Distractions from What Is Real

Have you noticed? It’s getting pretty wacky out there: joggers bumping into street signs while texting. People seem generally stressed, not that this is new, just more, and it shows. The ice sheets are melting. Some predict “stratification” of the polar oceans will trigger a slowdown or even eventual shutdown of the circulation in the Atlantic Ocean and a weakening of another circulation system in the southern ocean. Isn’t a ‘shutdown of circulation’ what happens in a heart attack - of the planet?

Themes: 
language
children as teachers

Featured Insight - Unfolding Language

I loved this insight when we first recorded it and I love it today. Here Joe describes the origins of language itself. We all know that the use of symbols and metaphors is the defining capacity that distinguishes human beings from all other species. What we take for granted is the awesome computing power needed to describe how to get to the market and to decode and understand the message. It’s almost unbelievable. Our use and misuse of this truly miraculous capacity is both our saving grace and our downfall. Language opens the door to the causal nature of consciousness and it is the source of fearful selfish egos that will sell another’s soul for a nickel. At thirteen months young Carly Elizabeth is beginning to understand ‘let’s read a book.’ She doesn’t know what that means in a literal sense but she does know it means sitting in my lap and turning pages.

Themes: 
language