In a dream from which I awakened as my alarm went off at 5 this morning, I was on a comfortable tour bus with friends. The bus stopped and I saw that there was a large crowd of people gathered around, like a state fair or something. I was contemplating whether to stay on the bus or get out for awhile, to return when the bus continued.
While I contemplated, I saw that there was a Kennedy in the crowd, which made it more interesting. I caught a fleeting glimpse of that magnificant jawline on a JFK or RFK-like face, and I wanted to be part of the crows. I decided to exit, and as I did, I encountered a friend of my older brother. In life, he is a physically large person, just genetically thick everywhere, but in the dream he was a caricature of that, with an incredibly large body -- although not a tall person -- so built like a cube, in a way. As soon as I saw him, I gave him a big hug, awkward because he was so enormously large in a powerful, muscular kind of way, and he smiled approvingly. Having only seconds to communicate because I was in the doorway with others behind me, he talked about seeing each other in the crowd shortly. We both looked forward to the renewed friendship. As he departed into the crowd ahead of me, I thought he reminded me of one of my own friends, and wondered which of my friends was built like a cube. Then I woke up.
As I lay there, contemplating whether to get up now extra early or sleep another hour when the 6:00 alarm went off, a new thought which I had never considered before came to mind:
"What does Big Picture me want?" I immediately realized that the global version of me wanted me to get up now -- there's plenty of work to be done on a project which will affect other people if it's not done today. The realization that there was a way to contemplate a global version of me as well as a local version of me when making decisions delighted me even more than this, and I got up, marvelling at how the left brain and the right brain were communicating in a way that would literally save the world if enough people were making decisions like this.
I thought of Iaian McGilchrist, whom I have been studying lately. I realized the dual-structured thought aligns well with the old bumper sticker: "Think globally, act locally," but is actually a more effective way of doing the same thing, because it was more intimately connected with action, having just caused action within me, whereas the more famous version was simply a cute saying which I had never enacted.
Realizing that there are two or three differently-scoped competing interests for every decision, and then acting accordingly, is a fundamental shift in the way the brain makes decisions.
So I figured this oughta be written down. Now... how to get this message out to everyone? Hm... a Kennedy could do that... 05:26:53am
Here is the relevant quote from Iaian McGilchrist:
The very, very last thing that we need now is more power. What we need is more wisdom. And if we had sufficient wisdom, then more power would be useful. But if we have more power but not the wisdom required to know how to use it, we cannot help but destroy ourselves and the world.
He says this in a recent podcast. The host wisely extracted out this single quote as the introduction to the podcast. McGilchrist says it at about 22 minutes into the conversaion. McGilchrist then goes on to talk about the German philosopher Max Scheler, whom he mentions often in interviews as providing a philosophical structure which encompasses the nature of wisdom in an actionable way.
A quick browse to Wikipedia reveals that Scheler's insights are quite possibly the deepest I've ever seen. He introduces a whole new depth to knowledge itself, going straight to the heart of things in a way which inspires. Here is Wikipedia summarizing his thoughts on love:
The movement and act of love is important for philosophy for two reasons:
(1) If philosophy, as Scheler describes it, hearkening back to the Platonic tradition, is a participation in a "primal essence of all essences" (Urwesen), it follows that for this participation to be achieved one must incorporate within oneself the content or essential characteristic of the primal essence. For Scheler, such a primal essence is most characterized according to love, thus the way to achieve the most direct and intimate participation is precisely to share in the movement of love. It is important to mention, however, that this primal essence is not an objectifiable entity whose possible correlate is knowledge; thus, even if philosophy is always concerned with knowing, as Scheler would concur, nevertheless, reason itself is not the proper participative faculty by which the greatest level of knowing is achieved. Only when reason and logic have behind them the movement of love and the proper moral preconditions can one achieve philosophical knowledge.
(2) Love is likewise important insofar as its essence is the condition for the possibility of the givenness of value-objects and especially the givenness of an object in terms of its highest possible value. Love is the movement which "brings about the continuous emergence of ever-higher value in the object--just as if it was streaming out from the object of its own accord, without any sort of exertion...on the part of the lover. ...true love opens our spiritual eyes to ever-higher values in the object loved." Hatred, on the other hand, is the closing off of oneself or closing one's eyes to the world of values. It is in the latter context that value-inversions or devaluations become prevalent, and are sometimes solidified as proper in societies. Furthermore, by calling love a movement, Scheler hopes to dispel the interpretation that love and hate are only reactions to felt values rather than the very ground for the possibility of value-givenness (or value-concealment). Scheler writes, "Love and hate are acts in which the value-realm accessible to the feelings of a being...is either extended or narrowed."
The footnote to this passage makes it even more concise:
Scheler criticizes Plato and Aristotle on precisely this point. He writes, "Since … their philosophy defined the primal essence as an objectifiable entity and therefore a possible correlate of knowledge, they had also to regard knowledge as the definitive, ultimate participation in reality which man might attain …. Accordingly they could not but see the highest and most perfect form of human being in the philosophos, the 'wise one'."[1]
So here's my poem, entitled Saviour of the world:
Saviour of the world
When you're at the door
About to stay or go
A decision must be made.
Consider the one out there
As well as the one in here
And decide with wisdom.
In this way you become a
S a v i o r o f t h e w o r l d
Holding a single drop of wisdom
Drop by drop upon the heart[2]
Wisdom distills and we ascend
From our islands to the mainland
Note(s)
- ^ Max Scheler, On the Eternal in Man, "The Essence of Philosophy and the Moral Preconditions of Philosophical Knowledge" trans. Bernard Noble (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 77.
- ^ Yes that's a reference to Aeschylus, via Robert F. Kennedy's speech on the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.
