When we “dare greatly,” we fall; and when we fall, that is when we must “rise strong.” These are truths that animate two of Brene Brown’s inspirational books. She is not overtly spiritual, but she says that spirituality has a part to play in every story of overcoming failure. She has a definition of spirituality: “Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.”
I would just like to elaborate, or give some qualiadelification, to her definition. For it is qualia that connects every one of us to a greater power, as well as to one another. As I have written elsewhere, whether or not God is the greater power that connects us, here on Earth the greater power is ecosystems. For, even among animals, ecosystems provide the gifts that we need to survive. Our ecosystems’ gifts come to us clothed in qualia (colors, smells, sounds, etc). It is qualia that we notice, and which leads us to the matter we need. This is how we, and all life, adapts and evolves. Hence, we are all connected to one another, and to ecosystems, by qualia.
Our senses pick up on qualia that comes from outside of us, but there is another sort of qualia which comes from within. It is still a gift from ecosystems. At some point in our evolution, people began paying attention to their inner landscapes — not their bodies, nor even their brains, but qualia in the mind. Before we ever could understand our world and its ecosystems logically, we mythologized them with stories. Eventually, our stories became “scientific,” and this has come at a cost: nature, to our measuring minds, has lost its qualia. Qualia, after all, can’t be measured. But, despite our refusal to acknowledge it, qualia is really there. No scientist has ever found an idea in the brain, but our ideas have changed the planet.
The mind and its ideas is separate from the brain, just as the body is separate from the landscape outside of it. So, too, are ecosystems something apart from the landscapes they inform. The mind, and ecosystems, are related. It is becoming pretty obvious that our inner qualia comes from ecosystems. It is becoming obvious because common sense tells us that we must protect the source of our gifts, and we are beginning to understand that the source is ecosystems. Is it ironic that this realization has come upon us only now, after we have shown such poor husbandry of the gifts which have long come from outside of us? No, of course not. The truth was in all the myths we left behind to become scientific.
When we fall, we must rise strong, and it is the greater power within our imagination, which inspires us to get up. Our inner qualia links our minds to ecosystems, which are the power greater than ourselves. Our spiritual meaning comes from the obligation to give back to ecosystems, to become a sort of keystone species. In nature, animals and plants normally take only what they need; we are in the process of re-mythologizing this practice — ecology as love and compassion. This is my qualiadelification of Brene Brown’s spirituality.