Sunset Intersection: New National Anthem Update

January 22, 2017

New National Anthem Update

Several weeks ago I proposed an alternate anthem for the next four years: "I Won't Back Down," by Tom Petty. Good choice. But yesterday I heard a song so beautiful and so moving that I must revise my recommendation. The clipped off ending makes it ring in your head. Go women, you got this.

1 comment:

E. Martin Pedersen said...: Need more? I do.

https://youtu.be/JCnexOFOxCo; Monday, January 23, 2017

Beyond the Post-Modern Mind, Huston Smith

"As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves. Only the slightest of barriers separates us from our sacred unconscious; it is infinitely close to us. But we are infinitely far from it, so for us the barrier looms as a mountain that we must remove with our own hands. We scrape away at the earth, but in vain; the mountain remains. Still we go on digging at the mountain, in the name of God or whatever. For the most part we only hear of the final truth; very rarely do we actually see it. The mountain isn't there. It never was there."

Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety

"Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim's Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn a man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else--pathway to the stars, maybe.

I suspect that what makes hedonists so angry when they think about overachievers is that the overachievers, without drugs or orgies, have more fun."

Sunset Intersection is a 'fair use' site, for research, instructional and commentary purposes. In other words, I don't sell anything. As such, I feel I'm not violating the letter or spirit of the copyright of anyone whose photos, poems, quotes, lyrics, drawings or other protected artistic or intellectual production I include. If you ask me to remove them, I will. Please comment on any post, but I can't publish your comments if they include URLs, hawk some junk, or are written in Russian. Become a follower and you will cease to be anonymous.

To visit Martin's writing website, press here.

January 22, 2017

New National Anthem Update

1 comment: