Thank You, Thomas Edison

[Warph]

Most of us are thankful to God. Me included.  I am also thankful to man -- specifically, to those individuals who, over the centuries, have created the countless things I need for survival and enjoyment: automobiles, plumbing, mass produced food, medicine, electricity, computers, televisions, golf clubs ... the list is endless.

I know who many of those inventors are, and I can see, feel and enjoy the benefits of their inventions in my daily life. There are many inventors whom I don't know about -- some of them unsung heroes who never obtained the credit they deserve, (like, who invented the Thong), but whose contributions to the wealth and comfort around me are evident all the same.  Most feel that the proper expression of thanks is faith and rightly so.  My expression of thanks is expressed through something entirely different tho': reverence for reason.

I think reason represents the best of the human spirit.  It is a capacity that virtually all human beings possess to one degree or another.  Yet it can only be exercised through choice.  The computer I type on now, the lights which illuminate my home, the health I enjoy -- all of these came into existence because of countless choices made by different individuals at different times in history (coupled with many of my own choices, and the choices of those close to me).  From Thomas Edison to the less well-known heroes (in business and technecal fields) who market and distribute products in our (semi-) capitalistic system -- I am grateful and thankful to them all.  I am thankful not that they exercised faith or went to church or worshipped a mystical entity -- or spent a few hours at a soup kitchen, feeding the homeless -- but rather that they chose to use their intellects in a way from which I  (and many others) could benefit.

Life -- and all that life has to offer -- is the ultimate reward of goodness.  Goodness enhances life; it does not destroy or take away from it.  Anything or anyone who contributes to life -- my life, your life, or life in general -- deserves thanks.  I understand that my benefit was not their goal -- instead, their work and its rewards were their goals.  Their quest for financial and/or intellectual profit was, quite properly, their goal.  I like it when people are selfish in this sense.  The more selfishness people possess, the more (in the exercise of that self-interest) they create and produce.  That's the means through which the world becomes a better place.  My opinion, anyway.

I look around my home, around the country, around the world, and I see the best and the worst of mankind.  I wonder if at any time in history we have seen the presence of such heroic genius and unspeakable evil on one and the same planet.  I feel love and gratitude when I look at the benefits of rational, productive, and capitalistic civilization.  I despise only those who seek to destroy it.  My enemy is the last person I would ever love; I only seek his annihilation -- from my presence, if he's not violent, and from existence, if he is.

Nevertheless, I am delighted and grateful that I live in a world where reason and rational self-interest have gained as much ground as they have.  For this I am indeed thankful -- though only to those who, through their own choices, helped make it possible....

Warph

[Rudy Taylor]

Beautifully stated!  Thank you.

[pepelect]

 :laugh:so who invented the thong?

[Diane Amberg]

Somebody on the French Riviera.

[flo]

  would that be "thong" as in the 60's and 70's, now known as flip-flops, or "thong" of today.  Today's thong was most likely invented by someone who had a loose leg in their underwear and couldn't keep the durn things pulled out of the crack of their a double s. 

[frawin]

would that be "thong" as in the 60's and 70's, now known as flip-flops, or "thong" of today.  Today's thong was most likely invented by someone who had a loose leg in their underwear and couldn't keep the durn things pulled out of the crack of their a double s. 

Flo, I am not familiar with the second type you described, they sound like they would be difficult to get on your feet. I am wondering now if that explains why some lady at Walmart got mad at me when I said to her, "I see you are wearing Thongs, are they comfortable", I was referring to the thongs on her feet.
Frank

[Wilma]

Frank, did you really do that?

[frawin]

Well Wilma, Myrna explained to me what a thong is nowdays, and it sounds like what I used to see in my neighbors playboy magazines that they called a G-String, Thongs were those skimpy things you wear on your feet, a Flip-Flop is a politician to me, I guess I am to old to keep up with such changes.