Jeffrey Alexander Martin

I was reviewing the great book 'Why Don't We Learn from History' by B. H. Liddell Hart for a college course I'm designing, and I noticed that he uses the phrase "We learn from history..." a few times. Like everything else in the book, they are excellent insights. "We learn from history that in every age and every clime the majority of people have resented what seems in retrospect to have been purely matter of fact comment on their institutions. We learn too that nothing has aided the persistence of falsehood, and the evils resulting from it, more than the unwillingness of good people to admit the truth when it was disturbing to their comfortable assurance. Always the tendency continues to be shocked by natural comment, and to hold certain things too "sacred” to think about. I can conceive of no finer ideal of a man’s life than to face life with clear eyes instead of stumbling through it like a blind man, an imbecile, or a drunkard — which, in a think...

"Tell me again dad," said young Teddy the tortoise, "of the time that you beat the hare in the race." "Lay your head down, and I will tell you." "When I was a young boy, just like you, I was walking down to the lake one day. I passed a hare and a fox talking. As I walked passed them the hare said, 'Wow! Look at this guy, he's so slow that if he was going any slower he would be going backward.' They laughed, but I ignored them and kept on walking." Teddy lifted his head. "Why didn't you just do it then?" "Because I didn't need to. Now, lay your head back down and I'll tell you the rest of the story. When I was walking back from the lake the hare and the fox were still standing there talking. The fox saw me coming and pointed. The hare turned and laughed. He said, 'It took you that long to get to the lake and back? I probably could have rolled you there faster.' They both laughed. I stopped and looked ...

The Tortoise and the Hare is one of those rare stories that almost everyone knows and can tell. It's very old, back to the ancient Greek Aesop about 2,600 years ago. It has been translated, rewritten, and adapted many times over the millennia. I think there are two fruitful things we can explore. One, the variety of moral lessons that can be taken from the story, which can be formulated in different ways. Two, as a writing exercise for playing with perspective, point of view, and style. Here is a version called The Hare and the Tortoise translated from the Greek by V. S. Vernon Jones in 1912. A Hare was one day making fun of a Tortoise for being so slow upon his feet. "Wait a bit," said the Tortoise; "I'll run a race with you, and I'll wager that I win." "Oh, well," replied the Hare, who was much amused at the idea, "let's try and see"; and it was soon agreed that the fox should set a course for them, and be the judge. When the ti...

Albert Einstein wrote an article called 'Why Socialism?' in 1949. It initially seems odd. In the 1930s Einstein had escaped the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The Cold War had started in the 1940s, primarily between the US and the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union grew from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. So it seems odd that one of the smartest men in the world would think positively of socialism. Why would he agree with the philosophical foundations of the Nazis and Soviets? But, he makes some good points. For instance, he notes that science can't decide on ends, only on means, and that the goal of socialism is to change human nature for a futuristic society. "For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organi...

People play games with words. The word fascism is commonly used as a play thing. Everyone seems to agree it's bad, but not what it is. If we don't know what it is, it's hard to say whether it's good or bad, and what the opposite of it would be. Fascism emerged in the early 1900s in Italy with Benito Mussolini as the leader. Let's start with a clear statement from him. On 26 May 1927 Mussolini gave a speech. Here is a quote, "We here solemnly reaffirm our doctrine concerning the State, here I reaffirm no less energetically my formula from the speech at the Scala in Milan: everything in the State, nothing against the State, nothing outside the State." This is a clear and direct statement of belief about what fascism is from the leader and founder of fascism. We can work with this. Let's directly reverse it first. That would be: nothing in the state, everything against the state, everything outside the state. That's a good definition of anarchism. Now...

I used to have poetry come to me spontaneously. It would just pop up in my mind. While I spent four years as a politician working on doing a government turnaround that faded. Now, I've been out of office for six weeks and it seems like it's coming back. Three days ago while I was laying in bed falling asleep something came to me. I just ignored it at first, like I normally do. But then, I had to get it out of my head, so I rolled over, turned on the bed lamp, grabbed a notepad and pen, and wrote it down. Cynical Hope by Jeffrey Alexander Martin I hope you become jaded, and skeptical, and cynical. That you see all the bad, as pervasive and pervading. That hope seems only an illusion, and the hopeful as gullible. Then, I hope, you recover. Because then, then the hard pain of life and the ignorant hate of people will not surprise you, or throw you, or suppress you. But the good things, of beauty and kindness, these will impress you more. Some ideas for short fiction stories have b...

Anxiety and fear can help us. They help us avoid dangerous things and prepare for the future, but they can also overwhelm us and stop us from moving forward. It's like indigestion of the heart, mind, and soul. You're made to be able to have anxiety, and to be able to deal with it. It's a skill you can learn. Here is Eli's response to learning it. What is your name? E. R. If, for some odd reason, you could no longer do this type of emotional processing, would you be: very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed? Very disappointed. What is the worst moment from before you knew how to process your emotions? Multiple feelings of being overcome or overburdened by the common stress of life. What is the best moment after you learned how to process your emotions? The best moment is the feeling of being able to let go and release through meditative practice all the emotion and feeling that you have in relation to whatever it is you're experiencing in life at...

Loss is a part of life. The more we're attached to something the worse it feels when it slips away. Our natural reaction is to cage our grief up. But then it only turns to anger and sadness. The way through it is to experience our feelings rather than hiding them from ourselves. Here's an example of someone doing it. What is your name? T. M. If, for some odd reason, you could no longer do this type of emotional processing, would you be: very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed? Very disappointed What is the worst moment from before you knew how to process your emotions? Loss of a child What is the best moment after you learned how to process your emotions? Processing the loss of my Husband How has your attitude changed from before your training to after? Much more positive. Less sad How hard was it to learn to be aware of your sensations and your mind-body connection? This is a very easy process. What was the hardest part of learning? Relaxing, thinking I n...

Hope is necessary for us to continue to put forth the effort necessary to live (Richter, 1957). When we lose that hope, we are built with the ability to regain it. We can choose to process our anxiety, depression, anger, and grief. We can process our emotions, we just haven't been shown how. This is a clear example of someone that is doing it right now. I'll tell you how after. What is your name? K. Y. If, for some odd reason, you could no longer do this type of emotional processing, would you be: very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed? Very disappointed. What is the worst moment from before you knew how to process your emotions? My husband's death. What is the best moment after you learned how to process your emotions? When I feel a negative emotion, I know how to process it. It's wonderful to have a path to follow and not feel lost. How has your attitude changed from before your training to after? I feel good again. I giggle and laugh over silly...

This is the fourth time I'm writing a letter for the future. It's an odd experience because there's a chance I'm still alive, but there's a chance that I won't be. How do I compress down some useful insights and maybe even advice. This has been done many times in history. Some of the greatest minds in history have written letters of advice for family members. I've read some of them. All of them are probably useful. I looked some up, they include:  Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), Seneca the Younger (4 BCE–65 CE), Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE), William Penn (1644–1718), Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope) (1694–1773), Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), John Adams (1735–1826), Abigail Adams (1744–1818), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), George Washington (1732–1799), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), Winston Churchill (1874–1965), Albert Einstein (1879–1955), Ross Perot (1930–2019), Jeffrey Alexander Ma...

A little before I finished the semester I was talking with a handful of college students about what's the most useful thing they are taking from my class, and if there's anything useful. The answers are both surprising and not surprising based on how I teach. One girl answered, "How to talk to people. Like with speaking and being confident." Another answered, "How to think. You know, like with context and everything." Another said, "Thinking deeper about these things." Good answers. The content itself is important, but the framework that it is put in is probably even more important, which is essentially the skill of teaching. A couple of times over the semester I had discussions in the class about how the students thought the class was going and how they thought it could be better. At the beginning the students were almost unanimous in that they wanted the class to be lectures with PowerPoint presentations and multiple choice exams. I told them rig...