The October 2002 issue of Boys' Life includes a marvelous mini-profile of Benjamin Stein, written by Kristin Baird Rattini. Stein grew up a few miles from here in Silver Spring, Maryland and — home boy makes good — has been variously a lawyer, Presidential speech-writer, professor, author, and most recently an actor on film and TV. He also has a powerful deadpan sense of humor.

Ben Stein offers advice to young people (and everybody else — but note that he is addressing a Boy Scout audience in the USA, and translate as appropriate):

"One, develop good study habits. They're incredibly, unbelievably valuable. Two, respect and appreciate all your parents do for you. The amount that parents do for children is unimaginable. It's overwhelming. Three, be extremely grateful to live in America. There is no gift that the world can provide quite like being an American. Four, have God in your life at the earliest possible stage. You aren't the center of the universe."

Regardless of what it's called, I applaud Stein's final, Copernican principle. And elsewhere in the article he makes another wise long-term suggestion that I for one should pay attention to every day: "Don't take anything as seriously as it seems at the time."

(see also Independence Day (4 Jul 2001), ...)

TopicLife - 2002-09-19

(correlates: SupplyAndDemand, MarginAlia, UnimaginableTimelessness, ...)