Another Lesson from Madam Secretary

Two complimentary lessons - in one morning!

You already know I read a number of blogs.  I'm fussy because my inbox is already filled with over 100 emails every day.  But there are a number of them that I look forward to.  They remind me, they teach and they inspire on a pretty regular basis.

At 6:00 AM today:
Skipping the Nuance from A Learning a Day
  

Writing can be many things. It can be a medium with which we drive change. It can feed our soul. With every piece of content we share, we decide whether we want to raise the standard of discussion or lower it. And, we do all of this by putting a piece of ourselves out there.

It was the 'feed our soul' comment that made me sit up, take another sip of coffee and pause to consider why I've written these little blurbs - and why I've been neglectful for so long.  I didn't come to a solution.  But the fact that I recognized that I missed writing because I miss feeding my soul made me a little sad.



About 11:00 AM.
After getting done with laundry (not a favorite activity), I decided to relax with a television show. As of late, watching television is mostly a mindless, in-the-background-noise kind of thing for me. In any case, I chose Madam Secretary; Gift Horse.

There was dialogue between a liberal minded poet and a physicist.  The poet can't believe that a physicist could possibly see the beauty of the world.  He says, "Ah, the geniuses who brought us nuclear weapons, Oh, and space junk and global warming. Tell me something, how do you live with such an unimaginative reductionist view of the world? How is life, without the resonance of beauty, even worth the effort?"

But, the scientist responds,

"It was Richard Feynman, physicist, personal hero of mine, who put it best. He said that he could appreciate the beauty of a flower more than, say, uh, you. He said he could see more than the average man sees. He could imagine its cells, he could appreciate that the flower evolved in order to make its colors more attractive to insects. Which means that insects see color. I mean, maybe they share our aesthetic sense. Recognizing the majesty of the quantum world only adds to the beauty of life. It does not subtract. So to answer your question, Mr. Hobbs, I don't just live in a beautiful world, I understand it." Read more - click here.  

 That's quite a response.  It makes me want to start reading the Book of Genesis again right now!  I want to walk through the woods - and notice.  I want to stop and see the glistening underside of new growth.  I want to appreciate creation.

Spoilers Guide

The story continues with the Inauguration of the President.  The poet has written a new composition for the occasion.  He begins to read.

Sitting high above the Potomac swamp, in the long shadow of the spilt blood and dreams of the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers, I can see more than the average man sees. I imagine the cells, the nucleus of things. I see colors that evolved to speak to the smallest of eyes. Sacrifices that meet in this cataclysm of longing for what can - and what can, overcoming what cannot. In the majesty of the quantum world, in the beauty of building blocks, in the tiniest of elements, I glimpse the privilege of being. This alertness does not subtract. It adds. It is not our inheritance merely to abide in this beautiful world. It is our inheritance to understand it.

And, maybe, write about it.
Maybe even, feed the soul.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?  In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:7-10


Side note: Did you know that there's a website that transcribes every piece of dialogue from this show - and others!  It's called Forever Dreaming Transcripts.  You can find anything online!