A friend of mine thought of me and sent this along.
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Hi David,
I've been reading Parker Palmer's latest book "Healing the Heart of Democracy". Excellent book - I highly recommend it. In the chapter on "Life in the Company of Strangers" he talks about a conversation he had with a taxi driver in NYC. He was hoping he'd get the driver to drive more cautiously, but instead the cabby got more excited. Palmer had asked him how he liked his job. The cabby said:
Well, you never know who's getting into the cab, so it's a little dangerous. But you meet a lot of people. You get to know the public. Which teaches you a lot in life. You don't know anything if you don't know the public. You exchange ideas and you learn a lot from people. It's like going to school. Meeting all these different kinds of people, everything helps, it doesn't hurt. If you only like one kind of people, it's no good! We talk, if I have a better idea, I tell 'em! Maybe they say yes, maybe they say no -- that's how I educate myself. It makes me happy. You can't buy this kind of education. If you're with the same kind of people all the time, it's like wearing the same suit all the time--you get sick of it. But the public--that keeps you alive!
I thought of you driving the shuttle - you get to meet all kinds of people and exchange all kinds of ideas!
CZ
so you've distinguished yourself from the "Ahmed's" of this world who drive MOST of our Taxi's ..... LOL
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