Purpose: A Butterfly in the Sky

Photo by:Gary Bendig

Two years ago, I walked into Mom’s Organic Grocery store singing the anthem to Reading Rainbow much to my son’s chagrin, and as I pulled out my shopping cart there was a man of my opposite. Meaning, I am small. He is tall. I am thin; he was decidedly muscular. I am pale; he was dark. But we were both older. So I took a chance and said, “Do you remember Reading Rainbow?”

He looked at me, then my son, cleared his throat and started: “Butterfly in the skyyyyy——”

I joined in and we both turned to my befuddled son and sang: “I can fly twice as high, take a look it’s in a book, a Reading Rainbow!”

We laughed. He looked at me, and if I were to interpret the moment, we saw how very much we have in common, and how easily including children in a moment reminds us how similar we are.

So much can happen from connection. Human beings are wired to create and connect.

Computers and algorithms are created to compartmentalize and the dissonance is spilling over so wildly we are being sold an idea that would leave us forgetting who we are.

Unless, unless you are in room with other humans on purpose.

Recently I attended the Women’s Public Leadership Network Summit in Philadelphia. Being in a room with purposeful leaders, changes connections and conversations. Instead of competition, I was talking cooperative education solutions over the coffee and French toast with a funder in Texas.

When she asked me what I was focusing on, I reached for a few more strawberries and mentioned, “we need long form education to give a runway to critical thinking instead of episodic data consumption.”

She stopped in the buffet line and looked at me: “Everyone knows this and no one is saying it.”

I am saying it.

I have been speaking on it in rooms of parents and educators on the need to scaffold critical thinking before curbing a mind toward Claude or building synapses to feed an algorithm.

I am telling local businesses that those who double down on humanity, will be light years ahead of those who shackle themselves to predicative data without a pulse. Parents, voters and now even representatives are having very different conversations on education.

This is where Reading Rainbow comes in: Literacy creates empowered children.

Empowered children have confidence to pursue purpose. Purpose is the shelter of humanity. We are wired to create and we flourish in healthy community. We deflate when we are out of ourselves and become destructive when we are isolated.

The answers are not that baffling; they do require a return to investing in humanity instead of a p & l line.

It will also, I imagine, be helpful to look at what is similar to us, like the man in the grocery store, and acknowledge that loved children who feel a place in a community will build a world we will age in. Yes, I said it. It’s easy to tear down and be selfish in your prime if you feel invincible and protected, but not so much when you are at the hands of another, sitting with what was once former strength is now in a place of surrender.

When we foster purpose in our children, we are reminded of the power of purpose in ourselves.

It doesn’t mean the same dream for everyone, yet it does offer a possibility for us all to be living with the freedom of a butterfly in the sky — emergent and soaring.