David brooks columnist biography of mahatma
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The road to character david brooks
AI-generated Abstract
The paper explores the dichotomy between résumé virtues, which are associated with external success and career-oriented achievements, and eulogy virtues, which pertain to deeper character aspects celebrated at one's begravning. It reflects on the societal emphasis on résumé virtues over eulogy virtues and suggests a need for a more profound pursuit of character development. Through illustrative historical encounters, such as that between philosopher Isaiah Berlin and poet Anna Akhmatova, the paper emphasizes the significance of intellectual and emotional connections that transcend superficial accomplishments.
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Tag / David Brooks
By Lim Siong Guan
Today, all of us in Singapore bid a final farewell to Mr S R Nathan, who was the President of Singapore from 1999 to 2011.
I had sent the following message to Mrs S R Nathan the day after Mr Nathan passed on:
“Dear Mrs Nathan, I am praying for you as I ponder the blessings that have come to me through Mr Nathan. He was ever considerate, ever thoughtful, ever gracious, and ever the wonderful human being who loved Singapore, and served his country with absolute loyalty and much personal sacrifice which you and your family shared. now that my wife and I admire you and Mr Nathan very much for the humanity of your manners and your generosity of spirit.”
Mr Nathan had always been willing to share the wisdom of his knowledge and experience, yet always spoke in humble tones. He agreed to write a blurb for the second book I had written with Joanne H Lim entitled “WINNING WITH HONOUR in Relationships, Family, Organisations, Leade
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Joseph Lelyveld subtlytips his hand in his title. The word Mahatma (often employed in ordinary journalistic usage without any definite article, as if it were Mohandas Gandhi’s first name) is actually the Sanskrit word for “Great Soul.” It is a religio-spiritual honorific, to be assumed or awarded only by acclaim, and it achieved most of its currency in the West by association with Madame Blavatsky’s somewhat risible “Theosophy” movement, forerunner of many American and European tendencies to be found in writers, as discrepant as Annie Besant and T. S. Eliot, who nurture themselves on the supposedly holy character of the subcontinent. The repetition, unlikely to be accidental in the case of a writer as scrupulous as Lelyveld, seems to amount to an endorsement. In a different way, the subtitle reinforces the same idea. Not Gandhi’s struggle for India, but with it: as if this vast and antique land was somehow too refractory and ungrateful (recalcitrant is a word to which Lelyv