Nutopia

Before anybody wonders, my screen name is a reference to Seamus Heaney's poem "Whatever you say say nothing"--last stanza discussing meaning of life.

Meg, I wanted to give credit where it's due. I use your song "Nutopia" in my Intro to Phil class to get students thinking about certain issues--some get it, some don't--but it's another tool in the arsenal. "oh, he lives, but without thinking" goes the old Latin saying.

In particular, your lyrics "alive to the universe, dead to the world" lead to the best conversations. Did you mean it to be a metaphysical critique? Like space travel, we humans seem to love avoiding the here and now--the reality of the suffering we have about us and inside us--and the desire to flee. We don't even regard the reality of our death as necessity, but as some way station to something else. Like Krishnamurti wrote, when we delude ourselves with the illusion of continuity we destroy our creative potential. Some great stuff, Meg.