Raising Awareness of Awareness

Yesterday Rick and I were walking the boardwalk at Pacific Beach, talking about the kinds of things we talk about. Much of it fell into the category of awareness. He was talking about how little awareness we seem to have of how our life styles negatively impact the life expectancies of people in other countries. I was talking our lack of systems thinking means that we have little understanding of consequences and about how little awareness we seem to have of how much of our life style is unsustainable. Rick pointed out that one of the most basic goals of any religion is to raise awareness, to become self aware at least.

As we walked, we found ourselves among about 4,700 people - mostly women - who were on day two of a three day, 60 mile breast cancer awareness walk.

"Look at this," I said. "Look at how they're using this event to raise awareness of breast cancer. I wonder how we could do something like this."

Rick, always delighted to point out that I'm being absurd even on those odd occasions when I think that I am not, said, "So, you are saying that you want to raise awareness of awareness?"

Oddly enough, I do.