A R C H I V E

The American Civil War, and the two World Wars taught us there is no prospect for peace and reconciliation until the enemy formally surrenders.

In the arduous path of life, if we are lucky, we eventually realize we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. In that case, who do we surrender to so we can experience peace? How do we own and then integrate our own shadow?

Islam literally means surrender. Every religion and spiritual path tells us control is an illusion. We will find peace when we find a force, an idea or a cause greater than ourselves to surrender to, or when we find a guide, mentor, or guru we can trust…

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For the past six months, we have been blessed with access to our spacious gardens, allowing for natural social distancing to avoid Covid-19. However, with the arrival of Fall, the garden season coming to a close, and in anticipation of moving inside, we are launching a new phase in service beginning Monday, October 19th.

To set the scene, we have reduced the number of seats in our Dining Room to allow for proper social distancing, and we are serving lunch in other areas of the Club such as the Grand Room, Library, various Conference Rooms, and the new Carrara Marble Table on the First Floor. In addition, we will once again utilize glass and china.

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Next time you cross the covered bridge into Highland, look up to see, perched atop the townhomes, a massive sculpture of “Simurgh,” a benevolent mythical bird in Persian literature, made by local artist Will Kohler using rusted tractor parts.

Nearly eight centuries ago, Persian Sufi poet, Attar of Nishapur, a contemporary of Rumi, wrote a poem called “The Conference of the Birds”. In the poem, the birds of the world gather to decide who is to be their sovereign, as they had none. The hoopoe, the wisest of them all, suggested they should find the legendary Simurgh. The hoopoe leads the birds, each of whom represents a human fault which prevents human kind from attaining enlightenment.

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Did you watch the first presidential debate of this election season?!

Being at war used to mean fighting an enemy in uniform, dodging bombs and bullets, and dealing with food scarcity. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we could no longer even identify the enemy, let alone figure out how to defeat him. Instead of using bombs and bullets, today we fight our wars on multiple fronts: biological, trade, currency, cyber, space and military.

The Fourth Turning posits that every eighty years humanity spirals to a higher level in the aftermath of a major war and technological innovation: think American Revolution and the advent of the steam engine; Civil War and continental railroads; WWII and aviation.

Today America is at war again. With our country more divided than at any time since the Civil War, we are fighting a global pandemic, re-drawing the map of the Middle East, continuing to fight the Cold War with the remnants of the collapsed Soviet Union, and standing up to China to say ENOUGH!

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Let’s assume there is no such thing as absolute reality. Let’s assume we are masters of our own universe, capable of creating the reality we want. How then should we go about creating our reality?

Let’s start by looking at the glass as half full, instead of half empty. Let’s assume one is innocent till proven guilty; good till proven otherwise.

Instead of saying I’ll believe it when I see it, let’s start saying I’ll see it when I believe it. In the midst of the doom and gloom of the Coronavirus, social isolation and a pending economic collapse, let’s adopt the attitude of gratitude for all that we have, instead of all that we must have to be happy.

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3500 years ago Moses led the enslaved Jews to freedom and gave them Ten Commandments and 613 laws to live by. Over a thousand years later, the Greeks gave us democracy. Another 2000 years passed before our founding fathers combined the two ideas to build our nation, however imperfect at the time, to advance the cause of human evolution.

George Washington fought the American Revolution to birth our nation. Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to save our nation; and Franklin Roosevelt fought WWII to ensure that not only Americans, but humanity at large had the right to four basic freedoms -- Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.

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A Securus Locus In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right after food and shelter, we seek security, even before sex, knowing we must survive in order to thrive.

City Club strives to create a Securus Locus, a safe place, where we trust the quality of the food we eat, the cleanliness of the physical space we occupy, and feel safe to express our opinions without fear of being judged.

While science tells us ~11% of the population is gay or lesbian, until a few decades ago this population stayed in the closet due to the fear of being judged as different. Similarly, in today’s America, while 49% of the population identifies and/or votes conservative, few are willing to publicly identify as such, other than in the sanctuary of a private voting booth.

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Our reptilian brain is over three billion years old; our neocortex is only seventy thousand years old. A crime of passion is our logic’s inability to control our deep-seated reptilian urges.

Socrates encouraged us to "know our Selves." We know we are our own worst enemy, but we can’t help it! It is hard to see our own shadow, so we live unaware of it. Change is difficult, but we are forced to reinvent ourselves anyway. Take a look at this week’s article for guidance as to how to cope in these difficult times: Philosophy for a Time of Crises.

It often takes a massive outside force, an illness or a catastrophe to force us to abandon the past and embrace change. At the age of 17, I abandoned my home, family, and country to emigrate to America by myself.

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In his classic book, Power vs. Force, author David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., discusses power and how to gain it. The Egyptian Pharaoh had force but Moses had power; the Romans had force, but Jesus had power; the British Empire was so vast, the sun never set on it, but by the end of his Salt March, Gandhi brought that empire down. How does power defeat force, and how can we tap into that source?

In his new book, The Square and the Tower, historian Niall Ferguson posits that throughout history, the power of networks have always defeated the force of the hierarchies represented by popes, presidents, generals and corporate CEOs. A dictator is in absolute control until one day the soldiers refuse to shoot the protestors. What’s good for General Motors is good for America, until one day, Americans decide they want electric cars.

Human evolution is the story of the pendulum swinging between power and force, networks and hierarchy, potential energy morphing into kinetic energy, and back.

— Sina.

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Does the homeless man in this picture love or hate America? Are you a 1619-American or a 1776-American? Do you think America is a racist country or the land of the free? Is the new cancel-culture’s fear of speech protecting or restricting our freedom of speech? Do you lean to the left or to the right of the political center?

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City Club strives to birth Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity; our Weekly Newsletter’s brief introductions seek to pave the way by introducing relevant topics and asking hard questions that could lead the way to manifesting the institute we envision.

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Out of many, one. Thirteen original States, one Federal Government. Over 330-million diverse citizens, one nation.

As we get closer to the Presidential election, many of my friends, colleagues and City Club members are concerned the fabric of our nation appears threadbare, and our American revolution seems to be at risk.

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Nearly half of the world population struggles with food security, defined as lack of access to adequate calories, poor food quality, questionable safety and price affordability.

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Out of many, one. Thirteen original States, one Federal Government. Over 330-million diverse citizens, one nation.

As we get closer to a Presidential election, many of my friends, colleagues and City Club members are concerned the fabric of our nation appears threadbare, and our American revolution seems to be at risk.

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I love this phrase; it's pregnant with potential and the ultimate definition of Yin and Yang.

My yoga and meditation teacher used to tell me “if you want to be born again, you must be willing to die first.”

But no matter how many times I go through the cycles of death and rebirth, gain and loss, boom and bust, I never get used to the brutality of the destruction, pain, heartache and suffering it entails. At the intellectual level, we all know the forest fire burns the deadwood and creates nutrition and light for the next generation of trees, but if you have ever gotten close to a forest fire, you know how scary it is.

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Ludwig van Beethoven composed Symphony No. 9 in D minor ten years after he went deaf. First performed in Vienna on May 7, 1824, the symphony is regarded by many as Beethoven's greatest work; a supreme achievement in the history of western music, it is used as the anthem of the European Union.

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Since our inception, City Club’s vision has been to create “a safe place for passionate and caring people to explore our differences, find our common ground, and make our world a better place, while having fun."

With Coronavirus forcing us to self isolate, restaurants and pools closed, summer vacations postponed, concerts canceled, riots in the streets and economic hardship ahead, fun is proving to be a rare commodity. Since this phase of life may turn out to be more of a marathon than a hundred yard dash, we have decided we better start integrating some merrymaking into the mix, or we may easily turn into a bunch of bores.

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With Coronavirus ravaging the globe, riots in the streets and a potential economic calamity upon us, once again the ancient wounds of racial prejudice and inequality are being exposed within the fabric of our society.

Born into a Jewish family in a Muslim country and educated by Jesuit teachers, I have first hand experience of the damage caused by race and religious prejudice. However, before losing hope for the future of humanity, it is important to remember human evolution is in its early stages. Less than 150 years after fighting a bloody civil war to end slavery, America elected a Black President; this week the Senate confirmed the first Black American Airforce Chief of Staff.

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