The sun is danger and invective. The moon is hope and narcissism. We turn our eyes to the moon, and we see a man staring back; we turn our heads to the sun and are blinded by the daring. The moon soothes. The sun punishes. The moon beams and becomes us. The sun burns and loathes us. We have dipped a human toe in moon dust. We have now, finally, eyed the fiery sun, up close, but through a glass darkly.
Surprise and imagination can be both wonderful experiences and dangerous concepts. We’re trained early in life to find surprise in the world around us, usually juxtaposed against the wilds of nature. We are often encouraged to “think outside the box” and to reimagine reality in ways that can fundamentally change the way we view the world and our role within it. Nothing is out of reason. Everything is possible.
Continue reading → The Wounding of Surprise and the Danger of Imagination
I’m sure you’ve met them before — the people that do a thousand things yet have no meaning or magnitude attached to the learning in the experience. They live overwhelmed and without wonder.
We learned earlier today that Michael Chertoff is our das Homeland Gutless Wonder.
Now we are inspired by Peng Shulin — as our Wonder With Guts with new robotic legs — as he proves to us what it really means to inspire people and a nation and all while filling the world with hope and belonging:
On Tuesday, in Chicago, das Homeland Security Chief of the
Americas, Michael Chertoff, claimed he had a “gut feeling” we were all in for another terrorist attack because “al-Qaeda likes to strike during the summer.”
Chertoff’s crude assertion — a cruelty where instinct becomes reason, when wonderings are warnings and scaring has no rationale — have now proven without a moment of pause for purpose that we have no sort of accountable national leadership when it comes to serving the true protection of das Homeland.
What Chertoff’s off-the-cuff comment fails to realize — but can never quite forget — is how many of us have been sick to our stomachs for over five years.
What took him so long to share our sickness?
Are there others in the current administration who are similarly ill but we don’t yet know about them?
I have learned to never wonder aloud — especially when it comes to working on a creative project with other people.
It is much easier to pitch what you know is the right idea and run with it than open up the less good options in your mind to others who may not share your same gift to prioritize and evaluate ideas on-the-fly.
Wondering aloud often leads to “oh, let’s try that, too!” and “hey, why didn’t I think of that?” and neither of those responses are good for you or your newfound co-wonderer. The former makes more work for you and the latter identifies you as a threat even though you’re all working on the same team.
Wondering aloud means you then have to show people why your ideas are just wonderings and not meant to be realities. You are forced to tear down your own ideas by actually realizing them beyond your mind and if you don’t do that then you risk being labeled: “Not a Team Player.”
Wondering is wonderful and if you are talented you keep your wonderments to yourself because to wonder in public is to tempt creation, is to create work, is to employ your own death at the hands of your own hand.
by Diane Buccheri
I have screams in my ear, echoes banging through my consciousness. “What are you doing?” ask those outside voices. I’m skipping along. I’m letting the sun shine on my hair, letting the breeze blow through it. I’m singing and dancing along the beach with the sparkling waves. I’m thinking and feeling and writing about things, allowing my spirit to live and breathe. I’m letting life be happy and can easily pass some of that onto those who touch my life.
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