Crossing Nebraska

One difficult aspect of writing a book as a series of blog posts is that each blog post needs to stand on its own to at least some degree, while still fitting into a larger whole. Thus, I have titled this post Wisdom of Children even though it is merely a passage from Chapter 2. I hope that makes sense. At any rate, I hope it makes enough sense for you to find it enjoyable reading. Here goes:

Part I, Chapter 2 – After The Fall (first continuation)
Each of us recapitulates the evolutionary achievement of self-awareness over the course of our normal human development. The undifferentiated oneness of early infancy gives way to our first inkling of a world that is other than our very own body, and from there we begin the inexorable march toward the fully individuated ego strength of adulthood. Neurological development becomes the ground for psychological development, and psychological development, in turn, becomes the ground for further neurological development. In this way, our body/mind…

I hope you all appreciated the introduction and first chapter of this work in progress: That Which We Already Know. This installment stands on its own for the most part, but I do hope you’ll check out the previous posts as parts of a more complete whole. Enjoy!
Part I, Chapter 2 – After The Fall
Where did that Eden go? Where did that child go? My fall from grace was so quick and complete that within just a few short years hardly a trace of either remained. Thankfully, I never was called up to fight in that far off war. It ended years before my number might have been drawn. By then, however, my Eden was gone, and the child was nowhere to be found. I could blame it on the war. I could consider myself just one more of its many uncounted casualties. The fact is, though, that I would have fallen anyway. We all end up falling sooner or later. It’s simply part of what it means to be fully human. But what exactly does that mean? In order to answer that question we’ll need to reflect more deep…

With this post I bring to a close the first chapter of That Which We Already Know. I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts in sequence. If you are just now discovering them, you might want to first check out Introduction, A Child In Eden, and The Fall.

Part I, Chapter 1 – A Child in Eden (second continuation)

The Nursery was our beloved realm, regardless of what blemishes and imperfections my discriminating adult mind might impose upon its memory. Likewise, that city waterway, complete with the trash washed there from the humans living just beyond, is the beloved realm of turtles and fish and waterfowl – regardless of what might make me cringe. For just as animal discernment is oriented towards that which promotes life, so a child’s discernment is oriented towards that which induces wonder. The discriminations and assessments and judgments of the fully developed adult mind will come later, after having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Those turtles sunning themselves at…