Listening to TED
10/11/15 05:23
Often when I am driving and when I am working out on my rowing machine I listen to podcasts. I listen to several different podcasts and I tend to allow several episodes to stack up and listen to them in batches. When I’m in the right mood, several episodes of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” can be entertaining. Over the past few days, I’ve been listening to TED talks. No the talks aren’t named after me. TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment and Design. The talks began at a conference in 1984. The talks are highly rehearsed, careful presentations usually ranging from 15 to 20 minutes on a wide variety of topics. Some focus heavily on scientific or technological advances: “How I teach kids to love science,” “An Internet without screens might look like this,” “The future of flying robots,” and “Soon we’ll cure diseases with a cell, not a pill.” The talks, however, cover a much wider range of topics. Recently, I have noticed that many have focused on subjects such as happiness and vocation and the purpose of life. It seems to me that many TED talks are really sermons for those who probably aren’t going to attend church.
Topics like what leads to genuine happiness or joy, how to find your true calling, and falling in love remind me that seeking meaning in life is an essential part of our human condition. For generations religious institutions have provided the forum for asking some of the big questions of life and exploring its meaning. In the increasingly secular world of popular culture the need to wrestle with these issues is not diminished.
Frequently it seems to me that the emphasis on new discoveries and new ideas in TED talks leads speakers to ignore the history and tradition that lies behind their subject. They expound on what to them is a new idea, but seem to be unaware that other humans have discovered similar ideas long before they came on the scene. In the last week or so I’ve listened to two talks about happiness. Neither of the speakers seemed to be aware that the relationship between gratitude and joy has been a subject of religion for over a thousand years. It has long been established that the expression of gratitude on a regular basis leads to increased satisfaction with life. People are more joyful when they take time to think about and express their gratitude. It is, to me a simple fact of life, not a revolutionary new idea.
There are so many TED talks available that the web site uses a set of standard words to categorize the talks. Ratings include: beautiful, informative, fascinating, persuasive, and courageous. But by far the most common rating given to talks is inspiring. Talking with others who listen to TED talks, I find that inspiration is one of the main reasons that they listen. It is fascinating, and perhaps even inspirational, to me that a religious term would be used to describe the reason for listening and the most common effect of the talks.
The concept of inspiration comes from the root word for spirit. In the time before modern medicine, breathing was one of the ways people could tell if an animal was alive or dead. If it was breathing, it was alive. The loss of breathing indicated death. Breath then became associated with the spirit. We draw the spirit into ourselves as we inhale. To inspire was to animate - to bring to life. The second creation story in the book of Genesis describes God scooping up the soil and breathing the breath of life into it to make the first human.
We now know that there is more to life than just breathing. We have more complex understanding of the circulatory system and brain function. We have machines that can provide the breathing function artificially for short periods of time to sustain life. But the sense of inspiration as necessary for life remains.
Preachers have practiced the art of using words to inspire others for generations. Unfortunately not all preaching is inspirational and too often the practice introduces an element of boredom for those who are listening. A congregation is not a TED audience and a preacher who delivers a sermon each week is engaged in a different enterprise than a speaker who gives only a handful of TED talks in a lifetime. Perhaps the repetition of the process makes for sermons that are frequently less inspirational than they might be.
I am not saying that TED conferences are a new form of religion. I don’t think the organizers of those events would like such a title. Those events do, however, demonstrate a basic human quest for meaning and inspiration. And far more often than they are aware, TED speakers venture onto religious topics.
I’m not very big on making the distinction between sacred and secular. From my point of view all is sacred. There is no place where God is absent. I find my religious faith has direct connections to all of life. In that sense, I expect to find inspiration in places that aren’t associated with the institutional church. It is just interesting to me that people who claim to have no religion in their lives flock to places where distinctly religious concepts and ideas are discussed. I suspect that if we lived in a world with no religion, we would be quick to develop religion.
I’ll keep listening to TED talks. I suspect that they inspire my preaching to an extent. But I don’t see TED conferences as forums for new ideas. The talks are, rather, fresh explorations of ideas that have been present in our world for thousands of years. When one is aware of the history of ideas and philosophies, there is a new depth of meaning in understanding the talks as part of a much bigger process of human thought. The truly great ideas of humans don’t become resolved in a single generation - they are shared over spans of time that are longer than our lifetimes.
It won’t be long before someone comes up with a new name and a new format as we continue to explore old ideas.
Topics like what leads to genuine happiness or joy, how to find your true calling, and falling in love remind me that seeking meaning in life is an essential part of our human condition. For generations religious institutions have provided the forum for asking some of the big questions of life and exploring its meaning. In the increasingly secular world of popular culture the need to wrestle with these issues is not diminished.
Frequently it seems to me that the emphasis on new discoveries and new ideas in TED talks leads speakers to ignore the history and tradition that lies behind their subject. They expound on what to them is a new idea, but seem to be unaware that other humans have discovered similar ideas long before they came on the scene. In the last week or so I’ve listened to two talks about happiness. Neither of the speakers seemed to be aware that the relationship between gratitude and joy has been a subject of religion for over a thousand years. It has long been established that the expression of gratitude on a regular basis leads to increased satisfaction with life. People are more joyful when they take time to think about and express their gratitude. It is, to me a simple fact of life, not a revolutionary new idea.
There are so many TED talks available that the web site uses a set of standard words to categorize the talks. Ratings include: beautiful, informative, fascinating, persuasive, and courageous. But by far the most common rating given to talks is inspiring. Talking with others who listen to TED talks, I find that inspiration is one of the main reasons that they listen. It is fascinating, and perhaps even inspirational, to me that a religious term would be used to describe the reason for listening and the most common effect of the talks.
The concept of inspiration comes from the root word for spirit. In the time before modern medicine, breathing was one of the ways people could tell if an animal was alive or dead. If it was breathing, it was alive. The loss of breathing indicated death. Breath then became associated with the spirit. We draw the spirit into ourselves as we inhale. To inspire was to animate - to bring to life. The second creation story in the book of Genesis describes God scooping up the soil and breathing the breath of life into it to make the first human.
We now know that there is more to life than just breathing. We have more complex understanding of the circulatory system and brain function. We have machines that can provide the breathing function artificially for short periods of time to sustain life. But the sense of inspiration as necessary for life remains.
Preachers have practiced the art of using words to inspire others for generations. Unfortunately not all preaching is inspirational and too often the practice introduces an element of boredom for those who are listening. A congregation is not a TED audience and a preacher who delivers a sermon each week is engaged in a different enterprise than a speaker who gives only a handful of TED talks in a lifetime. Perhaps the repetition of the process makes for sermons that are frequently less inspirational than they might be.
I am not saying that TED conferences are a new form of religion. I don’t think the organizers of those events would like such a title. Those events do, however, demonstrate a basic human quest for meaning and inspiration. And far more often than they are aware, TED speakers venture onto religious topics.
I’m not very big on making the distinction between sacred and secular. From my point of view all is sacred. There is no place where God is absent. I find my religious faith has direct connections to all of life. In that sense, I expect to find inspiration in places that aren’t associated with the institutional church. It is just interesting to me that people who claim to have no religion in their lives flock to places where distinctly religious concepts and ideas are discussed. I suspect that if we lived in a world with no religion, we would be quick to develop religion.
I’ll keep listening to TED talks. I suspect that they inspire my preaching to an extent. But I don’t see TED conferences as forums for new ideas. The talks are, rather, fresh explorations of ideas that have been present in our world for thousands of years. When one is aware of the history of ideas and philosophies, there is a new depth of meaning in understanding the talks as part of a much bigger process of human thought. The truly great ideas of humans don’t become resolved in a single generation - they are shared over spans of time that are longer than our lifetimes.
It won’t be long before someone comes up with a new name and a new format as we continue to explore old ideas.