Table of contents
Ongoing conversation
The ideal of sound is harmony
Nothing can be known or even exist unless it is in relation to other things
The sound made fresh
Reciprocal relationships
Patterns of creation
"I think the real task lies in inverting institutions."
We include below a rare video of Ivan Illich because he somehow manages to hint at much of the same essence Tyson is highlighting in his own way throughout the course of Sand Talk. As Illich says at the beginning of this talk,
"If we don't regain our ability to recognize the dream language [Pandora] can interpret; we are condemned, the world cannot survive."
"This means transforming our language again."
"More and more, we define democracy as reaching consensus on the minimum that everyone should have. I propose the inverse of this notion: the main goal of a healthy political system should be to establish the maximum that everyone can agree is enough for each person."
"Epimetheus remained with the only gft that didn't escape [...] He is the man who stayed with Pandora, who closed her amphora before hope could escape. He is the man who stayed with his fellow beings [...] Our real problem today lies in regaining a deeply humanistic understanding of hope in our fellow humans, in this world, on this earth. Hope was alienated when it become the product of supernatural institutions."
"There must be a distinction between the hope we regain and hope in the sense of expectation. We must relearn how to distinguish between openness to being surprised by another and the expectation that the institution will give us the product that we learned to plan for and identify ahead of time. I think that rediscovering our ability to depend on each other, even in technological societies - which are in the worst condition of all societies, in the West and the East - is the greatest task of our time."
For just a fleeting moment
we are lent to each other.
We live because you draw us.
We have colour because you paint us.
We breathe because you sing us.
But just for a fleeting moment,
we are lent to each other.
Because we erase ourselves,
like a drawing, even one made in obsidian,
we lose our colour,
as even the quetzatl loses its colour.
We lose our sound, our breath
as does even the water's song.
But for just a fleeting moment
we are lent to each other.