talk about integration

lately i've been thinking a lot about what it means to have an integrated approach to the many different aspects of life. that statement is kinda intentionally oxymoronic, because what i'm really trying to do is understand life as one coherent whole, in which various elements are organically connected rather than discrete categories such as: school, work, play, family life, religion, recreation, physical, spiritual, rational, emotional, etc.

a friend of mine sent me the following link to one of the talks on TED.com of a woman speaking about a crochet project with implications for upper level math, environmental consciousness, the advancement of women and more. in a culture that is dominated by a predisposition to want to separate and divide things, it's encouraging and refreshing to find communities of people that are looking for the underlying order and unity in the universe. perhaps equally exciting is how much more profound our understanding of ourselves and the world around us seems to become when we do discover the unifying patterns in life, and find meaning in things we'd previously taken for granted. the potential to apply knowledge to the advancement of society appears to grow as we move away from abstractions and pure theory, and start to examine how various theories and phenomena actually play out in the world.

maybe you'll find this interesting too:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html