Email sent to my daughter this morning and her response:


I believe that man at his best is man at play. What separates us from other mammal species is our brain and within that the capacity for humor and laughter. No matter how awful peoples' positions, they have always been able to have moments of joy. I received an email on July 28, 2010:

Hi, Ben:

You may enjoy reading the attached quotes, for a change from what surrounds us
in this world. Whenever I see ugly things, I always try to remember "the world
is neither so good nor so bad as we think it is." (Guy de Maupassant).

A couple of years ago my son sent me a photograph of one maybe, 10 year-old, pushing his, say, 5 year-old, brother in a shopping cart in the projects. My son was there visiting a client. In that derelict, impoverished and dangerous area kids still played and laughed.

And there is this from Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China:

No country, over the past few centuries, has been free of turmoil and tragedy. It is as if there were a restlessness and a capacity for violence at the center of the human spirit that can never be contained, so that no society can achieve a perfect tranquility. Yet in every country, too, humans have shown a love of beauty. a passion for intellectual adventure, a gentleness, an exuberant sensuality, and a yearning for justice that have cut across the darkness and filled their world with light.

"I wish you enough" is a modern Chinese poem. I wish for you, my daughter, enough passion, enough commitment, enough energy that you may achieve enough happiness.

-Dad

Thank you dad! this was so meaningful, i really appreciate you sharing!