24. Shifting Meanings

Language is based on agreement. You and I can communicate only insofar as we agree on the meanings of the words we use. If you judge one of the words to have a different meaning than I judge it to have, then I will not be able to communicate what I intend by using that word. Similarly, if I use a word that has no recognizable meaning for you, then I will not communicate anything at all, since for you it will be literal nonsense.

23. The Right Direction

We put enormous emphasis on optimizing quantities. Our attention is shackled to screens where we make certain numbers go up and other numbers go down. We want to measure everything so that we can control and optimize it. The benefit of this is that we are able to fulfill our material needs more efficiently and with less effort.

But by doing so, we begin to think only about quantities. We create incentives to sacrifice quality in order to obtain better quantitative results. We become so focused on measuring and optimizing, on increasing efficiency and productivity, that we stop thinking about what is happening to us in our day-to-day lives.

22. She Stays Home A Lot

She has many problems but perhaps the biggest is that she is always bored.

The people she knows talk endlessly about the most mundane topics. She doesn’t understand how they can stay interested in these things. The games and the shows and the movies that they find so engaging do nothing for her. It’s just the same thing over and over again, she wants to say. But she doesn’t say anything. She just listens and nods.

21. To Be Concerned With Everything

My attention must be free to wander. But often I inhibit its freedom. I narrowly focus on one task to the exclusion of all else, or I block particular experiences or ideas from my view, or I try to possess and maintain whatever is present.

When I do these things, my attention becomes stuck. My imposed control restrains it. Being stuck is not the same as lingering or being at rest. My attention may rest on a single point, but I need to allow this to happen without force.

20. The Music Of The Text

Writing that is alive evokes powerful feelings of excitement, of anticipation, of concern, and of joy.

Many elements of a text can contribute to the creation of these feelings. Elements like pacing, vocabulary, structure, metaphor, and tension can all play a role. But these are only tools and, if haplessly deployed, they can easily produce something mechanical and barren of life. A text can be furnished with all the markers of good writing and still fall flat. What is it that breathes life into these elements that are otherwise static and unmoving?

19. Reaching For The Unreachable

The body needs contact and it needs intimacy. It needs to touch the world and feel itself to be part of it. It needs to feel itself shared and connected with others. It needs to be recognized as a living thing among other living things.

Deep inside, the body carries memories of contact. As a child: with parents, siblings, relatives, schoolmates. As an adult: with friends, family, lovers. The body remembers contact as a place of comfort, warmth, and joy.

18. A Paragon Of Human Perfection

When I believe I can do no wrong, I am in great danger.

This belief should be a blaring klaxon. It is a warning that my awareness is profoundly lacking. It is impossible to exist in this world without ever harming anyone. Even if I were the most ethical person ever to have lived, I am still human. And a human being makes mistakes. A human being cannot foresee all possible outcomes. Perfection might be possible but it is not plausible.

17. Doing Not Being

I run my hand over the grass and I feel the texture of the individual blades — their sharp, freshly-cut edges tickling the skin of my palm. This is a singular experience. I am touching this particular patch of grass at this particular time with this particular hand. This has never been done and it will not be done again. Not here, not now, not by me.

I bring my hands into my lap and close my eyes. I am seated on the grass. I can feel it pressing against my bare legs. I let the feeling go, so that it becomes one with the ordinary condition of my body. I ignore everything I can hear or smell, everything outside of me. I am the singular experience now. What is it to be me, in the absence of the external world? What is it to have this particular body? I am alive, I know, but what is it to be alive?

16. The Process Of Creation Advances

The task of creation is always unfinished. From every newly crafted thing, a new arrangement of meanings emerges, and from that, new possibilities appear. New possibilities beget new questions, and something further must be created in response.

As the process of creation advances, meanings become more detailed and questions become more nuanced. The target of these questions cannot ever be reached. It is the heart of our experience as living beings, as entities that are both subject and object. It is perhaps even the heart of existence itself. To attempt to name it necessarily fails, because it is everything and nothing at the same time. All that we can do is to create and create again and, through our creations, uncover as much of it as we possibly can.