Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Diane AckermanRead
When all is said and done, we exist only in relation to the world, and our senses evolved as scouts who bridge that divide and provide volumes of information, warnings and rewards.
Interpretation
Our existence is defined by our relationship with the world, and our senses help us navigate it.
Diane Ackerman’s quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of human existence and the external world. It suggests that our senses, which have evolved over time, serve as essential tools that allow us to perceive and interpret our environment, signaling both dangers and delights. This relationship is fundamental to our understanding and experience of life, as it shapes our interactions and informs our responses to the world around us.
In practice
In a discussion about human perception at a philosophy seminar.
Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.
American writer_x000D_ _x000D_ 1803-1882_x000D_ _x000D_ Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.
Whatever the misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which, once doubted, became absurd.
Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
World views are social constructions and they channel the search for facts. But facts are found and knowledge progresses, however fitfully.
Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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