Perception: Conversation with Stan Smith

Wild and Precious Conversations

Perception: It’s all in how you see — the angle, the lens, the depth. This week, we continue our conversation on family, immigration, vulnerability and beauty with Stan Smith, adjunct professor of social work at USC.

You have to wait until the 37 minute mark to get there, but this is where we end up:

“I think it's true. Family is beautiful.

Not Just the family that I think I deserve to have, or my kid deserves to have, or the family you deserve to have, or the one sitting across the pew from me at St.

Charles or whatever church body that I claim affiliation with, not just the ones that are part of the same school or part of the same culture. Family is beautiful simply because of what family is. Period. Family is beautiful across our. Institutional lines and across our affiliations of culture to a central more deeper place that I think that has meaning with our species.”

It’s worth it, though. I have been learning all along, but recently set aside still more time to learn sound editing — I think you will agree that it paid off.

We speak about keeping families together, the work many people are doing to keep kids safe, the reason that our own vulnerability or lack of vulnerability keeps us from making positive changes, and so much more.

It’s all in our perception.

Notes:

* Stan Smith — Contact email for Stan.

* Hull House — Jane Addams, the “patron saint” of social work.

Onward. With deeper perception:

The Underbelly Project: A weekly workout for your emotional strength and flexibility. If you’re not afraid to get dusty and maybe laugh a bit together, join me and let’s get emotionally strong.

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