It is Presidents’ Day.  Top ten on a survey list: 1) Abe Lincoln abolished slavery, 2) FDR got working America back on its heels, 3) George Washington created a citizen president, 4) Thomas Jefferson doubled US size with Louisiana purchase, 5) common man Andrew Jackson proved humble beginnings hinders no one, 6) trust buster TR v. corrupt business, also committed deeply to conservation, 7) Woodrow Wilson led America out of isolation, 8) Harry Truman made hard decisions including the use of the A-bomb, 9) James K. Polk acquired CA, NM, OR, as manifest destiny, and 10) Ike Eisenhower presided over America’s post-WWII economic prosperity.

 

In the topography of consciousness, we delineate three sides of the same reality.  One is the social process perspective that engages economic support of human existence, the political organization of decision-making, the cultural significance and meaning of every human endeavor, and to balance the process that impacts and determines actions and deeds.

 

Science of late has been pushing the second perspective, a planetary one that zeroes in on ecological state and well being of the earth, metaphorically rendered as the global brain in Gaia’s journey.  Since the blue orb created the celebrated image of the earthrise, this perspective has gained common currency.

 

E.g., groups of Christian faithful are engaged this Lent season in carbon fast, a conscious curtailing of carbon emission by prudent individual practices.  With an Easter resurrection theme, measures like collaboratively planting trees are undertaken to create natural carbon-catching processes.   In our own thinking, we refer to the social and planetary part of the trichotomy as eco-democracy.

 

The third category is the human, a ten thousand year journey in the backdrop of a 4.5 billion year old evolving planet, where the sense, feelings, thoughts, and resolve of a unit of consciousness has entered the discourse of history, sociology, and psychology.

 

Enuff of the theoretics!  Tuesday evening in America, President Barack Obama delivered SOTU 2013.  How human is our President?  He began with a JFK quote: “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power, but partners for progress… It is my task to report the state of the union. To improve it is the task of us all.” 

 

The president who spent most of his first term dealing with a recalcitrant and gridlocked Congress, he continued on a forceful and consistent “Yes, we can” theme.