I recently had the privilege of watching the first public screening of The Abortion Talks a yet-to-be released documentary by Sarah Perkins and Josh Sabey, that covers the crimes of John Salvi and the story of six women, all of them leaders in the pro-life and pro-choice movements, who sought to ensure that it would never happen again.
Being both pro-choice and having a late mother who was a pro-life activist, I found the division and paradox explored in this film to be deeply familiar.
Last week I was tipped off about a digital future conference, Unfinished Live, at the Shed (in Hudson Yards, NYC) which was “exploring the Collision of Technology, Art, Ideas, and Impact.”
There’s been a lot of attention paid to pronouns in recent years. He and she now have a lot of company. It’s becoming more common to meet a person wishing to be referred to as “they” in reference to their “personal gender pronoun”. And there are other personal pronouns that include the likes of ze, per, and ve to name a few. At first, I had a hard time understanding the meaning and importance of this development although I do remember growing up in the 70s when the honorific “Ms” came more into vogue and women began making their preference clear. I think it’s healthy to question tradition – to be in dialogue as to why we do things the way we do, what it means, and to be in inquiry as to what serves us and how.
Personally, i’ve always wondered about the pronoun “i” or capital “I” as we’ve all been instructed to write it. Why must “i” be this way?
What does a culture of inquiry mean? It means we have practices in place where we can get under the implicit and explicit assumptions that run our everyday lives. And the benefit is a greater sense of context and meaning – both of which are antidotes to the machine world we live in. With this, we share with your the BreakBread prompt for the month of August as food for inquiry. Let us know what you come up with!
An amazing time? I suppose it depends on who you’re talking to.
