STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
An online date gone awry. The adventure gene in our DNA. What constitutes a real man in the 21st century.
Fifteen TED talks traversed a wide array of subjects during the second annual TEDxSunValley held Saturday at the Sun Valley Opera House.
“It’s incredible to me how these people want to make this a better world,” said Aimee Christensen, who co-founded Sun Valley’s version of “ideas worth spreading” with Kim Castellano.
Each of the speakers boiled 60-plus hours of preparation down into 13 minutes as they entertained, educated and inspired their audience.
Terry O’Connor, an emergency room physician at St. Luke’s, said he found himself climbing 26,000-foot Mount Everest just two weeks after one of his climbing buddies had perished while climbing.
“I wondered why, after that, I was drawn like a moth to the flame to the summit,” he said. Credit DRD4, the adventure gene in our DNA, which makes us hardwired to want this sense of awe, he said.
This is the same sort of awe we got when we saw the moon turn day to night during the total solar eclipse, he added. And those who experience this sense of awe daily are more likely to be connected to others, even to the point of being more willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
Todd Mitchem, the co-founder and CEO of the dating service app for pot smokers named “High There,” said he got a rude awakening when he got stood up by a woman he’d connected with on his app. But it all worked out when he met the woman who would eventually become his wife through what he called an “eyes up”—the human connection.
Mitchem pulled out his cell phone showing all the highly customized apps designed to meet every need. But, he asked, is this creating a culture where we demand everything be “my way or the highway”?
“Is it turning on us and potentially damaging our relationships?” he asked.
Mitchem noted that his criteria for dating had specified the woman must live within 15 miles of him—and the woman who became his wife lived 16 miles away.
Those who marry after meeting online are three times more likely to divorce than those who meet through organic means, he said. There are no algorithms or apps that can replace the connections made with good old-fashioned eye contact and talking to one another, he added.
Hayley Stuart, the 23-year-old daughter of Charlie and Mimi Stuart, described how her schooling in New River Academy—a school without walls—had opened her eyes to the free flowing rivers around the world that are threatened by dams.
“Rivers are the figurative veins of our world,” providing nutrients and more life giving things, she added.
Stuart described how a dam built on one river produced unintended flooding when it backed up. Its reservoir promoted malaria and the dam quashed the tourism the free-flowing river had brought in.
The Three Gorges Dam in China is five times bigger than the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, its reservoir so heavy it can slow the world’s spin, Stuart noted. And the Grand Inga Dam proposed for the Congo River is twice as large.
Narda Pitkethly told how nearly one in every five high school students are functionally illiterate—unable to read above third-grade level—when they graduate. Illiteracy is the No. 1 predictor of future criminal activity, she added.
But a system of reading she calls Nardagani has been proven to teach youngsters how to read in eight or fewer hour-long lessons.
“I once thought reading was impossible. Now I know all things are possible,” said one of her young charges.
Nadia Novik said she learned to stop judging people who had to relinquish their pets to the animal shelter when she realized that “for every animal story there’s a people story.”
Adventurer kayaker Gerry Moffat noted that everything he’s learned along the way has come from making mistakes—“and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
And Kate Riley who has served as a type of midwife for those facing death, told of her vision for a beautiful home where the dying can end their days in a beautiful meadow by a gurgling creek.
Dale Bates and Cody Lee presented an unusual two-man TED talk.
Lee described how he had returned from fighting with the U.S. Marines in Iraq with no sense of direction or purpose. He tried to distract himself by buying a manly man’s car, but financing his manliness only bankrupted him.
Finally, he decided to try dancing since it was on his bucket list. That’s when he met an “old guy,” who not only was a dance instructor but who had confidence in who he was.
Bates slid into the spotlight describing how he had just retired from his architectural practice and was considering his transition to a new stage of his life via questions he’s asked himself throughout his life. Among them: Who am I? Why am I here? What do I believe? What do I do in life and What More Can I Become?
“Dale did not know my answers, but he knew what questions to ask,” said Lee.
The topics were so diverse and all the speeches delivered so well it was difficult for those in the audience to pick a favorite.
But Sean Evangelista, an online T-shirt creator, said he was most intrigued by Stuart’s talk about dams.
“It’s more time consuming seeing these TED talks in person them watching them on Apple,” he said. “But it’s inspiring.”
Speaker Kevin Cahill has traveled the country giving dozens of speeches on behalf of the Deming Institute, which teaches his grandfather’s principles for business success. But, he said, Saturday’s TED Talk was the hardest he’d ever made.
“It was not even in the same ballpark,” he said. “The first time I gave my speech it was 27 minutes and I had to pare it to 13. I didn’t know how to do it.”
To help, Cahill studied the secret of those who can memorize a phone book in 10 minutes. The technique, he said, goes back to the ancient Greeks who had to memorize their stories in the days before the printing press.
"I have another hour-long speech this week and will use elements from this speech in it."
WANT TO HEAR THE TALKS?
Saturday’s TED Talks will be posted online at http://TEDxSunValley.com
GOT AN IDEA WORTH SPREADING?
Applications for TEDxSunValley 2018 will be taken beginning in Spring 2018 with a deadline of June 1, said Co-organizer Kim Castellano.