Oh, it seems to be a birthday kind of day. Maybe it is all the ones on 1-11. They look like birthday candles if you squint your eyes and have a good imagination.
But lets us take a look at a few of the people born today.
This.
Call him Mind Daddy. Or just William James. He is known as the Father of American Psychology. He is also believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers in American history. He was the mind behind Pragmatism. The practical.
Born on date, January 11, 1842.
Or. Another Daddy.
Our good Alexander Hamilton. Of course, he was our first US Secretary of Treasury. He did some great things, for sure. He founded the Federalist Party, the American financial system, the United States Coastal Guard, and the New York Post newspaper.
But then there was a little skirmish with Aaron Burr. It ended badly for Alex. He died from a gunshot wound. From Burr’s gun.
Entrance to Earth date, January 11, 1755.
And then. The man who didn’t like a pecker. Rod Taylor.
Uh. Bird peckers.
He was an actor. From Australia. But, he moved to Los Angeles in 1954 and became a movie star. We all know him best for his lead role in Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds” with the blond screamer, Tippi Hedren. Those peckers.
Date of arrival, January 11, 1930.
But most of all. What about Alice Paul?
Yes, Alice Stokes Paul came into this world on today’s date, January 11, 1885. I could write at great length about this incredible woman. She was an American Quaker, for one thing. But also, Alice was a suffragist, feminist, and women’s rights activist.
Most certainly, she was one of the main leaders and strategists during the journey for the Nineteenth Amendment. That very good amendment that prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote.
She worked and worked. She sacrificed beyond measure. Alice Paul often suffered police brutality and other physical abuse for her activism. She was jailed for her protests in 1917. The details of her incarceration were horrible. But every time, she responded with nonviolence. Oh. And a whole lot of courage.
Alice Paul never married. She died, coincidentally, on my dad’s birthday, July 9, 1977. I was 13 years old, and at that time and I don’t think I even knew who she was. She should have been on the pages of every history book in America, in my opinion.
Her family was a member of the Hicksite Quakers. As such, the Paul family believed in gender equality. Hicksite Quakers also believed strongly in working for the betterment of society. This definitely influenced Alice’s path. She worked her entire life for women’s equality.
What I noticed here is the diversity in the lives of each of these people. All from different times and places. Each one of them followed unique paths, making their way in the world with distinct contributions.
There is the beauty. The wonder. Their lives have made a difference in our lives. The things they did have, in some way, great or small, impacted our lives.
And. While our lives may not be as far-reaching as these good people, we must remember this. Our lives, like theirs, are touching others. Everything we do goes on somewhere, somehow. And with every action, we impact the world and the Universe. The Being.
They did. We do. And so it all goes.
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“Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
― Susan Sontag
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“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
― Herman Melville
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“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
― William James
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The one, one, one. One. All.
