“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” This is among the most beloved and widely circulated quotations from the Jesuit scholar, mystic, and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Most of us have it backwards! We think we have to surrender our humanity to be spiritual, and so we begin the lifelong quest to satiate our inner soul-sickness while the solution is breathtakingly simple—live your day-to-day life well. “We must add one stitch, no matter how small it be, to the magnificent tapestry of life;” Well, I’m trying to do that,…
Our Noosphere
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Are you an intellectual?
If you answered “no,” I ask you to reconsider. At his commencement address to newly-graduated doctoral students at the University of Florida, National Book Award Winner and History Professor Ibram X Kendi asks us to look at intelligence differently. If you have a desire to know, if you’re open-minded, if you have a tremendous capacity to change your mind, if you are self-reflective and self-critical, and above all, if you’re always willing to face reality, then you’re an intellectual, according to Kendi. At his December 16, 2016 address to the University of Florida’s newly-minted Ph.Ds., Kendi challenges traditional notions of…
How To Navigate The Newsphere
We long for connection, a hunger for awareness of the other. We are evolving through our connections with each other, which are becoming more complex, powerful and sophisticated. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin defined this as the noosphere, the glue that binds us together in a cosmic sense. It is an integral consciousness—the understanding that the human is the “axis and arrow of evolution.” This web of connections is a source of often untapped energy. It is how we grow and change both individually and collectively. Technology helps us grow this global network of complex connections in dynamic and powerful ways.…
Ride The Wave Of Change Advises International Affairs Expert Robin Wright
Seasoned war reporter rejects the ‘mean world syndrome’ You’ve probably seen Robin Wright on the PBS Newshour, Charlie Rose, or CBS’s Face The Nation. She’s spent most of her life reporting on wars and conflicts: her column, ISIS On The Run, was in the October 17, 2016 New Yorker. The world-traveling reporter recently returned to her hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she was warmly welcomed by a large audience at her alma mater, the University of Michigan. A true Michigander, Wright paid homage to ‘the maize and the blue’ and told tales from her career-launching job at at the Michigan…
“You shouldn’t have to try to balance your work with your life. To me, it’s all life.”
Michigan Football Hero and tech entrepreneur succeeds by ‘failing forward.’ 2002 was one of the best years of Phil Brabbs’ life. On a hot Saturday in August the University of Michigan kicker, a walk-on from Midland, attempted a critical 44-yard field goal. The Wolverines were trailing Washington by one point. Brabbs had missed both 36- and…
Take-Aways from Michael Wolff’s “Television is the New Television: The Unexpected Triumph Of Old Media In the Digital Age.”
Michael Wolff’s PBS interview motivated me to buy his “Television is the New Television: The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media In the Digital Age.” I am very interested in online economic models, and I was intrigued by his ideas about the money behind old and new media. As the title implies, the book is mostly…
The Writings of Christine M. Tracy 