[ecstatic magic]

This world of escapists I had lived among, this crowd of reformers, artists, writers, labor leaders, philosophers, and scientists, they had been terribly busy all the time 'doing the job' as they were wont to call it, the job, in fact, of avoiding the responsibility of themselves, and of getting onto themselves, and their activities had not left them time or leisure to be : for merely being. They reasoned and they rationalized, they fed themselves and they made love, they wrote, painted, telephoned, and talked at a furious rate—but they never radiated. They had not the time to be: to be anything much, and never the time to be kind, kind, as I was learning now, a man could be.

[Translation] is a rendering, as in provision of help or a service, or a melting down to clarify, or a processing to extract what’s still usable, and another rendering, as in performance. It should also be a surrendering.

Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

Truly, it is not knowledge which defiles a man, far from it. Knowledge is like the sheerest transparency, precisely the most perfect and purest, like the purest water, which has no taste at all.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.