The 10 Paradoxical Commandments
Finding personal meaning in times of adversity
“Even when the world is difficult, even when things seem really crazy, we can still find personal meaning and deep happiness — and we do that by facing the worst in the world with the best in ourselves. That’s the idea.”
Today, Kent Keith talks about his “Paradoxical Commandments” with the ease of a Michelin chef whipping up some eggs Benedict, but when he wrote them down in 1968, he wasn’t sure if the words would form the right message.
The world was different back then, but neither less crazy nor less difficult. “It was the 60s. That was a provocative time. A lot of conflict and confrontation but also idealism and hope.” Keith was only 19, a sophomore at Harvard, but he had already witnessed his fair share of said provocative time.
He’d seen Kennedy get elected, celebrated for the moon program, and then shot. He’d observed the Civil Rights Act, the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, and the bloody protests at Columbia. In essence, he saw a young generation unable to cause change without violence, unable to find meaning in anything that wasn’t a big symbolic act, “like seizing a building or something,” and it troubled him.
Keith decided to write something that would address these issues and, in the process, he…
