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April 28, 2010
Robert Wolff, author Original Wisdom, What It Is to Be Human
By Rob Kall
Robert Wolff is one of my favorite people and favorite writers. We talk about his experience living with aboriginal jungle tribal people in Malaysia. He stayed with them on and off for 2.5 years, an experience that he describes in his book and that affected him the rest of his life.
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Here's his OEN member page: Robert Wolff
I write about Nature and "all my relations," as native Americans used to say. All the beings and aspects of my environment that I relate to: the feathered people, the four-footeds, two-legged; trees, plants; weeds; storms, sunshine, wind, rain. I write about people I have learned from, people I admire. Â And about animals and plants that I learn from. About the fascinating beauty of the chaos that is Nature, its infinite interactions -- everything related to everything else.Â
And sometimes I write to remind us that WHAT THERE IS IS ALL THERE IS.Â
You want facts? Born here, lived there, worked somewhere else, married, children (grandchildren, great grandchildren), degrees, appointments, disappointments. Yes, all of that -- I'm old. Â
I think of myself as a human who belongs to Nature more than to Man's world. I've had an exciting life, traveled a lot, lived in many different countries. Speak a few languages -- which is essential, I think, for understanding more than one point of view.Â
As I age I feel more and more obsessed by "simple." Doing without rather than getting more. One of my favorite authors, Ursula K. LeGuin, writes "Owning is owing, having is hoarding." Very true, very wise.
The world of Man is not simple. This world we made for ourselves is a tangled disaster of rules and regulations forcing us to be what we were not born to be. We may think we do, but we cannot own this planet. We are as much part of the planetary ecology as a flea.Â
Our so-called civilization is entirely focused on material "progress" as we call it: always more. We have discovered mechanical power. We use enormous force to abuse and destroy this planet, our only home. We are changing the planet, the atmosphere that all humans need to live. Our destructions are eradicating thousands of species; gone forever. That is an impoverishment that we cannot restore. If we left nature alone it (she?) would undoubtedly evolve new species -- but we cannot keep our hands off nature. Now, 2010, I can't see how we can prevent our man-made house of cards to crash.Â
I know, you don't want to hear that.Â
In my thinking facing the truth is the absolute first essential for survival.
Yes, I have hope, but not hope that somehow, miraculously, we can continue to live as we have become used to living. The collapse will be catastrophic and inevitable. But after, ultimately, we may be a new humankind in a new Nature. What's more, I fully expect that we will rediscover talents and abilities we have always had but that have been brainwashed out of us by our civilization that is not very civil any more.
For a few hundred thousand years we, humans, survived on this planet by adapting to the environment as we found it. After, we will adapt to a new Nature-- yes, a new and different nature. We will know again that we can and must adapt to the world as it is, should not even try to change the world to our wants.
And that, my friends, is what I write about.Â
The Big Island, called Hawai'i, April 2010
Rob Kall "rating 5 stars. So Powerful!Â
"If this book was a drug the FDA would make it Class 3. It is that powerful and will have that strong an effect on your life. While it is described as account of a Malaysia tribe, it is, more importantly, a window into another way of thinking about WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN. That is also the name the book was originally given by it's author. Robert Wolff opens our eyes to see and think about possibilities for being human that our western world's schools and media do not teach, do not suggest.
"Every person I know who has read this books says it changes the way they walk through the world, the way they see, the way they know.
"It discusses ideas that impinge upon parapsychology, shamanism, Carlos Castaneda's works, intuition, healing...
"The book is a precious gift that will make you feel joy and sadness-- joy >from knowing the possibilities of being human, and the beauty of the Sng'oi, sadness, because the Sng'oi were reported to be "absorbed" by the Malaysian culture several years ago. They are gone.
"Read the book and see if you can find a way to begin seeing as they did, and find a part of them in your heart."
Dennis Weaver"Â With beautilful stories, Robert Wolff, brings to light cultures of indigenous people that do not share the values of our "civilized" societies. They have a ring of authenticity that triggers, in the deepest recesses of our being, a truth that has long been covered up, that our "way" has been extremely costly to happiness and the well being of the world. Through his stories, he gently prods us to understands a simple routh, the knowing of which, and acting from that knowledge could solve all lour earthly problems_we all are one, all hooked together. We share each others pain and joy."
Notes on the podcast interview
Authors Bio:
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel
Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel
Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.
Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.
To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.
For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.
Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table
Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.
Follow Rob on Twitter & Facebook.
His quotes are here
Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
Join the conversation:
On facebook at Rob Kall's Bottom-up The Connection Revolution
and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation