Coffee Cups, Frogs, and Lived Experience

Abstract

Stories are how we make sense of experiences, thus providing the historical sense of life. To paraphrase Dewey, extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience enables us to do the same for our pasts. The continual reconstruction of the past in the light of the present is integral to full engagement with the present time. When we tell stories over a cup of coffee, we participate in the wholeness of language, which is itself a means of enacting the wholeness of life.Things are not objects. In fact, things are precisely the opposite of objects.
When we are focused on things, we are actually also focused on ourselves. When I am focusing on the attachment of this coffee cup, I am actually getting back to myself quite fast, as well as to the entire history of Italian coffeemaking, the people who are harvesting the coffee, etc. This cup of coffee is an assembly.

Keywords

• sense
• experiences
• providing