Contemplations – Most recent

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I want to remember so I can revisit them from time to time.

Appetizer:

"Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."
– Albert Einstein, from a short speech he gave to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, in 1932, which can be found in Einstein: A Life In Science by Michael White and John Gribbin, Dutton, 1994, pages 262 – 263: via Internet Archive⩘ .

Most recent contemplations

Nelson Mandela showed us what solidarity means

Nelson Mandela – President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist (1918–2013). From Wash D.C. Longworth building October 4, 1994. Mandela's first trip to the United States.
Photo: © copyright John Mathew Smith 2001 / CC BY-SA 2.0⩘ 
Source: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com⩘ 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave an inspiring talk about Nelson Mandela, who is also known by his Thembu clan name, Madiba.

Madiba lives in every protest for justice, every call for democracy, every march with a righteous demand. Madiba lives in every township and slum where dignity remains just out of reach, and he lives in each person who reaches for that dignity, who works all day and then returns home with food for the hungry and medicine for the sick. Madiba lives each time someone bears witness to oppression, or want, or misery, and does not accept it as inevitable, but rather as something that we each can fight. So many of us are only where we are today – can only conceive of the principled as possible – because Madiba showed us the path.

Mayor Mamdani gave his talk to commemorate the launch of the Mandela Foundation Global Leadership Forum.

We are together this evening to launch the Mandela Foundation Global Leadership Forum – to continue the struggle for dignity that guided Madiba for nearly a century. We are together to chart a course through the turbulent waters that lie before us – a global landscape roiled by strongmen and corruption, where rights are stolen away in the dead of night and apartheid, in different forms, endures. We are together, all of us, searching for answers, seeking to make sense of these fractures, straining to lead amidst upheaval.

Nelson Mandela held a mirror to humanity – and showed us what solidarity means⩘ , opinion by Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, The Guardian, Jul 18, 2026.

< Previous contemplations   

Ongoing contemplations

< Previous contemplations