Today is September 15 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “Are you building a new path?
People who navigate the chaos invite new ideas and welcome new strategies. Unfortunately, most people reject new ideas and ‘throw stones at those who are showing a new road.’
This belief comes from Voltaire who wrote The Dictionnaire philosophique (Philosophical Dictionary) an encyclopedic dictionary published in 1764.
The alphabetically arranged articles often criticize the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions.
The first edition was 344 pages and consisted of 73 articles. In the “Men of Letters” article Voltaire noted “The men of letters who have rendered the greatest services to the small number of thinking beings spread over the world, are the isolated writers, the true scholars shut in their studies, who have neither argued on the benches of the universities, nor told half-truths in the academies; and almost all of them have been persecuted. Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
Another way to consider this question is to ask yourself if you saunter or hike?
Influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, and environmental philosopher John Muir emphasized the etymology of the word saunter and why it was a better word choice than hike.
“I don't like either the word [hike] or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not 'hike!' Do you know the origin of that word saunter? It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going they would reply, 'A la sainte terre', 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them.”
How often do you spend time asking yourself if you throw strones at those who are showing a new road?