{"id":4337,"date":"2012-09-17T08:26:33","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=4337"},"modified":"2012-09-17T09:52:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-17T16:52:48","slug":"much-dreaming-and-much-talk-is-of-little-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2012\/09\/17\/much-dreaming-and-much-talk-is-of-little-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Much Dreaming and Much Talk is of Little Use*"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Edward Gibbon classic on my shelf, 3000 pages of small print, published in 1776, before typewriters, while few knew he was doing it at all.<\/h6>\n

It’s a funny thing about our internal psyche, if it overhears a lot of our talking about doing something, it figures it’s already done.<\/p>\n

And causes us to be satisfied with less than what we can be.<\/p>\n

I remember a job I had where ideas were in high esteem. After creative sessions, my white board was so full of\u00a0exuberant thought\u00a0I requisitioned a new one that preserved the session with a photocopy. My legacy in that job? A fancy white board for the next guy.<\/p>\n

I hope I left more than that, but as they say: When all is said in done, there’s more said than done.<\/p>\n

What we need are examples like Edward Gibbon, writer the three-volume epic History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.<\/em>\u00a0After it was published, people remarked that they didn’t even know he had such an interest, not to mention the energy, and scope.<\/p>\n

The virtue is not to never voice our plans. There is, in fact, a certain clarifying help in doing so. Rather it’s to be careful about only<\/em> talking and only<\/em> dreaming. The results of such activities dissipate into air. Only action is concrete.<\/p>\n

To quote Sophocles: \u201cHeaven never helps the man who will not act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or Disraeli: \u201cAction may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlyle: \u201cOur grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emerson: \u201cEvery noble activity makes room for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or from our friend Anonymous<\/em>: \u201cSpare minutes are the gold-dust of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s not what we say but what we do that shows who we are.\u00a0\u201cTalks a lot,\u201d or \u201cDreams a lot\u201d are not appellations that appeal.<\/p>\n

Now, where was I before I started all this talking?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

*Ecclesiastes 5:7<\/p>\n

Next: The End is Better than the Beginning<\/em>. Coming Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Spare minutes are the gold dust of time . . .” It’s what we do in them that matters. Here are some examples and quotes by a few that left legacies and, well, examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4337"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4337\/revisions\/4451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}