They say if you bang a drum long enough, people start to listen. Imagine my delight when I came across this NY Times article by Thomas Friedman. Ever since I read Antonio Damasio’s seminal book, Descarte’s Error, I’ve been trying to tell people, “No! It’s not’ I think therefore I am’, it’s ‘I am, therefore I think, sense and feel.'”
While I was busy banging my drum, the world shifted. According to Friedman, we are moving from a thinking economy to a feeling economy. To quote Dov Seidman, author of How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything, “The industrial economy was about hired hands. The knowledge economy was abouthired heads. The techology revolution is thrusting us into ‘the human economy.’ which will be more about creating value from hired hearts – all the attributes that can’t be programmed into software, like passion, character and the collaborative spirit.”
It may sound a bit creepy to think about “hired hearts.” But perhaps this is exactly where approaches like the Feldenkrais Method can support humanity’s evolution from the mechanistic universe towards a new paradigm. People will value the things that machines and computers can’t do. Giving and receiving a Feldenkrais lesson, connecting to another person’s nervous system and therefore their thinking, sensing and feeling may actually be the step towards a different economy – where people value attention, compassion and connection more than Iphones, BMWs and designer jeans.You just can’t get that with an app.
