Home > Author > Tyson Yunkaporta
1 " Guilt is like any other energy: you can't accumulate it or keep it because it makes you sick and disrupts the system you live in - you have to let it go. Face the truth, make amends and let it go. "
― Tyson Yunkaporta , Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
2 " an Indigenous person is a member of a community retaining memories of life lived sustainably on a land base, as part of that land base. "
3 " If people are laughing, they are learning. True learning is a joy because it is an act of creation. "
4 " After three of four years of schooling, the nucleus basalis, which forms sharp memories in the brain, falls into disuse and decays. This is the part of the brain that makes learning so effortless for small children, and it is always activated in undomesticated humans. But neuroplasticity research has shown that damage to the nucleus basalis can be reversed by reintroducing activities involving highly focused attention, which results in massive increases in production of acetylcholine and dopamine. Using new skills under conditions of intense focus rewires billions of neural connections and reactivates the nucleus basalis. Loss of function in this part of the brain is not a natural stage of development--we are supposed to retain and even increase it throughout our lives. Until very recently in human history, we did. "
5 " You can't maintain a culture that is based on retarding the development of half the population, particularly the half that is responsible for creating life. "
6 " Most of us have been displaced from those cultures of origin, a global diaspora of refugees severed not only from land, but from the sheer genius that comes from belonging in symbiotic relation to "
7 " And that's how romance works. It exploits the Achilles' heel of exceptional women: their desire th think the best of men and stand by their side. Contrary to popular belief, men are not turned off by powerful women. Rather, they long for them, court them, wine and dine them, and ultimately either ruin them or lock them in their towers. It was the violence of romance that conquered women, more than witch pyres and swords and pillaging. Once trapped, the protection rackets run by their captors kept terrorized females dependent and compliant so as not to disturb the precarious and conditional security they were offered. They were then fattened up and put to work on their backs, either as breeders or playthings. "
8 " Understanding your own culture and the ways it interacts with others, particularly the power dynamics of it, is far more appreciated. My reading of Germane Greer when I was a young lad was a lot more conducive to forming relationships with European females than my reading of Dante was--and that was more about my understanding of my male privilege and controlling its excess than being an export on women's literature or issues. This kind of cultural humility is a useful exercise in understanding your role as an agent of sustainability in a complex system. It is difficult to relinquish the illusions of power and delusions of exceptionalism that come with privilege. But it is strangely liberating to realise your true status as a node in a single network. There is honour to be found in this role, and a certain dignified agency. You won't be swallowed up by a hive mind or individuality--you will retain your autonomy while simultaneously being profoundly interdependent and connected. "
9 " Maybe the reason all the powerful instruments pointed at the sky have not yet been able to detect high-tech alien civilisations is that these unsustainable societies don’t last long enough to leave a cosmic trace. "
10 " I’m not reporting on Indigenous Knowledge systems for a global audience’s perspective. I’m examining global systems from an Indigenous Knowledge perspective. "
11 " than individual inventions or amendments. That is not to say that all demotic innovations are benevolent. But if you listen to many voices and stories and discern a deep and complex pattern emerging, you can usually determine what is real and what has been airbrushed for questionable agendas or corrupted by flash mobs of narcissists. "
12 " These are connections between two points that were previously unconnected. Jokes are one of the most pure examples of this neural creation event; most humor is based on two ideas coming together in a new way: puns, rhymes, double meanings, unusual circumstances, accidents, exposed delusions, and contextually inappropriate content are examples of this. The chemical rush we get from sudden neural connections in jokes is so intense and pleasurable that we laugh out loud. This kind of humor and joy in learning is a huge part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. If people are laughing, they are learning. True learning is a joy because it is an act of creation. "
