Beauty & Mr. B

Well, so far in this exploration of modern anger, Mr. B has considered various ways that anger is often expressed in society today, the true emotion at the root of modern anger (you might be surprised!), and, most recently, what exactly serves to trigger our feelings of anger. Now, the time has come for Mr. B to explore why exactly, we react to anger the way we do: Why do we tend to run and hide from feelings of anger? Hmm... Here's a hint. It has something to do with the way that we have been taught to understand the meaning of power in society today!

I know that Mr. B has lately been encouraging listeners to really dig in and engage actively in the living out of personal growth, so it only seems right that now Mr. B would take some risks himself ... like embracing the mysteries of the most beautiful of the literary arts, poetry! Here, Mr. B shares five of the poems that have mystified and challenged him, provides just enough commentary (he hopes) to inspire us to embrace our inner poet, and does his best to help listeners see poetry as a fountain of light --of truth and guidance --in the sea of darkness that is the world today.

This episode continues with what it means to truly grow as a person and become an active agent, a protagonist, in the progress of society. Mr. B starts this episode with a discussion of what is required for an individual to begin "living" growth and then he provides listeners with two examples. One example, in story-form from the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, describes a modern age, ours, that has become less and less capable of authentic and meaningful action. The other, written by Christian Wiman, a professor of literature and religion at Yale University, recounts through his own experience what it might look like to move away from our closed minds and toward the opening of our hearts in the direction of truth.

We've been brought up with the idea that each correct answer we accumulate constitutes another bit of knowledge we possess. In this episode, Mr. B openly questions the equation of knowledge with the possession of correct answers. Instead of a paradigm that bases knowledge upon the answer, Mr. B proposes that a more complete paradigm of knowledge must be centered on the asking of questions. It is only when we move beyond the one correct answer, to embrace all the questions which follow, that we will recover the beautiful natures of our own curiosity and our inherent desire for endless learning...

This episode examines how narrowly society has trained us to view reality, provides an example of what it means to view reality from a much wider angle, and outlines some reasons why it might be worthwhile to begin cultivating the discipline of viewing reality through the widest possible perspective.