Public talks that resonate with Ken Burns’ Seeing, Searching, Being documentary, a collaboration with philosopher William Segal that probes into what defines our true meaning in the world. William Segal (1904 – 2000) was a philosopher, publisher, writer, and painter who searched relentlessly and compassionately for meaning in the chaotic and distracted time we call the 20th Century. The student of such diverse masters as G.I. Gurdjieff and D.T. Suzuki, Segal helped bring Eastern and Western spiritual traditions together, always stressing what connected humanity rather than what differentiated it. In the last decade of his life, Segal befriended the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and the two collaborated on an interior trilogy to ask the question: what is it that defines our true meaning in the world? William Segal quotes from Intense City blog posts: “When one is still and listens, one begins to be in touch with a mysterious element that is within each of us, which can transform and shape us and can help to transform the world.” — William Segal obituary in the New York Times “We can’t say why we search, except that there seems to be an innate need, in each human being, to know who one is, what we’re here for, how to live more poetically.” — William Segal, in Ken Burns’ “Seeing, Searching, and Being”
Public talks that resonate with Ken Burns’ Seeing, Searching, Being documentary, a collaboration with philosopher William Segal that probes into what defines our true meaning in the world. William Segal (1904 – 2000) was a philosopher, publisher, writer, and painter who searched relentlessly and compassionately for meaning in the chaotic and distracted time we call the 20th Century. The student of such diverse masters as G.I. Gurdjieff and D.T. Suzuki, Segal helped bring Eastern and Western spiritual traditions together, always stressing what connected humanity rather than what differentiated it. In the last decade of his life, Segal befriended the documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and the two collaborated on an interior trilogy to ask the question: what is it that defines our true meaning in the world? William Segal quotes from Intense City blog posts: “When one is still and listens, one begins to be in touch with a mysterious element that is within each of us, which can transform and shape us and can help to transform the world.” — William Segal obituary in the New York Times “We can’t say why we search, except that there seems to be an innate need, in each human being, to know who one is, what we’re here for, how to live more poetically.” — William Segal, in Ken Burns’ “Seeing, Searching, and Being”
