A reader writes to ask for advice on whether he should travel to the US to attend college. His family wants him to stay where he is, but he longs for wider horizons and new opportunities. Each option has advantages and drawbacks.
Author: Quintus Curtius
Sustained Effort Is Needed For Grand Designs
Great enterprises require a sustained effort over a long period of time. They cannot be pursued in fits and starts with intermittent bursts of energy; and they demand a confluence of factors that only coalesce on rare occasions. There must exist the ability and talent to conceive the project; there must be intense initiative and endurance to carry it through to completion; and, as a practical matter, the creator must have the leisure and financial ability to sponsor his labors. If any of these requirements are wanting, there will be no progress.
The Apple
There is an allegorical short story written by H.G. Wells entitled The Apple. Several men in a “third-class carriage on a Sussex railway,” each absorbed in his own thoughts, begin to talk among themselves. One announces that he is in possession of what he calls an “apple from the Tree of Knowledge,” and that he “must get rid of it.”
Real Kings Are Not Common
We live in times of feeble leadership. Those who occupy public offices often seem more willing to advance their own interests than those of the citizens they represent; they tremble at the thought of taking any action or initiative that might involve risk on their part. And so the citizenry suffers to buttress the careerist ambitions of the few.
Continue readingOperation Eagle Claw: Disaster In The Desert
In early November 1979, rioting Iranian students entered the American embassy in Tehran and seized fifty-two government employees. Whether this was a spontaneous act, or a planned operation by Iran’s revolutionary government, is still open to debate; but in either instance, the nation’s clerical leadership moved quickly to exploit the crisis. In the United States, the Carter administration was still reeling from the shock waves sent out by the fall of the Shah, who had long been an American ally in the region. There was a sense of confusion, even paralysis; and the problem was compounded by the fact that the Americans had very little knowledge of what was happening in Tehran. There were no eyes and ears on the ground.
Continue reading“Am I Too Quiet And Withdrawn?” (Podcast)
A 20-year-old man working in law enforcement tends to be quiet and introverted. He’s serious and goal-oriented. Some of his colleagues mistakenly put a negative spin on this, and this is causing him to wonder if he needs to make some personality changes. We offer some thoughts on the situation.
Flee From Those Who Drain You, And Seek Those Who Sustain You
There is a certain truculence that must figure in the disposition of an independent spirit. He who strays from the approved paths through the forest must be prepared to swing his machete with vigor and persistence at the tangles of vegetation that obstruct his forward movement. He will seek to test the boundaries of the enclosures that surround him, and will always be probing for opportunities to detect fractures and imperfections in their constructions.
Should I Start A Business? (Podcast)
A reader who was a professional poker player for a number of years is getting restless. He wants to start a business, but has some questions about how he should go about doing it. We offer some ideas.
Sorrow Is Not The Right Response To Time’s Rapid Passage
In his short biography of the poet Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson makes the following comment:
He Who Believes In His Powers, Works Only To Please Himself
Samuel Johnson makes the following comment in his Lives of the Poets when discussing the life of the seventeenth-century poet John Gay:
Quintus Curtius 
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