Or perhaps we are coming up to a time when we have to make impossible a relative term.
Hannah Knight
Human Potential
Re: Human Potential
I will be who I chose to be.
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Shang Li
- Posts: 753
- Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 1:42 pm
- Location: Nowhere, Everywhere, I am unsure how to explain it
Re: Human Potential
Impossible changes with the times.
When I was young, for one to communicate over vast distances required magics that were often perilous to all involved. Today they require the press of a button.
Where once I rang a temple bell in a specific pattern, trusting the monks of other temples to repeat and relay the call for help, now I ask here for help and it is granted.
The magics of this time, although confusing, are so common so available to all
their use and power is not even wondered at.
My fear of technology isn't it's complexity, or my lack of understanding of most of it - quite the opposite. I look upon a great deal of the "magics" of this time with fear and trepidation because of their ease and accessability.
A young man once traveled from Eddo to Mt. Hiei to learn how to gaze into a still pool and speak to far off places. Along the way he learned many things about the world and his place in it. When he arrived the master of the temple told him he couldn't learn the secret until his mind mirrored the still pool. Upon hearing this, the young man undertook a dangerous pilgrimage to the land of the setting sun, where he sought out the monks who taught him how to still his mind. The man, no longer young, made the arduous journey back to Mt. Hiei only to discover that the old master of the temple had died during his decades of seeking. Over the many long years of seeking the man learned many more things in his travels, things about plants, things about animals, things about men, things about himself, and more importantly - he discovered along the way the wisdom of experience ...
Today the young man is handed a cell phone.
When I was young, for one to communicate over vast distances required magics that were often perilous to all involved. Today they require the press of a button.
Where once I rang a temple bell in a specific pattern, trusting the monks of other temples to repeat and relay the call for help, now I ask here for help and it is granted.
The magics of this time, although confusing, are so common so available to all
their use and power is not even wondered at.
My fear of technology isn't it's complexity, or my lack of understanding of most of it - quite the opposite. I look upon a great deal of the "magics" of this time with fear and trepidation because of their ease and accessability.
A young man once traveled from Eddo to Mt. Hiei to learn how to gaze into a still pool and speak to far off places. Along the way he learned many things about the world and his place in it. When he arrived the master of the temple told him he couldn't learn the secret until his mind mirrored the still pool. Upon hearing this, the young man undertook a dangerous pilgrimage to the land of the setting sun, where he sought out the monks who taught him how to still his mind. The man, no longer young, made the arduous journey back to Mt. Hiei only to discover that the old master of the temple had died during his decades of seeking. Over the many long years of seeking the man learned many more things in his travels, things about plants, things about animals, things about men, things about himself, and more importantly - he discovered along the way the wisdom of experience ...
Today the young man is handed a cell phone.
Understanding, is not a thing that comes swiftly, but rather in stages, a journey that once begun, must be seen to it's end.
