Before I begin this column, I want to offer a heads-up to those who believe that Quality Digest Daily should only cover standards, test and measurement equipment, performance excellence methodologies, and the like. This will not be a piece related to any of those topics, unless you believe, as I do, that the measure that matters most is the quality of the human heart and soul. If you’re cool with that, read on.
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The holiday season is upon us. Last Thursday, my esteemed colleague, QD managing editor Taran March, suggested that I might want to take advantage of the occasion to offer greetings and words of thanks to you, our readers. After all, 2012 has been a successful year for us, with strong support from our contributors and marketing partners. We hope we presented some topics, opinions, technologies, and techniques during these past 12 months that helped you do your job better. This is always our driving motivation, to provide you with content that matters, because if we are not serving you properly, then we do not have a business model that works. Given this set of facts, a soft-focus round of self-congratulatory backslapping seemed appropriate. My tone would be goofy and lighthearted. All was well last Thursday.
Fridays at the QD offices are always a bit hectic. That’s the way it is when you broadcast a live TV show, as we do each Friday. Events moved rapidly from the moment I entered the building early that morning, lost in a blur of script changes, tech checks, and run throughs, not to mention calls and emails with clients and contributors. Somewhere in the background I was beginning to contemplate the article (this article, as it turns out) that had been assigned to me by Taran, but there would be time for that. There wasn’t time to check the news; at least, not until just a half-hour before the show was to start. It seemed there was a shooting at a school in Connecticut. The details were sketchy, but it looked bad… as if such a thing could ever look good.
I ran back down to the studio for a final sound check just 10 minutes before we were to go live. Then I scanned the news again for more details from the school... wait... how many fatalities? They were how old?!?! Wait....
But we couldn’t wait. The show had to go on, and so on it went. We got through it. I even mumbled something at the end about the tragedy.
Afterward, the conflicting reports began to sort themselves out and the immensity of the crime in Newtown became apparent. We watched as a sitting president wiped away tears during a live national address. Reactions to the shootings quickly moved from shock and disbelief to anger, followed by finger-pointing: Mental illness is to blame! It was poor parenting! We need stricter gun control! Shoot-em-up movies and video games foster a youth culture inured to violence!
One, some, or all of these might be the answer. None of them may be. Investigators are trying to piece together fragments of clues, but it’s quite possible we will never know why this happened. This we know for sure: The lives of children and adults were taken too early, in most cases much, much too early, and nothing we find out will make that better.
So what can make it better? I don’t know. As I struggled to find the words for this piece, I thought time and again about the movie Contact, written by Carl Sagan and starring Jodie Foster. In the film, Foster’s character, a SETI astronomer, receives an alien signal and travels through space and time to meet those that sent the message. What she discovers defines “us” more than “them.” Here is my favorite scene, in which the astronomer encounters a wise alien representative who appears to her in the comforting guise of her late father:
I love that movie, and the scene you just watched rings even truer now in the face of the Newtown tragedy. We are capable of beautiful dreams, and horrible nightmares. It is up to us all to decide which we will embrace, which will define us as a species.
It is also true that we are lonely and lonesome creatures. Emptiness and the frantic need to fill it with something, or anything, are hallmarks of our modern and disconnected society. Yet when we hold each other, in the light of unexpected joy or the darkness of sudden tragedy, our empty places begin to fill. It is us, all of us, who allow humanity to live even when innocent human beings die.
So here we are, five days from Christmas, left to attempt to make sense of something senseless. In spite (or because) of this, even in today's culture of political correctness, even from my perspective as a Jewish man, I want to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas. I offer this particular wish, rather than the generic "Happy Holidays," because I believe that we need the particularly Christmas-y spirit of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men right about now.
Hold your children, hold each other, and hold your beautiful dreams this Christmastime. May 2013 be a year of happiness and fulfillment for you all.
Comments
Peace on Earth article
Thank you, Mike, for an honest and heart-felt article.
Belated Hanukkah to you and yours.
Julie
Excellent Article
Mike, Well Done. Thank You - Jim
Gifts of the Season & Quality
Mike, your "Peace on Earth..." insights are significant in this season as we look at all of the challenges we the people have as we continue our work to deliver a more perfect world. Quality of education, quality of health care, community life, quality of governments, programs delivering peace & conflict resolution.... Quality is so important to all that we do, and even what we don’t do.
As one of the old retired guys still with interest in quality as process and result in all that we do I receive & read QUALITY DIGEST on a regular basis. But today your column brought emotion & not just "Hey, that’s interesting" responses.
My 2013 resolution is to do it! It will be some writing about quality in some of the areas related to peace, conflict resolution, community survivorship, extending friendships, & even issues focused on we the people working to make our communities ever greater.
Thank you for your gift as we took time to reflect. Smiles here as the Christmas music is coming through the speakers on my old radio.
Archie the Gopher - - - Out Here at Jerry Brong's Place
Thanks for the excellent article.
Mike,
Thanks for the excellent article.
Perhaps this will resonate with some of your readers.
Measure not what makes man but what man makes of the opportunities he is given during his mortal existence.
What makes Quality Digest work so well is a team of people with utmost integrity and dedication to their customers. I for one look forward to many more years of Quality Digest Team excellence.
My best to you, your family and the entire QD Staff.
Stan
Human Measures
Thank you, Mike: of course my most felt Season's Greetings go to you, to Taran, to Dirk and to all QD's staff, Contributors and Readers. And I also apologize to you all for my quite often really non "stylish" writings. A year-closing thought: why should be reflect on our deeds only at year end? It reminds of ISO 9001 Management Review, at least once a year: what about continual monitoring, that fathers and mothers Continual Improvement, instead? I enjoyed a lot contributing to QD, and debating, too; I look forward for the nex year to be a year of challenge and - trusting the Almighty - of success, too. With my warmest regards.
Merry Christmas
Mike,
Your column moved me to finally register so that I could login and comment on your article. Thank you for saying "Merry Christmas", especially since you're a Jew. I've never understood why "Merry Christmas" is not politically correct, since we as a nation claim that we value diversity. A belated Happy Hanukkah to you and yours.
You've made by day!!!
Matt
Thank you one and all
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