“What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?”
Michelangelo
As is illustrated daily in every human community and activity on Earth individual humans are capable of accomplishing what had previously seemed impossible, improbable and incomprehensible. It happens every day, in every realm of life, and always has. For reasons beyond the scope of this writing, our culture is prone to focus on the inconceivable physical accomplishments of the superstar of the day, particularly those involving competitive sports and outdoor adventure, more than the myriad other aspects of humanity—intellectual, emotional, social, political, scientific, economic, environmental and others. But the same dynamics that create the need and desire to push the limits, expand the boundaries of the possible and comprehensible and explore the unknown are common to all people and every endeavor, including the personal.
Yesterday’s highest standard of knowledge and action becomes today’s mundane and the old standard often looked back upon as more superstitious fear than intelligent thought, but the dynamics that drive exploration, innovation, creativity and conscious expansion as well as expanded consciousness are always present. As, of course, are their impotent, idle opposites. There is real risk involved in the dynamism of change and expansion in understanding and possibility, as there is false security in yesterday’s perceived reality. I mean, for every million scientists who have proven the existence of life on earth for millions of years there is a Creationist who faithfully believes life on earth is less than 10,000 years old; and for every million scientists and billions of less scientifically trained people with healthy brains and observational skills (and the personal integrity to listen to them) who know that global warming is reality there are a minority of hollow deniers who comfortably insist, despite all scientific evidence and common observation to the contrary, that global warming caused climate change is nonsense and that the more than 10.5 billion tons of CO2 mankind pumps into the atmosphere each year has no effect on that atmosphere or on global warming. Some of the stupidest of deniers will tell you with a face as straight as the cynical curve of corruption that science is only an opinion and scientific facts debating points. That denial is rooted in false security and the fear (in some cases terror) of the changes and very real economic (especially economic), social and practical turmoil addressing global climate change will inevitably cause. Confronting those issues seems impossible, improbable and incomprehensible. And very scary. The only thing worse is not addressing them. That’s even scarier. And all the more reason to meet them head on.
Only 500 years ago Galileo Galilei, known as the “Father” of modern observational astronomy, physics and modern science, faced the Roman inquisition and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life for the ‘heresy’ of his ground breaking, accurate scientific observations. Today Galileo is honored for his intelligence, scientific efforts and integrity, as the inquisition is rightfully scorned for its lack of them. The inquisition, like today’s Creationists and deniers, embraced the status quo of certainty instead of acknowledging (and acting upon) the evolving uncertainty of the growth of knowledge. If there are human beings on Earth in 500 years they will scorn the deniers and Creationists of today as we do the inquisition.
I am reminded of such matters by a motivational talk I recently attended given by a woman named Jessica Cox. Due to a rare birth defect she was born without arms in 1983 in Arizona. Today Cox has a BS degree in psychology, uses her feet the way most people use their hands, can type 25 words a minute on a keyboard, has an unrestricted driver’s license and drives her own car and pumps her own gas into that car, has two black belts in Taekwondo, is a certified SCUBA diver, puts in and removes contact lenses from her eyes with her toes and is the first armless person to earn a pilot license to fly a light-sports aircraft. Needless to say, her life is filled with impossible, improbable and incomprehensible fulfillment, as well as persistence, patience, passion, desire and unbelievable amounts of work and attention to detail. Cox makes her living as a motivational speaker at which she excels. She flies all over the world to give her talks and one of the on-going, interesting aspects of her life is when she arrives at the airport rental car agency to rent a car. The reader can imagine, but she always gets her car.
At the talk I attended Cox demonstrated how she puts on and takes off her red, lace-up tennis shoes. It took her a long time to figure out how and develop the skills to lace up and tie her left tennis shoe with the toes of her right foot. She was very pleased when she finally did it, but then, of course, she was presented with the problem of how to lace up and tie her right tennis shoe when her left foot was encased in the shoe. It took her a long time to imagine and then piece together the skills to do it, but she puts on and laces up her own tennis shoes whenever she wants. Jessica Cox calls the process of learning such improbable if functional skills “Thinking outside the shoe.”
The world needs more people to think outside the conformities of the shoe, the authorities of the boot and the dogmas of the wader.