Abstract
We live in a world full of crisis. Western society’s primary ways of thinking
about and relating to the rest of the world have brought us enough social and
environmental crisis to threaten our existence. In my Integration Project, I consider this
issue of crisis grown out of our ways of thought. Ido so from the belief that if we can
better understand some of the forms and patterns of our own thoughts, then we are better
equipped to question and change to find our way out of crisis.
I look particularly at two aspects of how we think. The first is to consider the
history of a fragmented pattern of thought, surveying from 40,000 years ago to the
present. The second is to consider new findings from cognitive science that suggest a
radically different understanding of how our very thoughts are related to the world that
we experience.
I believe that if we continue to try to address our problems within our current
framework, our problems will continue to get worse. If, instead, we can look into our
own hunger for a finer way of being, if we can learn to wrestle ever more deeply with the
kind of stories that might heal our lives, we may find a way to move beyond the crisis
that we, as humans, have created.
