Here’s the final answer for Katie.*

5) What example of human behaviour inspires you and makes your heart sing? What saddens you? Specific examples, please.

Both examples that I’ve chosen seem to do with with connection.

Vandana Shiva is an Indian physicist, but she is also someone who makes connections between disciplines. She is the leader of an anti-globalization movement and does important work on poverty. From Ode Magazine:

Two of the great economic myths of our time allow people to deny this intimate link, and spread misconceptions about what poverty is.
First, the destruction of nature and of people’s ability to look after themselves are blamed not on industrial growth and economic colonialism, but on poor people themselves. Poverty, it is stated, causes environmental destruction. The disease is then offered as a cure: further economic growth is supposed to solve the very problems of poverty and ecological decline that it gave rise to in the first place.

The second myth is an assumption that if you consume what you produce, you do not really produce, at least not economically speaking. If I grow my own food, and do not sell it, then it doesn’t contribute to GDP, and therefore does not contribute towards “growth”.

Vandana Shiva inspires me. I’m not sure what she inspires me to, but I’m working on it.

One of the things that saddens me is how frightened most of us are. For example, I live outside a city that is something like the fifth safest medium-sized city in the United States, according to the F.B.I. In other words, pretty darn safe. But people walk around as if they are just second away from being abducted by some big guy with a knife and that for their own protection they have encased themselves in a bubble that prevents communication with others. God forbid you ask a stranger a question or say excuse me at the supermarket. It’s as if you’ve disturbed the bubble of safety. People are absolutely shocked.

For example, I’m on the local water board and we had our annual meeting today, which included a potluck. I feared that we would get an even smaller turnout than usual because the potluck guaranteed that you might actually have to sit near a neighbor and talk. God forbid. And, sure enough, we got the small turnout of mostly board members, their families, and close affiliations. No one else came and I don’t think it’s because they hate the board. It’s because they are fearful of other human contact.

What is disturbing about this is that I fear the lack of community in our small community is not unique, but a symptom of a culture in which everyone just wants to be left alone to work all day and then come home, double bolt the door, and turn on the tube.

Human beings are not as autonomous as we all think. Without connection to others in community, we’re left on our own in our little bubbles and I hope we all remember the magician who stayed in his own water bubble. He swam in his own pee. There’s a good reason to leave the comfort of the bubble.

Interview Guidelines
1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me” ONLY IF: I have either met you or exchanged emails with you before, AND if you have a blog.
2. I will respond with five questions (found in the comments section). I pick the Q’s.
3. You will update your blog with the answers
4. You will include this explanation and offer to interview someone else