Archive for July 12th, 2009

…We create the stream by paddling in it…

Our world now seems to be made of particles and waves, depending upon how we look at it in any moment, but given the increase in the rate of change, waves are where to place our bets and attention for the future.

If we see the world as waves in flux, actions rather than things, then we are more able to act within it. We do not control but we do touch.

Then Buber’s Thou is seen as verb in action: no It that is defined once for all and acted upon; rather one to meet who can also meet us, and we become not Its, but Thous acting upon and enacting the world.

What we are after is to make sense of the world, so that we might make sense of our role and our desire to make the world better, so that we do make the world better.

We create the stream by paddling in it.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on July 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

…little whirling incomprehensibles and lots of space…

The things which are solid—walls and stadiums and trees—are made of atoms, atoms which are shown to be of little whirling incomprehensibles and lots and lots of space. So what we walk upon is like a lattice work, where the lattices are constantly moving, moving like the waves in fluorescent bulbs—too fast for us to catch it.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on July 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

Mind acts upon itself…

Mind acts not so much upon representations of the outside world as upon itself. The work of the brain is to work on the brain. The work of the mind uses mind as the raw material and as product, so it is constantly changing itself. So also: conversation’s raw material and product is conversation; meeting’s is meeting; persons are persons. We are self-organizing systems all, it seems.

So we are not describing worlds as they exist, but creating them as we look. The paths in a college campus are best laid out not by the architects but by the students and professors by using them. So too, the village grows by people putting up buildings, opening marketplaces, inviting people, and the people coming and putting up buildings, opening marketplaces, inviting people, ad infinitum.

Can we then see our task in this?

Can we then see the things we are already doing—insights, glimpses and inklings—less as descriptions and more as invitations?

Could this also apply to all the other things we are doing—taking a shower, getting the mail from the mailbox, chatting about the latest bizarre news?

What are you doing? We are creating new worlds. We are creating new people. How so? The world and its people are less immovable objects and more irresistible forces, and we are all setting those forces into motion each moment. How so? Conversation is the action, the raw material, and the product of this conversation and all the others. When we see what is possible and that we are responsible for what is possible, then we can. Then, hopefully, we do.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on July 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

The wind is today moving through the leaves without stirring them awake.

The wind is today moving through the leaves without stirring them awake.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on July 12th, 2009 | No Comments »

What if conversation were how we enacted new worlds and new peoples?

What if conversation were how we enacted new worlds and new peoples?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on July 12th, 2009 | No Comments »
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