DailyJim: Moral Ambition book

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is the episode for Tuesday, May 6th, 2025. I am actually in Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands right now.

And half asleep, but yeah, this is the episode for yesterday. So what I want to talk about today is this book, Moral Ambition.

So i'm here at the bookstore in the airport and i come across a book called moral ambition, and i picked it up i set it back down i picked it up i read a little bit more then i set it back down then i walked to the rest of the other store and i saw it on the other side of the store they had a book again so i picked it up read a different part a different chapter set it back down and then i walked away i went to go look for some food and i came back to the bookstore and i was like I should probably get the book. I keep picking up the book. I keep thinking about the book. It's on the flight out here I thought about, or I watched one movie. Ah, gosh. The Great Debaters, I think it's called. The one with Denzel Washington. Probably from like 2007 or so. And then also Selma. So I watched two movies that were really about people powerfully using their words to make change in society. The Great Debaters really had me in tears quite often throughout the whole movie.

It just had me thinking a lot about people telling me I'm too idealistic, I have to be more realistic. I got a good friend of mine kind of shouted at me the other day. And over the holidays, I've had friends and family shout at me. Not because, it's because they care about me. They want me to be well. They see that I'm struggling financially, and they want me to be well. It's mostly just the financial side of things. I think a part of it is maybe jealousy at times. where, you know, maybe if I were figuring it out financially, then they would feel inspired by it, perhaps, and then they could also go down a similar path. But, yeah, so I think picking up this book may really help me realize that there are other people who have this moral ambition that are pushing really hard, to try to solve certain problems in society, but also just trying to strive to make a change. I think even the book talks a little bit about Martin Luther King and how he was trying to change what they called the Overton Window. So it wasn't just about...

So it was about changing cultural norms and working really hard to kind of pull that cultural norm in a more open direction. So I haven't read the book yet.

And I don't know how much energy I'll have to read it right now I'm realizing I can barely talk into the, even though it's only like one or two in the morning back home so I should be alright but I think my body's a little confused it was a long flight, I'm sitting here and it's bright sunshine.

Yeah, this is definitely a more rambling one today but yeah, really curious to look deeper into this moral ambition book You can even open up with different parts right here.

Yeah, you know, it's just, it's nice to read or pick up something that encourages us to go big instead of so many books and so many TV shows and podcasts and articles just saying that we're helpless and there's not much we can do. Just, I don't know, for me it feels not just reassuring but re-energizing to see that there are other people that are saying, no, no, we're going to fight. We're going to fight hard and we're pushing hard.

Despite what other people are saying. So I, um, I'll probably have more coherent reflection on this tomorrow or later today, whatever, whatever, however the days work when I'm traveling across multiple time zones. But, uh, yeah, so I'm going to keep this one short we're going to be at about five minutes today which is very very rare for these these days but uh maybe the trick is you want me to talk less just get me really tired if i'm really tired i won't say too much so tired and hungry so on that note i'm going to go try to find some food and then actually start reading this book because i think it might really help me, have some organizing principle to what I've been working on. Now you may seem, maybe you think I already have that organized principle, but sometimes I think I need more to help me feel reoriented and grounded, so. All right, I'll talk to you all tomorrow. Bye.