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"Now Is The Time" [MLK] For Music To Show Us The Way
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Greenbubba, as befitting his Fuzz moniker sent me the video page link to a great speech by environmentalist/social activist/entrepreneur, Paul Hawken You can skip the introductory stuff and go directly to Hawken's speech. Here is the link: http://www.greenbuild365.org/videos/video_gb06_2.html [the greenbuild site is kinda slow, but just slide over the bubble to about 1/4 way through the video. You are there when you see a guy in a black blazer, blue and white stripe shirt and no tie].
Hawken is a powerful motivational speaker [artists can learn a lot just by watching his delivery technique] and, more importantly, he is a true visionary regarding the growing human potential for "massive change" and our responsibilities to the natural environment and our social and ethical obligations to our fellow travelers in an ever shrinking planet.
In the speech Greenbubba sent me, I was struck by Hawken's use of the imagery of (i) each individual being made up of more cells than stars in the universe, (ii) the notion that 90% of these cells in our bodies constitute our sense of "being alive" and function as "connectors" with everyone else, like virtual/shared DNA [including Emerson, Thoreau, et. al. who in turn resonated through to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, whose connector cells reside in each of us], and that (iii) collectively the genetic make-up of these cells are the "immune system" of an interconnected humanity, more strongly at work than ever [perhaps, though not specifically mentioned by Hawkens, because the diseases of environmental degradation and social decay are also more virulent than ever.]
To me, Hawken's use of this string of images captures the sense of the tremendous potential of the web and why, in the spell-binding rhetoric of MLK, "Now is the time" for Artists, who are by definition, the pathfinders of the possible, more "immune from life's trivialities" than the rest of us, to stir up these connectors that reside deeply within us. With the power of technology and the human spirit, we are more connected than ever, and I fervently believe that music will energize our linkages and show us the way.
Hawken is a powerful motivational speaker [artists can learn a lot just by watching his delivery technique] and, more importantly, he is a true visionary regarding the growing human potential for "massive change" and our responsibilities to the natural environment and our social and ethical obligations to our fellow travelers in an ever shrinking planet.
In the speech Greenbubba sent me, I was struck by Hawken's use of the imagery of (i) each individual being made up of more cells than stars in the universe, (ii) the notion that 90% of these cells in our bodies constitute our sense of "being alive" and function as "connectors" with everyone else, like virtual/shared DNA [including Emerson, Thoreau, et. al. who in turn resonated through to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, whose connector cells reside in each of us], and that (iii) collectively the genetic make-up of these cells are the "immune system" of an interconnected humanity, more strongly at work than ever [perhaps, though not specifically mentioned by Hawkens, because the diseases of environmental degradation and social decay are also more virulent than ever.]
To me, Hawken's use of this string of images captures the sense of the tremendous potential of the web and why, in the spell-binding rhetoric of MLK, "Now is the time" for Artists, who are by definition, the pathfinders of the possible, more "immune from life's trivialities" than the rest of us, to stir up these connectors that reside deeply within us. With the power of technology and the human spirit, we are more connected than ever, and I fervently believe that music will energize our linkages and show us the way.
Comments
I too find the biological connectedness of humanity fascinating. I'm convinced there is more going in and out of our brains than we can process. Sound waves, light waves, brain waves - all waves are waves, just at different wavelengths. Some our brains can translate and some not. For me the emotional impact of a bone penetrating bass can be just as (or more) inspiring as great lyrics from a great voice. Certainly we've all felt the connection to a stranger's spirit thru music!