The C Word

Well. Words, plural.

I’ve been kind of a “word nut” all my life.

A keen collector of great quotations for several decades now.

Along with spending 3 decades or so as an activist (mostly environmental) & writer.

I’ve been keeping a list lately of some particularly - special? - words that start with the letter “c.”

Here goes with some of the c words that seem - well - notable, to me.

• Control

• Conformity

• Complacency

• Compliance

• Collusion

• Censorship

Two memorable quotations about control?

“Energy always flows either toward hope, community, love, generosity, mutual recognition, and spiritual aliveness or it flows toward despair, cynicism, fear that there is not enough, paranoia about the intentions of others, and a desire to control.” ~ Michael Lerner, quoted in The Great Turning – From Empire to Earth Community, by David Korten

“It’s antithetical to the definition of power in this culture that a person might derive power by service rather than control, but that’s the essence of midwifery.” – Elizabeth Davis, Heart & Hands: A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth, quoted in Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia

I have other quotations I could throw in here, but let’s just leave it at that for now.

& then, on the other hand, these ones:

• Connection

“Only connect. This is how we make meaning. This is how we learn to think as Nature thinks.” – Gregory Bateson, anthropologist

• Community

• Cooperation

• Circles

• Collaboration

• Conversation

• Communication

• Curiosity

• Courage!

• Compassion

• Camping 🙂

You can probably make a pretty good guess as to which set of words I see as contributing (another c word!) to the betterment of conditions (oh help) on Planet Earth.

Amidst the chaos, cacophony & confusion.

Not that I’m trying to convince you of anything…

This really kinda got away on me! I better quit while I’m behind.

🙂 🙂

Janet

p.s. I’m a very big advocate of the power of conversation. An old posting on this topic?

p.p.s. for lots of quotations in a wide variety of categories (Lordy; another one) - not all of which start with the letter c! - check out the Quotation Central section on my “old” site.

p.p.p.s. a favourite song of mine lately. Apropos of nothing at all - especially the letter c! (Hey, I’m allowed. It’s my site!!) Enjoy.