I came across this suggestion in the book “Blood Memory” written by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns: “We're supposed to make decisions that go seven generations beyond...” -Marcia Pablo, Native American.

I came across this statement in the work of fiction “The Son” written by Phillip Meyer: “…it was all pointless, we might as well have never crawled from the swamps, we were no more able to understand our own ignorance than a fish, staring up from a pool, can fathom its own.”

I said the following last week: “How do you tell someone who makes more money than you, is more powerful than you, and who believes they are smarter than you, that they are stupid; or even just ignorant.”

They don’t want to hear it; any of it. It is obvious that “they” are Wealth and Power. It is less obvious that “they” also includes comfort, and that compliance is often confused with comfort, and I think we do this purposely to justify our inaction and to feel better about our collective lack of progress. My momentary, confused comfort is not going to help my great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. And because I am not wealthy, it is unlikely I will even be of much help to my grandchildren. And if the objective is really seven generations beyond, it is also unlikely that the wealthy will be of much help to their direct descendants seven generations beyond, much less mine. And the goal is not (should not be) limited to direct descendants, but should convey to all future generations. Yet for our momentary, confused purposes, we are wealthy, we are powerful, we are comfortable, we are compliant.

We could choose to live creatively, through the eyes of an artist; but instead we choose to live unflinchingly, through the eyes of a banker.

In the 2018 film “At Eternity’s Gate” Willem DaFoe as Vincent van Gogh said, “…a grain of madness is the best of art.”