Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What Does Ten Thousand Mean To You?

 5 New Understandings...

1. The Number Of Years A Plastic Bottle Will Take to Disintegrate With The Cap On 

I have to thank Dalton Conley's book Elsewhere, U.S.A. : How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety for this insight.

Conley is an award-winning social commentator, best known for his contributions to understanding how socioeconomic status is transmitted across generations.

He is University Professor of the Social Sciences and the Chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University.

He is also an Adjunct Professor of Community Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

And finally, he is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

After reading the Wikipedia entry on him, I guarantee you, you will want to read all of Conley's books (I plan to), starting with his first book, Being Black, Living in the Red.

2. A Line from the Bible ...

"But in church I would rather speak five words with my mind to instruct others than 10,000 words in another language"

This line from 1 Corinthians 14 is pretty self-explanatory.

But if you want to understand all the nuances of 1 Corinthians 14-19, or in fact, any other part of the Bible, you should put biblestudytools to work.

On the  biblestudytools website, you can not only compare scripture across different translations of the Bible.

But also read valuable commentary from scholars such as Matthew Henry (my favorite), John Darby & John Gill.

3. Ten Thousand Waves 

This mountain spa resort in Santa Fe, NM describes itself as having the feel of a Japanese onsen

So what is an onsen?  

Onsen means 'hot springs' in the Japanese language and it's where you will long to be.

Especially if you look at photographs of Naruko Miyagi onsen in Japan.

You can find one of these photographs in the Wikipedia entry on onsens.

Check it out yourself over here.

And then book your flight to New Mexico or Japan.

Whichever is closer.

3. The first line of "The Bragging Song (The Great Historical Bum)" 

 "I was born about ten thousand years ago.  There ain't nothin in this world I don't know."

These are the opening lines of a well-known Woody Guthrie song. 

You can search for it online and read the entire lyrics, which are hilarious.

Being obviously written in jest, you shouldn't be surprised that it contains some sacrilegious content.

By the way, do you know someone who brags like that? 

Almost like that, if not exactly like that?

You probably do.

4. Ten Thousand Villages

For those who don't know, Ten Thousand Villages is a fair-trade retailer and one of the founding members of the World Fair Trade Organization.  

It was founded to give poor artisans from around the world a fair shake for their work.

When you find out more about Ten Thousand Villages and what they have to offer, you may want to buy some of the things you buy for yourself and for others in your life from them, rather than elsewhere.

Over the last few years, many young soon-to-be-weds have used Ten Thousand Villages for their wedding gift registry.

Including one young couple from my own family. 

You can check out Ten Thousand Villages here.

5. The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas  

And finally, The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. 

The international Buddhist community in Ukiah that was set up in 1974.

Buddhism always reminds me of two of my dear friends, Anita and Mira.

Anita is an author, a copywriter, a online writing teacher, an artist...

...and a devout Buddhist.

Mira is an author, one-time copywriter, unbeatable Scrabble player...

...and a devout Buddhist.

Gals....this post is for you.

I miss you and think of you even though it's been a while since we've been in touch.

P.S.  Hope you enjoyed this post.  I am sure when you first read  'What Does Ten Thousand Mean To You?", money was the first thing that popped into your head. I should know.  As a Commissions Analyst and Xactly Incent Implementation Architect (as you found out about me from my post My Day Job. Xactly. More or Less),  I live and breathe numbers for most of my waking day.  So this post was aimed at thinking about numbers in new and fresh ways. Even a number as big as 10,000.

So dear reader, I end with the question:  What does 10,000 mean to you? What else can you think of?  C'mon stretch that imagination. May this be the beginnings of a truly inspirational year for you. A year in which you let your imagination lead you to new places and ideas.

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