We are walking through interesting times, we humans. The world is going through a time of rapid change on a scope that is a mind-boggle. It’s all coming at us at a furious pace as we try to get some kind of handle on it. When our only effective weapons of defense are washing our hands with soap and water, avoiding sneezing and coughing at each other, and stepping far away from one another as the complex constructs we’ve built…
Part of the way that each of us walks, I think, is a matter of culture. The culture into which you are born and raised often has a lot to do with the qualities you bring to the way you walk in the world and interact with other people. Many of your highest aspirations come from it.
Pono is a Hawaiian word that is usually translated as “righteousness.” It is a bit more than that. It is a way of walking through the world that is centered and balanced. It’s the way a kanaka makua, a mature person, walks. Mary Kawena Puku’i, one of our most beloved elders and an exemplary example of a kanaka makua, worked with Western scholars to document and preserve the nuances of Hawaiian thought. Here’s how she described such a person: “A…