PODCAST: The bigger picture
Back in the day, an appreciation of the arts and sciences and a knowledge of literature and history were staples of education. Their purported task? To broaden our horizons. To help us to see a picture bigger than that limited by our immediate and utilitarian interests. And their value rang true.
Today, the expedient nature of our enculturation and our infatuation with consumer technology exaggerates what appears to be in our rational self-interest. And it often ignores the imagination, inspiration and description of the bigger picture that connect us to one another, to the past and to the future.
However, even in this fast-track, business-oriented world, the heart demands that we locate and stand for kindly and decent objectives. Indeed, the need to acquire a deep and abiding generous spirit remains valid—imperative.
Now, the future being viewed with a certain panic, there is little time for pursuits that don’t sate our thirst for consumer technology or move us up the status ladder. But something important is lost when we’re just functionaries, when we don’t knowingly attend to our larger selves. In other words, what was necessary back in the day is necessary now.
For instance, those of us who have searched for the gifted writers whose vocabulary makes literature, or history or Darwinian theory, or the neuro- or cognitive sciences approachable, and those in the habit of reading poetry or novels or appreciating other of the fine arts, know the value of such inquisitiveness and make time for it. Those of us not in the habit may miss the pleasure, inspiration and insight into human lives and circumstances they provide, not to mention the new ideas that spring from such penetrating perception.
Which is why, as a piece of defining and refining who we are, I recommend finding time to spend on this valuable endeavor. When our attention and sensitivity are carefully focused on less intensely utilitarian but highly complex subjects, and we suddenly see, hear, comprehend, know, we feel an exquisite sense of pleasure, grandeur, awe.
How this works—the confluence of nature and artifice—is a mystery. But we can make some educated guesses. For instance, by electrifying our senses and gratifying our inquisitive nature, an artist, a cognitive or human scientist, or a poet, breaches the isolated or alienated or just busy situation in which we find ourselves. With line, shape, form, space, texture, value and color, or with vocabulary, history, narrative, posit and persuasion, we are awakened, enchanted, connected and, perhaps, enlightened.
Indeed, our ability to create or access the dimension of the artist and the scientist is a key part of what it takes to feel comfortable in the world, comfortable in our skin, consonant with the complex and competing emotions to which humans are heir, in harmony with the deeper rhythms of life.
To take time for this subject matter may be challenging for a couple of reasons. First, if our orientation has always been toward the practical, there is a great beginning to get over, a frontier to cross. How do we put together a perspective on the human condition and our finitude that allows us to appreciate whole new realms of meaning, possibility and belonging?
Second, if we tend to make any pursuit into a competition with bragging rights and the attendant status anxiety, we forego the purpose of our endeavor here. The acquisition of thing after thing and win after win does not resolve existential questions about purpose and fulfillment.
Your time is precious. However, your investment in acquiring the bigger picture will pay off. And you’ll enjoy yourself in the bargain.