In a previous post, I shared David W. Orr’s writing about Fast & Slow Knowledge. Here are some more from scholars & friends who opened me to different meanings of knowledge & knowing.

“To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and, in every known society, practices both together.”

— Jacob Bronowski

“A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?”

— Ernst Haas

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand of precious wood. When it was finished, all who saw it were astounded. They said it must be the work of spirits.

The prince of Lu said to the master carver: “What is your secret?” Khing replied:

Wanting more knowledge is not considered surfeit, even by those who despise human excesses in this world. David W. Orr., in “The nature of design - Ecology, culture & Human intention” calls us to ponder this subject.

Writing that, “The twentieth century is the age of fast knowledge driven by rapid technological change and the rise of the global economy. This has undermined communities, cultures, and religions that once slowed the rate of change and filtered appropriate knowledge from the cacophony of new information.” He says - The culture of fast knowledge rests on these assumptions:

Often, like water to fish, the myths of our culture are transparent and invisible. These ambient stories surround us all the time and get in and out of us without our awareness. We hear these stories in many voices, in many messages & in many forms. They build inside us in bits and pieces. Whether we clearly & entirely know them or not, we enact and make them real. We inherit and transmit them.