Non-Material Categories

Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, going through a long list of Ted talks to get podcasts for a 4.5 hour drive. So many of these talks were about science, engineering, technologies. I was seeing the main categories: technology, entertainment, design, business, science, global issues. I was in the mood for the non-material. Why weren't there categories like Nature, Spirituality, The Quantum, or Feelings? I wanted to hear talks about curiosity, playfulness, discovery, creativity, shifting paradigms or awe. There were some, and I was excited to download those.  It reminded me how I feel tired of the admiration of "being smart" and our obsession with the directly measurable and observable.  I chuckle when I hear  parents brag about how their kids can already read, or they can do addition, oh so young. I wonder how is the child relating to her environment and to others? Is she learning to love herself and all her own emotions and thoughts? Is she being encouraged to explore and express her emotions, ideas and  natural talents in a self-sourced inspired way that is not dictated by the connstructs of a book or a computer game? Are her/his emotions, desires, expressions, curiosites being acknowledged and reflected so she learns more deeply who s/he is?

Now I just looked at Ted Talks again and there are some amazing new talks listed: "The Surprising Need for Strangeness" (Can't Wait to Hear that!), How to Escape Education's Death Valley" (Could be Good), "The Why and How of Effective Altruism" (I heard it, I liked it!), "Every Kid Needs a Champion" (I need one too, I will watch it!).

I guess the categories they use are symbolic of a mindset and it it interesting that many of the talks they host don't actually fit into those categories they have created. Fascinating. The speakers are sort of ahead of the time... their time, Ted website's time. 

Here is a quote.

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

 

What does it say, that the categories are old 1984-oriented ideas, and not actually accomodating what the talks are actually about?  This may seem so minor and miniscule, but it is interesting to me to think about slow adoption of the accelerating changes in how people are thinking.