I’ve been working a lot and thinking a lot about work. About how enjoyable and satisfying it can be, also about who defines it, who pays for it, what it should produce and how that’s all changing. Everywhere.
Then, I heard Grace Lee Boggs share her thoughts on work and the character of the 21st century from her home in Detroit. Motor City folks have to make a way out of no way as the old southern saying goes. I didn’t know who Grace was before hearing last night’s Smiley & West podcast so I’m catching up on her life.
95 years old, she was one of the pioneers of interracial marriage (Chinese-American+ African-American, beautiful!). An intellectual, educator, city-builder, writer, activist and at her age - author of a new book, The Next American Revolution. Her comments on the show were tremendously positive and hopeful about Americans’ efforts to improve our quality of life.
"We’ve reached a time on
the clock of the world
where we need to make a new beginning.
Where we need to grow
our souls.
Where we need to make a paradigm shift in almost everything that we do.
We’re amidst a cultural revolution which is as wide ranging as the one from hunting and gathering to agriculture 11,000 years ago
and from agriculture to industry a few hundred years ago.
It’s a wonderful time to be alive.”
-Grace Lee Boggs on Smiley & West, 6/3/11
