The other day there I came across a reference to an Alan Watts teaching about the limitations of reductionism. I’ve tracked it down –
You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To “have” running water you must let go of it and let it run. ~Alan Watts from “The Wisdom of Insecurity”.
If you are thirsty and try to drink directly from the river you may have your head snatched off by a crocodile or be hit in the head by a passing log,therefore capturing a little water in the bucket could be the safer option. And if you’re really insecure you could have the water sample tested for E.Coli etc before drinking.
The universe created us so that we could think,analyze, and explore it not just dream and star gaze.
ah, Billy, guess that’s why the universe gave us each two brains! As Iain McGilchrist so eloquently describes https://heroesnotzombies.com/2012/08/20/the-divided-brain/
Love this. I wrote a line on my page last year when I first started blogging: “If ice into water melts so effortlessly, how can a snowflake have so many patterns?” JAM 2011 The thing is, I feel like it is a similar concept to ponder as the water in the bucket… part of the river… contained… stilled… yet so much free flowing we do not understand. Nor, perhaps, do we need to and that may be the true wisdom.
Cool!