Information: what is it?

It’s all around us. The leaves on trees contain it. The sky above. The soil beneath. Your body is full of it. It leaks out into and from words, actions, thoughts, and existence. It’s colors, smells, tastes, shapes, textures, patterns, sounds. It’s detectable and undetectable. Unavoidable yet so often missed…

If we were to consider the set of all information in the world, we could subdivide it into two categories: extracted and imparted. This, then, is how we interact with the world around us: we extract information from it, and impart information to it. This can be done in a variety of ways. Consider the following chart which features each with its opposite:

The last is my very favorite because it combines all of the above into a masterful means through which we might extract information through experience and impart information through discipling, or guiding, others.