TED Community » Paula Carrico

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Life & People.
I believe that Seneca described life sagaciously by saying "It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it."

An idea worth spreading

We have a greater capacity to affect this life, now if we were to reinvest in the here and now.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.60 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Does beauty exist?

  Oct 24 2011: Yes. Yes. Not exactly. Not a thing but a descriptive.
  
  "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced…[b]ut I know it when I see it…"
  
  I think one of the most interesting aspects to beauty is that as much as we attempt to define it, there seem to be too many outliers to create a definitive codex. This in my opinion is a good thing.
  
  I think it is important to recognize [and I think many of us do] that beauty as an aspect of cultural identity changes. I think what we embrace, what we accept, what we desire, we want to trust or have faith in we call beautiful.
  
  Sometimes it is also revealing to examine the negative space, the 'not beautiful' in order to understand it more. Sometimes looking at what we call obscene, ugly, disgusting or profane allows us to better know why we label things as beautiful.
  
  I am a fan of the dynamic systems approach. When one examines one person's life under that lens, it is very complicated. Add another and even more so. Add a whole culture of people and it becomes a mammoth task. Rather than *defining* what is beautiful though, it becomes less unwieldy to *observe* what others identify as beautiful.
  
  To me how we react to what we judge as beautiful versus ugly is even more interesting.

• A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."

  Oct 24 2011: Thank you for your 10. You came at it from a very different direction than did I. Now I'd like to see the boundary of ten broken but I'll resist for the sake of the thread author. :)

• A reply on Conversation: Is being gay a choice, or genetic make up?

  Oct 23 2011: How do we divorce ourselves from that though? If someone is begging the question, how do we prevent the 'therefore'?
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: Is being gay a choice, or genetic make up?

  Oct 23 2011: Thank you. For my part, I find addressing the root of the question is part of that enlightenment. Sometimes it changes the question as well.

• A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."

  Oct 23 2011: Indeed. I've always sought to find mine, but then how long does one look and question? Would we ever discover them all?
• +2

  A reply on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."

  Oct 23 2011: All good observations. I especially like number 8.

• A reply on Conversation: Is being gay a choice, or genetic make up?

  Oct 23 2011: Thank you. :)
• +10

  A comment on Conversation: Is being gay a choice, or genetic make up?

  Oct 23 2011: I think there is an aspect to the discussion that makes the conclusion of choice or not, moot. One implication by those who assert it is a choice is that choices do not deserve protection from persecution. However there are people in various places in the world who are in fact protected for their choices. If a person chooses in the US (for example) to convert from Christianity to Buddhism, they are protected against hate crimes for their choice. They are also protected against work discrimination for that choice. The energy spent to counter this and assert biology in my opinion becomes less important.
  
  It might be biology. It might be choice. Is this a crucial fact to find? If it was found a choice, what would you do with that information? If it were found to be biology, what would you do with that information?
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: We can learn by exchanging and discussing our own lists of "10 Things I Know to be True."

  Oct 23 2011: 10 things I know to be true
  
  1 "Masakatsu Agatsu" - (The greatest victory is self mastery)
  2 Clinging is the source of suffering
  3 "Fear is (a) Mind-Killer"
  4 The path to true joy is doing good things and knowing self.
  5 Learning is living
  6 Laws can be manipulated, the source of one's true intent is the measure of one's honor.
  7 We all die, what we do in This Life, Now is what matters most.
  8 Intelligence is how effectively one can learn. Knowledge is what one learns. Wisdom is how effectively one will make use of the first two and understanding the consequences that use might create. Wisdom is what we lack most.
  9 It is better to live in the question than to force an answer.
  10 "With great power comes great responsibility."
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Should CPR be taught in public schools?

  Sep 8 2011: Living is California and having been a first responder both in serendipity, volunteer and professional capacities I can with confidence say that yes CPR should be taught as well as other emergency skills. We have plenty of elements to our habitat in this state that would lend themselves toward the possibility of disaster. That could range from an earthquake to fire or mudslide or other calamity. I have always seen people step up and be there to help, but many people do not know what to do. Were we to spend just a few dollars to educate our citizens on a large scale [and have volunteers in education] I believe it would benefit us in the long run.