This afternoon I gave a twenty-minute talk answering as best I could the question: what is a concept? My friend and Freehoodship colleague, Leslie, comes up with these topics and I love her for it. Highlights from the talk: “we should treat our concepts more like jungle gyms to be played on and less like nautilus exercise machines that only allow for repetitive motions.” And: “concepts are like ice cubes in the water of thinking — they melt and reform in the flow.” Lowlights: most of the rest of the talk. It was one of those days when I felt a country mile short of eloquent. I apologize to concepts everywhere for so poorly representing your extraordinary, world creating work.
You did really well; I think those quotes were great highlights, for sure, and you planted some good seeds. Understanding concepts helps us to understand how we see the world…and why we react/respond the way we do. The question now is: how do we begin to control and organize our concepts so that we can be responsive in place of reactive?