It is a common thing for industry institutions to be so focused on issues of specific importance to the trade that they neglect the great issues of our time.
It will little matter what immigration bill we pass, what we do with the minimum wage or how earnestly we work to increase consumption of healthy food if our generation is not capable of seeing honestly the threat against our civilization and does not have the fortitude for the long and bitter battle yet ahead.
On the 5th anniversary of 9/11, we can skip a day of industry analysis to reflect on the bigger issues that affect our work and our world. Reading the most famous poem of World War I is a good place to start.
Mind especially the lines in the third stanza:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
It is so easy to forget, and our society has such a short collective memory, let us not break faith with those who died that day:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
