Cutting edge? I'm on the backside of the blade....

I take a perverse delight in my Luddite Lite view, but it's really as simple this. Anything that distances me from the natural world, from my connection to the stuff that comes in (and leaves) my body, from the delicious sensuous (even sensual) symphony of particles and light dancing on and in my body, this body, the one with a beating heart, well, deserves a critical eye.

• I am materialistic--I like the stuff around me. 
• I am cheap--the air, the water, the earth I walk on, the gravity that keeps me grounded, are all free.
• I am mortal--I am made of this same stuff, and will be returned to the same stuff, and my particles will be dancing on other conscious beings within a few decades, perhaps sooner.

Our iPods separate us from our voices, our kazoos and guitars, our hands and our harmonies.

My favorite teachers out there talk about making stuff. Tom Hoffman and Shawn Cornally cure meats,  Mary Ann Reilly creates canvases, John Spencer writes music and stories, and on and on it goes.

I do not know any effective teachers who are not passionate about something they created by the fusion of their mind and their hands, about their connection to the stuff of creation.

I confess I love playing with iPods and iPads and anything else that keeps my brain buzzing with dopamine. They are a lovely distraction from our mortality.

If I am charged with teaching a child about the universe, though (and why else teach?), the natural world should be the distraction.

A good first step would be to show them that it even exists....

I'm not Amish, but I get the point--be wary of the things that would separate you from the things you believe matter.