JOY SERVED HERE

There are two working languages in human life. One is sort of top of the mind, what we’re conscious of. The other is this unconscious stuff that we might not know about or have access to. The way we access it is usually through this thing we call ‘the arts.’ Unfortunately, that has gotten removed from the regular daily experience of human life. What I’m trying to do is to show that there is a way that they can come together, and that you can make things in a way that makes you actually feel alive and present. That’s what I’m after: feeling alive in the world.

I remember when I was young, my mother used to say, ’Why don’t you go out more? What have you done today? Why haven’t you gone out to lunch?’ I used to say, ‘Mother I spent lunch with Bernard Shaw!’ What on Earth could one do better than that? If you have books what else is there? When you have books, you have the choice of the best brains all through the centuries of civilization!

I like to keep one work of fiction and one of nonfiction going at once, and I’ll use them to triangulate against each other to conjure up some third space. Paper, electronic and audio each have their affordances, and all have their time and season. I read all day long, in every posture and room of the house, and I even take books outside with me in order to sit with them at special spots along the trails and rivers near home.

What makes life worth living? No child asks itself that question. To children life is self-evident. Life goes without saying: whether it is good or bad makes no difference. This is because children don’t see the world, don’t observe the world, don’t contemplate the world, but are so deeply immersed in the world that they don’t distinguish between it and their own selves. Not until that happens, until a distance appears between what they are and what the world is, does the question arise: what makes life worth living?