Beauty & Mr. B

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.

This episode explores the meaning of "growth," especially personal growth. In this, Part One, Mr. B outlines the modern idea of growth, and he does his best to recover what "to grow" was originally meant to convey. You might be surprised! In Part Two, next week's episode, Mr. B will consider how someone might begin to move beyond understanding and actively participate more effectively in the process of living growth.

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...

In this episode, Mr. B examines how the ways that we understand words, our language, influences what we see as real and true. By taking a close look at three words, Mr. B hopes that, like him, listeners will come to appreciate more of the beauty that exists in the world and within ourselves.

This episode examines the relationship between beauty and sadness. Here, Mr. B explores the nature of sadness itself, a few realities of sadness in modern society, and, moving past this narrow conception of reality, Mr. B seeks to accept and embrace the compassion and communion that can be found within the beautiful depths of sadness.