Niagara will witness the passing of the human species…Such ceaselessness had its parallel in his own life…the inner demand to make something of himself…to swim upstream against formidable obstacles. – Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer

All right, one final Thought from this memorable book.

Niagara will witness the passing of the human species… 

We still find this phrase thoughtful. For lack of a better phrase, it puts us humans in our place. Niagara Falls will be here after every single one of us is gone, something to think about when we are caught up in something we think is significant, because taken in that context it really isn’t. Nothing we do is. All of us are going to end up in the same coffin buried in the same ground. There is no escaping it.

the inner demand to make something of himself…

But then again, what we do is important because we all have an inner demand to do something and it’s this inner demand that makes what we do important to us, even if there are those for whom what we do is not important at all.

For example, there are a billion Chinese, as the saying goes, who don’t read The Thought for the Day, but it’s important to me to write it because this is what I feel needs to be said and if you’re a regular reader of this feature, it’s important to you to read it.

Lincoln had the inner demand to make something of himself…He had it in a measure most people do not, which is what made him president and why he will live down the ages.

We may not live down the ages, but each one of us has that inner demand to some extent. All of us have something we are meant to do with our lives and if we are going to look back on our time on this planet without regret, we best be doing it.

It doesn’t matter what it is, either. It only has to be important to you, something you are compelled to do by something inside you. Oftentimes this is what you went to bed at night dreaming of doing when you were a kid. When we were kids we wanted to be a radio announcer. Pretty bad, too. We tried in our 20’s for a few years, then got laid off, found ourselves out of the business and woke up the next morning and found we didn’t miss it. We had come to the end of our interest, freeing us to move on to writing.

Circumstantially, your example will be different. Intrinsically, it will be the same, however. It will come from deep inside you, your heart telling you what to do and your instincts telling you how to get there.

Our inner demands to make something of ourselves is what makes what we do important, despite the fact in a hundred years there will be all new people on this planet.

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…he must have wondered, why had he not achieved what his ambition and talent from early on had directed him toward? – Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer

Fred Kaplan is an American writer and a biographer of considerable distinction. He is also a professor of English at Queens College in New York City. This book shows Lincoln’s growth as a reader and a writer and the work he put in to become a man able to put complex ideas into words that could be grasped by everybody, including himself. It’s a side of Lincoln that a lot of biographies only touch on.

Abraham Lincoln, of course, was the 16^th president of the United States. Revered by some as the man who saved the Union during our Civil War, despised by some as nothing more than a despot, he was one of a few people our species has produced that will live down the ages, being talked about as long as there are enough humans around to hold a conversation.

Today’s Thought comes from a period in Lincoln’s life where he had yet to achieve what he felt he was destined to achieve. We forget the exact time, but the context of today’s Thought makes this plain.

This had to be frustrating for Lincoln. We’re read our share of Lincoln over the years and we always felt Lincoln knew he would have a place in American history, specifically as president. He had things to do with his life, but the fates were not yet cooperating.

Perhaps you can relate to this. We know we can. Like you, perhaps, we’ve been chasing dreams our entire adult life. Some we caught, some eluded us and some we’re still chasing. Some attainments took – and, honestly, are taking – longer than we thought they should.

Lincoln chased dreams, too, and was unyielding in his commitment to living the life he was meant to live. Full measures of effort, diligence and patience eventually took him where was meant to go, and he lived the life he always felt he was destined for, probably including his assassination.

Effort, diligence and patience are lessons that will serve all of us well in every aspect of our lives. We all have talents and ambitions we were issued at birth and the happiest lives are spent by those who get the most out of those talents. Less happy lives are lived by those who ignore these talents and ambitions.

Our paths may not see us to living down the ages – or they might, you never know – but if we are going to look back on a satisfactory life we must follow our paths. We must follow our hearts and trust our instincts. It is the only way to ensure we live the life we were meant to live.

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Amid world beating hearts, the tumult and the shouting starts. – Grantland Rice, The Start

Grantland Rice was an American sportswriter, one of the most eloquent and best known America has produced. Among other things, he is known for coining the phrase “The Four Horsemen” to describe the 1924 Notre Dame football team’s backfield, as well the phrase:

He writes – not whether you won or lost –
But how you played the game

Rice was a versatile man. He played football and baseball at Vanderbilt and was their baseball coach in 1908. In 1944 and 1946 he was nominated for Oscars in the Best Short Subject – One Reel category, winning in 1944 for a short called Amphibious Fighters. (The category is now known as the Best Live Action Short Film.)

The tumult and the shouting will begin soon in Rio De Janeiro, site of the Summer Olympics. While Rio was universally hailed for its unquestioned – and perhaps unparalleled – ability to produce scantily clad, buxom young women and to generally throw a party, almost immediately doubts were cast about Rio’s ability to stage an event of this magnitude.

Those concerns have come to pass, though in fairness to Rio organizers, not all are their fault. For example, they’re not responsible for the doping scandal that came this close to keeping the entire Russian Olympic team out of the Games, or the fact that some athletes – who had past samples recently test positive – might be waiting outside the gate at Olympic Stadium to see whether or not they’ll be allowed to participate in the Opening Ceremonies.

The fact that this planet has completely lost its mind and some whack job might well cause havoc at the Games is not their fault, either, though they will be responsible for preventing and dealing with it.

Some problems are their fault, though. The bay where the open water swimming and sailing events are to be held is, literally, a sewer. A half-million visitors could spread the Zika virus to the rest of the world. Some infrastructure projects either won’t be completed or, if completed, will be untested.

…the tumult and the shouting starts…

And perhaps the chaos, too. Even the biggest Olympic booster has to acknowledge an awful lot of elements for disaster are there. The Olympics biggest cynics have achieved, and are maintaining, a state of arousal usually only seen on porn movie sets waiting for catastrophe to strike.

We’re somewhere in the middle. The Olympics could use a swift kick in the pants. From bribery scandals to doping fiascos to athletes competing among body parts and feces, Rio might give it to them, and perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to usher in a new Olympic era. We could use it.

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