If you are finding yourself on this page, you’re probably wondering who I am, what am I all about, and what qualifies me to talk about things like meaningful leadership?
I understand. I often begin with the ‘about pages’ first as well… 🙂
So I thought I’d take this space here to briefly introduce myself, as I’ve always found the standard biographical pages written in the third person a bit odd – because they’re most often written by the author. (And we never introduce ourselves in real life by speaking in the third person.)
So I wrote this piece, in case you’re curious about my heritage – what experiences grounded and shaped me, and ultimately, what I hope will flower from the work I’m engaged in.
Let’s begin…
My father studied to become a genetic engineer, born in a small rural town in Romania. He was raised on a small vineyard, tending as a little boy, to the family’s cows and sheep.
His father was a small-time farmer, (at least by the time the Communist Party had its way), who even amidst the great purges, continuously sought to be self-sufficient and self-educated.
Grandad had 5 children, and through the hard work and savings of him and grandma, he managed to pay the tuition for two of his children, to attend higher education. (Higher education had to be paid upfront.)
My dad was one of these fortunate two children. For his sake, my grandfather demolished his entire house and rebuilt it all by hand, as to get his son closer to the railway station, so he could study in the ‘big smoke’, Bucharest.
Studying Genetic Engineering in the capital city, there he met my soon-to-be ‘mother’ – an aspiring chemist student.
My mother’s father was a lieutenant and served in Word War II. He died a few years after the war had ended, from an infected wound in his chest.
My grandmother as such, was left a widow early on in her marriage. She was to raise 5 small children all on her own. She made ends meet by selling produce from her small patch of land, and weaving elaborate rugs in between the long hours of parenting.
The brother of her husband, generously offered to pay for three of her children to also go to study at the university of Bucharest. (Despite the myths of communism that each receives ‘according to his needs’, in reality, what your needs were acknowledge to be, was largely determined on who were your connections and you social status.)
My father and mother started their pursuit of the ‘happily ever after’, while in their mid-twenties – both going to work, so they could buy a house and give further opportunities to their two young boys. (I grew up under the care of mostly my mum’s mum.)
But living under the Soviet Socialism was just not right, as my father recalled. Even as leaders consistently talked of prosperity, brotherhood and happiness – in actuality, it was mostly a game of hypocrisy and charades, which went to mask deeply unethical practices.
The whole political culture was built on propaganda campaigns, where blatant cultural manipulation and deception was the norm. Pictures like these were everywhere:
The whole political culture was built on propaganda, lies and self-deceptions – where the media sung an unrelenting chorus of how the government is providing ‘equality for all’, and how we’re now living in a ‘golden age’,
But in practice, what socialism really meant, was the hidden exploitation by the most ‘socialist’, over the least ‘socialized’. If you have seen the film, ‘The Death of Stalin’, you have a very good picture of what it was like…
My father, awakening to himself that he was but ‘useful idiot’ in a corrupt and contemptible system, in an impulsive move of blind faith, decided to then flee the country.
Through an almost miraculous series of events, he’d sneak onto the other side of the country, as to find a way to cross the machine-gunned national border and found himself in present day Serbia.
His hope was to escape to the land where ‘all men are created equal’, and where ‘they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. But unfortunately, as a former communist party member, his application was immediately denied. (This was in the days of Ronald Regan presidency – not exactly a fan of communism.)
He was offered two alternative from Serbia. He could go to either Sweden, or to Britain’s less rebellious ‘brother country’ of US, Australia. His newly found friends there chose Australia, and so he decided likewise.
Meanwhile, back in Romania, we lived to see the highs of our local football club taking out the Goliath ‘Barcelona’ in the European Cup finals… all the way to experiencing the catastrophic lows of the Chernobyl disaster, happening next door:
But rain or shine, my brother and I were given hope, love and protection by my mother, my grandmother and my wonderful godparents, Cecilia and Corneliu Bejan (from whom I inherit my middle name).
Four years thereafter – thanks in part to Australian negotiations to offer political asylum to our entire family – we would eventually meet up again in Melbourne.
Coming to Australia, we started literally with the clothes on our back. And I recall the many sacrifices my parents made in the process, to give us a sound education for us to live a happy and fulfilled life.
I still remember the day, when they gave us as our first major gift, a complete leather bound set of Britannica Encyclopedias and a complete set of the Great Books of Western Civilization.
From their meager salaries (as immigrants who could not yet speak English), at over $2000 for the set, these books cost them a small fortune – approximately $20,000 in today’s terms.
But like my father used to say, “Son, man does not live by bread alone…”
This project here is in many ways, a project they initiated in this act alone. And I am grateful that I am able to share with you today what’s here, because of them.
For it is my deepest hope that this in turn shall flourish furthermore, through the lives of my beautiful wife and our four adorable boys…
The project of ‘meaningful leadership’, is in many ways the fruition of this framework of values instilled in me since youth – that man indeed does not live by bread alone, but for the things that nourish us mentally, spiritually and aesthetically…
{ The Logos }
The reason why we live in an intelligible universe… the meaning that’s found manifest in our powers of reason, awareness, imagination, and will.
For it is my belief and experience that it has been through the affirmation and cultivation of the Logos, that we essentially built the great prosperity and the great liberties that we get to enjoy today. And not just in the Western countries like Australia, USA or Greater Europe… but in all countries around the globe that also live by this ‘hidden code’.
For wherever the Logos worked its way into the heart and minds of the people – there, like yeast moving through the dough – it’s there that then flourishes the good neighbors, the good communities, the good societies.
And whenever people rejected the Logos – where meaning was made redundant – it’s also there that then the hearts hardened, the minds closed and the hands then ‘misbehaved’ to cause untold suffering.
Whenever this happened in the twentieth century, this brought about the greatest of evils, over and over and over again.
* * *
And I bring all this up my friend, because today, we are at yet another decisive crossroad.
We’re at the crossroad as to whether we shall continue to take a stand on the essential values and ideals that made civilization possible…
… or whether we shall abandon the Logos, as to chase mirages in the wastelands of political delusions.
For our fore-fathers and fore-mothers have given us an incredible inheritance and legacy.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. And today we live in a time where even an average person has more wealth and more freedoms than most kings and queens of ages past…
But at the same time, we’re in that dangerous zone, when we may lose it all.
For the canary in the proverbial mine is suffocating. Today, bizarre stories of injustice, hypocrisy and self-deception in the name of ‘progress’ are becoming the norm.
And it’s not that on the road of progress towards a better and fairer society, a few ‘eggs’ may have to break…
No.
There’s a growing new form of intolerance and hysteria that’s seizing the minds of ordinarily, reasonable people – which unironically, wears the badge of ‘virtue’. And much of it is sourced in the heart of most public educational institutions that tax dollars fund – from primary schools, all the way to higher education.
Many are unaware of this, and many more still are just plain afraid to call it for what it is, lest they be name-called, bullied and their jobs terminated. So as this is ignored, the dark side then only grows.
* * *
As such, I feel an urgent call to take a stand. And we can rest secure in this stand, because in reality there’s not enough darkness in the whole universe, to put out the light of one small candle.
For I believe that the vast majority that deviate from the Logos are never really ‘ill-intentioned’…They just don’t know better.
Indeed, how could they know?
We’ve all been subjected to very similar educational pathways that framed the most basic of concepts, in very peculiar and erroneous ways. (They do indeed share the same style of hypocrisies that soviet systems used, and I speak from first hand experience.)
This is the outcome of a series of ideas about human nature that are just plain wrong. And like computer science put it, when you put “garbage in”, you then get “garbage out”.
If there is one good thing that is emerging from all this today, is that more people than ever are coming to recognize that we are indeed responsible for our own education, and what we put into our minds.
Mass media has been in continual decline for decades. Independent thinking is now on the continual rise.
And that’s because what is most true, most good and most beautiful in life – this is most often not to be found in mass media, nor government-backed education… (Indeed, in many such circles – truth, goodness and beauty – are often the dirtiest of all words.)
Like Einstein was to note, the best education in life is to be found once you are finished with going to classes.
The best life education happens when you choose to experiment for yourself directly with the transcendental order and to then see what happens…
For experiments withs meaning require no dogmas, no political propaganda, no peer pressure to conform to what others think…
It’s just you, your soul, and your freedom of conscience.
For most of us know, deep in our gut – as a troubling sign of our times – that with the ever-increasing swamp of irrelevant and irreverent information, that it’s more important than ever, to touch the solid ground of genuine meaning.
For it’s only with genuine meaning at our core, that we can be truly strong. And it’s only with genuine meaning as our guiding compass, that we can never steer wrong.
This is what real leaders, educators and influencers do, and have done, and always must do.
My projects as such, is a response to this yearning.
It’s a counter-response to the ‘group think’ that’s so entrenches in so many organizations today… where the blind are leading the blind, into onto the slippery slope of cultural relativism and the erosion of genuine meaning.
This is a proactive response to realign once more with the Logos.
For it’s the Logos that brings the best out of us. And it’s the Logos that bring the best potentialities, out of our world.
We ought to affirm once more our greatest of powers as human being. For we have been endowed with the powers of reason, the powers of awareness, the powers of imagination and the powers of will. Let’s use them and make them strong once more.
This is the great hope.
It is the hope for a new educational experience that reclaims a shinning experience of being.
It is a hope to reclaim once more, the greatness of the human soul.
For the future is not yet written and today, we have the freedom to choose once more.
We do not have to go any further down the road of a meaningless rat-race, of post-modern nihilism and irony, of continually criticizing and destroying the character of others…
There is a better way.
Let us begin…
Right Here.
Right Now.
Thank you.