It’s very likely that you interact on a daily basis with a cold piece of glass or plastic you retrieve dozens of times per day from your pocket or pouch — a relatively tiny outer shell that houses a supercomputer by many standards. Into these smartphones, heartless contraptions that they are, we pour our souls. We post our most intimate thoughts into virtual notepads; we pepper questions at search engines, making inquiries on the ingredients of the contents hidden in the darkest corners of our beings. These are things we haven’t disclosed, the boxes we’re afraid to open. We tell Google and Yahoo secrets we’ve told no man and no god. We live with great joys and bitter pains — common and irregular issues of life were once shared because we knew we weren’t the only ones. The fact that we’re not alone in trials hasn’t changed; there are many still engaged in the same wars. What has changed though, are the stories we tell ourselves while we’re in the trenches. We believe that we are, in fact, alone. These are the self-inflicted isolations we easily escape to.
There are many dynamic aspects of the human experience that shape us all in different ways. Depression is currently center stage in our public discourse. The shakened trust some feel toward those sworn to keep us safe and secure. We can be quick to reason these things internally, trusting our own feelings and discounting critical thought. With mere strokes we infect the masses with potentially harmful points of view passed off as thoughtful — yet inarticulately injected via 140 characters. At the same time, life changes for the better. A baby is born into a loving home. A student passes a test she’s been dreading for weeks. A hero returns. This juxtaposition plays itself out every hour of the day. And without noticing, we easily continue to live only considering what’s on the surface.
On Sept. 18 at the West Toledo YMCA/Start High School Theater, TEDxToledo will again collect the brightest minds and leading thinkers in our area for a day full of ideas worth spreading. Attendees will enjoy new friends and local food trucks; students from Start High School will attend for free to fill unsold seats.
This year’s theme, “Human,” explores the many dynamics of the human experience. From 8:45 a.m. until about 4:30 p.m., more than a dozen speakers will take the stage for 18 minutes or less, having prepared the talk of their lives. They’ve rehearsed. They’ve been frustrated and scrapped ideas. They’ve come to revelations and fresh perspectives about subjects they thought they knew deeply. They’ve learned and they’ve grown. Most of all, they have ideas to share. Ideas that, hopefully, cause us all to consider new ways to approach our daily lives in the best ways.
TEDxToledo, a nonprofit event held under license from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), aims to raise the level of conversation in Toledo — literally and figuratively. Our goal is to retarget our energies toward ideas that make a lasting impact. I hope to see you there. Tickets are available now at TEDxToledo.com.
Will Lucas is CEO and Founder at Classana, CEO and Founder at Creadio and a founding organizer of TEDxToledo.
