Contact versus Content
Both how she speaks and what she says illustrates what I mean by Contact vs Content.
Why did Dr Taylor rock TED this year? Because she showed us the difference. She starts where we are all most comfortable - using the left brain. She offers us a lecture. But then she switches. She shifts to her right brain and then magic happens - we are invited in. She makes contact. The room becomes one. I the video watcher also join her and I am shaken. She becomes what she is talking about and I became part of her.
I have been so moved that I have kept returning in my self to the place that she created at the end of her talk. The experience keeps reverberating.
Why is this important? Because we want to rebalance ourselves to be also able to connect. Julian Jaynes asked why all our older stories have Gods speaking to us and then after a while they stop. His answer is this. That when we learned to read, we had to give our left brain prominence. Perhaps prior to reading, our right brain was the lead. Now after 10,000 years of literacy, the left brain is triumphant. Hence mayabe our disconnection to ourselves and to all others.
What is the real difference between Senator Obama and Senator Clinton? Left vs Right hemisphere - Connection vs Distinction.
What I am hearing is a deep yearning for many to reconnect. Why - because it feels good BUT also because our problems are so complex that they cannot be solved by a linear left brain process. Why do so many fear and hate Obama - because this is an alien concept.
What will be the future of public radio and TV? Those that can connect and those that cannot. We live at a time when content = noise now. Only by turning up the volume can any thing be heard. None of our problems can be solved either in this world of separateness.
The great opportunity to connect is to make contact. The great opportunity to make a difference is to make contact.
Dr Taylor shows me that this means - what about you?
