These questions of mind and consciousness are ones I've wrestled with all my life, I think, except they have become more poignant and at times desperate as I've raised a daughter with severe cognitive and physical disabilities -- a mind racked by seizures, non-verbal, completely dependent upon others for every need, yet a piercing eye gaze that seems to know everything. "What does she know," people ask me, I ask myself. I think, "She knows everything or she knows nothing."
Thanks for another wonderful column. I was esp intrigued with the link you sent on the hard right turn in MT, and esp 'wealth' being the big distinction. Interesting for sure, and I'm not sure it's the major or only thing - look at the number of Repubs who still believe the election was 'stolen' (last I read it was north of 60%!), and other interesting 'facts' they get from news sources. I don't really understand it, but I guess part of it is 'Soldier' mindset (Julia Graf's WONDERFUL new book!) and believing something regardless of other facts, etc. All very discouraging relative to our elective process.
C.S. Lewis wrote that he believed that we were souls that possessed human bodies (rather than bodies that possessed a soul). I've always liked that framing because it can be inferred that there are souls within everything around us, making us an interwoven meshwork of spirituality with the world around us (Lewis would likely disagree with that inference, in all fairness).
These questions of mind and consciousness are ones I've wrestled with all my life, I think, except they have become more poignant and at times desperate as I've raised a daughter with severe cognitive and physical disabilities -- a mind racked by seizures, non-verbal, completely dependent upon others for every need, yet a piercing eye gaze that seems to know everything. "What does she know," people ask me, I ask myself. I think, "She knows everything or she knows nothing."
Thanks for another wonderful column. I was esp intrigued with the link you sent on the hard right turn in MT, and esp 'wealth' being the big distinction. Interesting for sure, and I'm not sure it's the major or only thing - look at the number of Repubs who still believe the election was 'stolen' (last I read it was north of 60%!), and other interesting 'facts' they get from news sources. I don't really understand it, but I guess part of it is 'Soldier' mindset (Julia Graf's WONDERFUL new book!) and believing something regardless of other facts, etc. All very discouraging relative to our elective process.
Ruth Galloway! I do love the way the marshes come alive in those books.
C.S. Lewis wrote that he believed that we were souls that possessed human bodies (rather than bodies that possessed a soul). I've always liked that framing because it can be inferred that there are souls within everything around us, making us an interwoven meshwork of spirituality with the world around us (Lewis would likely disagree with that inference, in all fairness).