Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
— William Bruce Cameroon

The purpose of life is to discover your gifts. The work of life is to develop them. And the meaning of life is to give them away.

I like David Viscott’s quote with the gift pluralized in it to suit my beliefs. I believe we have many gifts, not just one.

The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.

— David Viscott

… a good ecologist must have a broad synthetic mind, an ability to practice strong inference, and a sense of place or a feel for nature (that is, they must be respectful, alert, observant, and intuitive).

— Paul K. Dayton (Observation & Ecology : Broadening the Scope of Science to Understand a Complex World)

In a previous post, I shared David W. Orr’s writing about Fast & Slow Knowledge. Here are some more from scholars & friends who opened me to different meanings of knowledge & knowing.

“To me the most interesting thing about man is that he is an animal who practices art and science and, in every known society, practices both together.”

— Jacob Bronowski

“A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?”

— Ernst Haas

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand of precious wood. When it was finished, all who saw it were astounded. They said it must be the work of spirits.

The prince of Lu said to the master carver: “What is your secret?” Khing replied:

Wanting more knowledge is not considered surfeit, even by those who despise human excesses in this world. David W. Orr., in “The nature of design - Ecology, culture & Human intention” calls us to ponder this subject.

Writing that, “The twentieth century is the age of fast knowledge driven by rapid technological change and the rise of the global economy. This has undermined communities, cultures, and religions that once slowed the rate of change and filtered appropriate knowledge from the cacophony of new information.” He says - The culture of fast knowledge rests on these assumptions:

Carrying out the Great Work of making an ecologically durable and decent society will require us to confront the deeper cultural roots of our problems and grow out of the faith that we can meet the challenge of sustainability without really changing much. The evidence, I think, shows that we will have to change a great deal and mostly in ways that we will come to regard as vastly better than what exists now and certainly better than what is in prospect.

— David W. Orr