Exploring the Neurobiological Impact of Modernity on Connection

This chapter explores how contemporary societal structures and environments impact our biological and emotional connections, particularly through the lens of serotonin production. It advocates for adopting indigenous educational paradigms that foster a deeper, visceral connection to the earth and each other, countering the disconnection felt in modern society.

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Entangled World explores the interrelated, existential social, economic, ecological, and technological risks we face, their underlying drivers, and how a more beautiful world might emerge.

Entangled World is a labor of love, I am deeply grateful for the generosity of my listeners and fans. Please consider supporting the project at https://www.patreon.com/entangledworld

Today on the podcast, I talked with Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti. Vanessa is the author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism, which is a beautiful and critical read for our times in which we must all navigate the global crises we face.

In this episode, we discuss the implications of modernity and what is required of us today, to plant the seeds for a more just, beautiful future for all. Vanessa shares insights from her work in Brazil and with Indigenous communities, highlighting the artificial divide between humans and nature and modernity's impact on our neurobiology.

We discuss cultivating a sense of relational maturity, emotional sobriety, and intellectual discernment and why a move from narrow boundary intelligence, or “either/or,” thinking to wide boundary intelligence, which considers “both/and,” is essential to perceive and then appropriately and morally navigate our actions.

We also discuss how the pattern of modernity is to project an image of the future with fixed form and fixed meanings, so that we can engineer a perfect world. But this is actually a trap that keeps us bound in problematic ways of thinking that have resulted in the existential crises we face. So rather than trying to imagine objective forms, such as what does the future we want look like, we can focus on the vibrational field, how do we want it to feel and how do we work backwards from that? What does it require of us today? What control and certainly must we give up?

This was a thought-provoking conversation about what it means to live more consciously in our paradoxical world and the role that each of us can play as we navigate from modernity to relationality.

00:00 Introduction to Entangled World

01:03 Meet the Host: Najia Shaukat Lupson

02:07 Guest Introduction: Vanessa's Story

02:34 Vanessa's Background and Family History

04:11 Challenges and Paradoxes in Vanessa's Upbringing

06:25 Vanessa's Journey in Education and Indigenous Work

10:55 Exploring the Root of Global Crises

13:12 The House of Modernity: A Metaphor

19:43 Navigating the Meta Crisis

23:54 The Role of Education in Addressing Crises

30:36 Imagination and Relationality

34:09 The Concept of Entanglement