For me, enchantment is a find in human beings that is unexpected at times. The closer I get to the insides of friends, the Moran Chapman I find within them. As climate change progresses, we seem to take the idea that we can do something about it or completely neglected, but we need to open our arms and except it. For those who want hot all the time weather used to be cold, they should move and vice versa. There’s no neglecting what the earth has in store for us or what it has given us in the past. The earth is our gift. It’s a shame how we treat it and more of a nonchalant way than how powerful it is, and always will be. Way . There’s no neglecting what the earth has in store for us or what it has given us in the past. The earth is our gift. It’s a shame, how we treat it in more of a nonchalant way than how powerful it is, and always will be. Way past our lives the earth will still be going round and round .
Loved this. It provoked some thought and I like the Journal prompts!
Enchantment, to me comes unexpected and when I am totally relaxed but in a productive way(lol) On a cold morning Morning (several months ago )as the sun was coming up through the window I felt that sense of enchantment and wonder. The sun was soo bright like a big ball of fire….so exquisite yet easy to take for granted.
Thanks for the comment, Tina! I really like that enchantment isn't something we can fully control -- perhaps the best we can do is invite it, as you seem to have done on that morning.
(Also re: climate change, an excerpt from the talk I gave last month to a climate conference in Jordan: "From a communications perspective, I think we have to find a way of making climate change *immanent*, *individual*, *unifying*, and *empowering*—as a source of community and inspiration, as a vision pulling us forward rather than a monster chasing us from behind.")
This is remarkable, Brian-- we've obviously thought along similar lines and pursued some of the same threads. I'd never heard of The Reenchantment of the World (copy on the way) but I recognized instantly the idea of participatory consciousness. We all have a profound responsibility in our daily words and actions because through them, we create or alternately steal away the potential for wonder and inspiration.
I have likewise grappled to understand what it means exactly that we have both captured enormous power though our methodical dissection of Nature and also simultaneously leached the world around us of transcendent meaning. (I am often a scientist and a rationalist, so I am clearly part of the problem.) This is my simmering discontent with politics as well: it disenchants, it ruins human relationships, every grandma knows this. It encourages us to think of every interlocutor as a tribal representative and every discourse as a struggle for power, rather than (as Krisnamurti or the Buddha would have it) luminous beings trapped within a web of delusion. Whether you call it magic, enchantment, wonder, or transcendence, it all suggests the presence of mystery, a transcendent unknowing.... not the stupid kind of unknowing, but a profound unknowing, the kind that recognizes that sometimes in stripping something down to its parts you also kill the thing itself. (And thus the better part of wisdom is to leave some things alone.) This is what Nietzsche meant when he said that we have killed God and are woefully unprepared to take his place (as meaning-makers). Yet there is no choice now, we must somehow rise to the challenge to become ourselves divine creators of meaning or sink into meaninglessness. (“For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred yes is needed.”)
Which is a long way of saying, keep going, this is rich material and there is potentially an audience of millions. So much of what we see in the world (good and bad) can be explained by the idea that people are starved for meaning.
Glad you're going to read Reenchantment! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I really appreciate your comment about politics disenchanting the world -- that's an insight for me that seems so obvious now that you say it. I have to agree that, unfortunately, this is generally the case. I think of the positive sense of enchantment MLK created through his speeches and would love to see more leaders emerge with this power and moral clarity. I wonder how many people in the audience of a Trump rally (especially in the prior couple of election cycles) have felt a sense of enchantment. I mean, if one believes he's anointed by God to be President, and is fighting an evil cabal to save us all, that could potentially cause one to swoon, no? Which is to say, there are certainly different forms of enchantment in politics.
I've been thinking about Nietzsche as well, so I also appreciate your bringing him up. In my prior post I mentioned "Never in human history has so much weight been put on individuals to create our own meaning with so little social support," and, in fairness, I probably should have just attributed this to Nietzsche. I might be wrong, but doesn't he speculate that we need a certain form of (what I think he called) "schizophrenia" to separate ourselves from the knowledge of our created meaning to be able to believe it? I think this captures a core challenge of the project of conscious meaning making.
Your statement from the climate conference is fantastic! Can any of the content of the conference be found online?
Thanks for the encouragement and I look forward to more discussion with you about meaning!
For me, enchantment is a find in human beings that is unexpected at times. The closer I get to the insides of friends, the Moran Chapman I find within them. As climate change progresses, we seem to take the idea that we can do something about it or completely neglected, but we need to open our arms and except it. For those who want hot all the time weather used to be cold, they should move and vice versa. There’s no neglecting what the earth has in store for us or what it has given us in the past. The earth is our gift. It’s a shame how we treat it and more of a nonchalant way than how powerful it is, and always will be. Way . There’s no neglecting what the earth has in store for us or what it has given us in the past. The earth is our gift. It’s a shame, how we treat it in more of a nonchalant way than how powerful it is, and always will be. Way past our lives the earth will still be going round and round .
Loved this. It provoked some thought and I like the Journal prompts!
Enchantment, to me comes unexpected and when I am totally relaxed but in a productive way(lol) On a cold morning Morning (several months ago )as the sun was coming up through the window I felt that sense of enchantment and wonder. The sun was soo bright like a big ball of fire….so exquisite yet easy to take for granted.
Thanks for the comment, Tina! I really like that enchantment isn't something we can fully control -- perhaps the best we can do is invite it, as you seem to have done on that morning.
(Also re: climate change, an excerpt from the talk I gave last month to a climate conference in Jordan: "From a communications perspective, I think we have to find a way of making climate change *immanent*, *individual*, *unifying*, and *empowering*—as a source of community and inspiration, as a vision pulling us forward rather than a monster chasing us from behind.")
This is remarkable, Brian-- we've obviously thought along similar lines and pursued some of the same threads. I'd never heard of The Reenchantment of the World (copy on the way) but I recognized instantly the idea of participatory consciousness. We all have a profound responsibility in our daily words and actions because through them, we create or alternately steal away the potential for wonder and inspiration.
I have likewise grappled to understand what it means exactly that we have both captured enormous power though our methodical dissection of Nature and also simultaneously leached the world around us of transcendent meaning. (I am often a scientist and a rationalist, so I am clearly part of the problem.) This is my simmering discontent with politics as well: it disenchants, it ruins human relationships, every grandma knows this. It encourages us to think of every interlocutor as a tribal representative and every discourse as a struggle for power, rather than (as Krisnamurti or the Buddha would have it) luminous beings trapped within a web of delusion. Whether you call it magic, enchantment, wonder, or transcendence, it all suggests the presence of mystery, a transcendent unknowing.... not the stupid kind of unknowing, but a profound unknowing, the kind that recognizes that sometimes in stripping something down to its parts you also kill the thing itself. (And thus the better part of wisdom is to leave some things alone.) This is what Nietzsche meant when he said that we have killed God and are woefully unprepared to take his place (as meaning-makers). Yet there is no choice now, we must somehow rise to the challenge to become ourselves divine creators of meaning or sink into meaninglessness. (“For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred yes is needed.”)
Which is a long way of saying, keep going, this is rich material and there is potentially an audience of millions. So much of what we see in the world (good and bad) can be explained by the idea that people are starved for meaning.
Glad you're going to read Reenchantment! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I really appreciate your comment about politics disenchanting the world -- that's an insight for me that seems so obvious now that you say it. I have to agree that, unfortunately, this is generally the case. I think of the positive sense of enchantment MLK created through his speeches and would love to see more leaders emerge with this power and moral clarity. I wonder how many people in the audience of a Trump rally (especially in the prior couple of election cycles) have felt a sense of enchantment. I mean, if one believes he's anointed by God to be President, and is fighting an evil cabal to save us all, that could potentially cause one to swoon, no? Which is to say, there are certainly different forms of enchantment in politics.
I've been thinking about Nietzsche as well, so I also appreciate your bringing him up. In my prior post I mentioned "Never in human history has so much weight been put on individuals to create our own meaning with so little social support," and, in fairness, I probably should have just attributed this to Nietzsche. I might be wrong, but doesn't he speculate that we need a certain form of (what I think he called) "schizophrenia" to separate ourselves from the knowledge of our created meaning to be able to believe it? I think this captures a core challenge of the project of conscious meaning making.
Your statement from the climate conference is fantastic! Can any of the content of the conference be found online?
Thanks for the encouragement and I look forward to more discussion with you about meaning!
Climate conference-- an internal USG conference, so no public record, but maybe its worth knowing we're working on it!