matches are not games being played for “fun.” They are business enterprises in which star athletes in some cases have sold their bodies and themselves into slavery to team owners.

In that regard, eight former professional football players (including legendary Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon sued the National Football League (NFL) on Tuesday, May 20, 2014, in a class action lawsuit. In their lawsuit they claim they were injected with drugs hundreds or thousands of times to keep them on the field despite being injured and in great pain. They were forced to ignore their medical condition, their medical histories and present physical injuries and ailments so that the business enterprises that “owned” them could make more money by having them play football instead of recuperate.

In their complaint they allege their stories are not unique and are part of a immoral reprehensible out-of-control money obsessed “culture of drug misuse, substituting players’ health for profit.”

Their lawyer has stated, “The NFL has made billions of dollars as a result of drug use that would be prohibited for horses.”

According to their class-action complaint the potential class of injured professional football players could stretch to 5,000 retired NFL players nationwide.

This lawsuit comes on the heels of a $765 million settlement between retired professional football players and the National Football League over head injuries suffered during their careers. More than 4,800 professional football players joined in that lawsuit.

The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore in Oakland. Dent et al v. National Football League, CV14-2324 (N.D. Cal., filed May 20, 2014).

The complaint accuses NFL doctors of giving opioids, localized anesthetics and excessive anti-inflammatory drugs to cover up players’ injuries regardless of the athlete’s medical history.

The complaint states that many of them became addicted to the prescription pills over their years of playing, sometimes turning to street dealers to feed their habit after leaving the league.

In short, professional football players sold their bodies; they made a lot of money. But, the daily quality of their lives, the flowering of their spirit and their ability to enjoy life was ruined by being drugged so that they could continue to “play” professional football while they were in injured and in great pain.

The tortured lives of the most severely damaged/ injured professional football players, in my opinion can be thought of as being equivalent to being buried alive and then living out the rest of you life moving around and breathing under ground in your own grave.

Shift of Consciousness

It is well known that people can get head injuries including traumatic brain concussions from playing football.

However, that has not stopped youths from violently playing football in high school and college football leagues.

A national tracking systems for tracking brain injuries in youths is about to get off the ground at UCLA with $30 million from the National College Athletic Association, a new pledge of $25 million from the National Football League a a $10 million gift to UCLA from New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.

It has been reported that Tisch’s donation will sustain and expand a UCLA program that since 2012 has treated 600 young patients with brain injuries and studied the after-effects of concussions in middle school, high school and college athletics.

Reports that concussions may set the stage for learning problems, mental health issues and even dementia have made some parents wary of allowing their children to play in organized sports.

According to the latest available figures about 250,000 people under the age of 19 were treated for concussions in 2009, up from 150,000 in 2001.

A NCAA survey of 15 college sports recently showed that between the 1988-89 and 2003-04 academic years, the overall rate of reported concussions doubled from 1.7 to 3,4 per 1,000 “athletic exposures.”

Privacy

Thanks to revelations about government snooping made by Edward Snowden and facts about Donald Sterling learned by listening to recorded private statements made by Donald Sterling to his girl-friend we now know that where there are cell phones there is no privacy or reasonable expectation of privacy.

In a recent interview conducted by Brian Williams, Edward Snowden revealed that smart phone can be accessed and used (like a camera, a microphone and an audio visual recording device) by governmental agencies to see and hear what people in its presence are doing and saying.

These revelations are a warning to be careful of what you say and do in private.

Think about your privacy before you speak.

Think before about your privacy before you act.

Think before you speak or act.

Orchestrate your life carefully.

Things are not going to settle down.