a priori/a posteriori

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

TEDTalks are Great, 1


That’s a picture of Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a brain scientist who had a stroke but lived to - eventually - talk about it. She gave a TEDTalk about the experience, and if you care at all about understanding the world, you shouldn’t do another thing until you watch it.

I do not use hyperbole when I say that it changed my life, and it changed how I look at the world. I watch it at least once every 6 months, and if I was more disciplined, I would watch every week. And I think I honestly mean that. If I was living my best life, I’d watch this once a week.

In fact, I’ll cut this thought short and write a full blog on it later. But for now, seriously, watch this now.

Did you just watch that? Is the world a completely different place forever now? Yeah. I know.

Anyway: When I logged onto the TEDTalk site, I was distracted by a pretty face, and - as we humans so often do - the asthetic appeal made me want to investigate.

In this case, this woman did not want to tell me about her cats, as so many bitter male comics often complain about. She talked about only getting to live one life, and how shocking a revelation that was as she slowly realized it. And how to make peace with that, and embrace the perfect imperfection of the present.

I enjoyed it. Like Patrice, she’s a kindred spirit, in the sense that she’s exploring, and reporting back what she finds. People like that make me happy. They make me feel connected, like we’re all a part of something bigger. Which WE LITERALLY ARE, as you’ll learn by watching this incredible piece of video.

Sorry, I got off track again. The woman’s name is Sarah Kay. I suggest you watch her TEDTalk.


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