Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
"The computer's processes have unwittingly advanced the cause of women and images, even though these aspects of computer operation have nothing to do with the computer's content, which is the manipulation of information. The world of cyberspace is a computer-generated extension of the human mind into another dimension. The computer has carried human communication across a threshold as significant as writing, and cyberspaces's reliance on electromagnetism and photographic reproduction will only lead to further adjustments in consciousness that favor a feminine worldview. Irrespective of content, the processes used to maneuver in cyberspace are essentially right hemispheric. The World Wide Web and the Internet are both metaphors redolent of feminine connotations."
-The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain
A pretty interesting read. It analyzes the advancement in literacy throughout time and some of its pros and cons. It also brings up how we have become predominantly left brained due to the (often forced) use of our right hands, and how this has promoted linear thinking. It may not be a common practice anymore, but I've heard stories of educators hitting left-handed kids with rulers until they learned to write with their right hand. It's a strange thing to enforce, and it really makes one think...
The advancement in technology has a dark side, but the author suggests that some good will emerge in a new "Golden Age" where both right and left brain thinking reach some sort of equilibrium with the use of the internet. This is also interesting since I've been seeing parents, educators, and whoever else talking about the decline in reading amongst children. I'm starting to wonder if there will be a larger shift from text and back to image. Picture books/graphic novels seem to be grasping the attention of adults and children alike more and more throughout the years (if they weren't already). This is an observation of the English language, of course, since there are places that utilize symbols and characters in their writing.
Cosmic intelligence is the same intelligence that creates the stars, planets, trees, flowers, mammals, and man. It also operates within human consciousness. It courses through the mind to direct its development. The mature state recognizes its part in the fundamental flow of life. Existence is made up of three states or identities. The first state is at a lowest level. To be whole requires advancement from the original base state through two more states of mind. The unconscious state begins in an animal nature (ego) that is self-absorbed. It wants its needs met and uses others to meet those needs. It is characterized by three traits: insensitivity to others, ignorance of the mind’s life cycle, and indifference to its impact on the environment. The ego lacks basic awareness of interconnections among things, how each fits into the other. It fails to put things in a context where meaning is revealed through relations of one thing to another. It is unable to see parts as belonging to the interdependent wholeness of life. A universal current flows through all three states of existence to fix them on a timeline. In terms of self-awareness, the ego that is unconscious is urged to reach the second state of human nature (self). This state of mind is aware of its impact on others and on the world. It takes responsibility for its own growth. Open to mythical communication, it seeks unity. Conscious of being conscious, it is attuned to inner directives that upgrade perception until the ideal vision manifests. By assimilating the whole truth, the subject becomes the Object (divine humanity). The popular translation for the endgame is “to be made in God’s image.” Enlightened awareness manifests as human goodness.
The first mind does not know it doesn’t know. The second mind is ready to let symbols and insights teach it what there is to know. In short, the first mind does not know it. The second mind does know it. The third mind not only knows it but becomes it.
-The Winged Serpent by Marilyn Kraft