Upcoming series: “What Connects Us?”

The Internet, Smart Phones, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Foursquare, Xbox, YouTube, Skype, Email, the Googleverse, international flights, highways, trains, cars: in a world more ‘connected’ than at any point in history, the human race seems to act or ‘is portrayed as’ more disjointed, factionalized, fragmented, and anonymous than ever before. For most of us in the developed world, the speed at which we can “connect” is near to instantaneous, as is the speed at which we can be alienated. In this paradox of modern western developed life (that is dragging the rest of the globe along with it), I believe one question deserves much reflection and meditation, “What Connects Us?” In the asking, it brings into scope numerous and multi-layered issues involving the other side of this coin ‘What Separates Us?’ It is impossible to answer one without addressing the other. This blog series will be a tour de force that uses insights and examples from history, anthropology, neuroscience, and the arts to question and explore our world and discover ‘What Connects Us?’

 

Beginning this September 2012, I will post a blog a month dealing with the 10 ideas that follow in a search to find the answers. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

The 10 Ideas:

• I’m a______, You’re a_______ (Our differing approaches to identity and ambiguity through character)
• Understanding the balance of ‘Showing and Telling’ (empathy and communication)
• The commons (social responsibility and the mindset of generosity)
• The agony and the ecstasy (I feel better if you feel worse vs. I feel better if you feel better; the status-ego tango)
• My Land, Your Land, Our Land, THE Land (What to do when the natural world that is no longer ‘Fit & Well’?)
• In the Ever-Changing Maze (Urbanism, Public Relations and the Advent of the Elite Freeloader: causes and symptoms of ‘Hedging, Blocking, and Distracting’)
• The more people there are; the less one person matters (The changing value of social connections in high human density and low human density environments)
• On zombies and the finiteness of protein (When we run out of food, we look really tasty: dietary improvisation isn’t always pretty)
• Yes, and… (a simple tool from the arts with broad applications and outcomes)
• A lesson from Improvisation: What does this story need to succeed? Serve that Purpose, or ‘save the world; kill your ‘self’