“It’s within mystery—real or invented—that the human spirit thrives. (“I don’t believe in God,” I told one of my students many years ago. “But I do believe in mystery.”)” David Halperin, “Chariots of the Gods?” – Erich von Däniken and the Book of Enoch
Tag Archives: CommonplaceBook
Examining the unlived life
Alex has a wonderful essay up this week on the unexamined life vs the unlived life. I recognized so much of myself in his description of his early college self. And i would say it’s only been fairly recently that I’ve decided to bias myself towards action — even fidgety action — over excessive rumination. …
Dahl on travel and civilization
In this excerpt from Roald Dahl’s Boy, his mother asks if he wants to go to Oxford or Cambridge. “No, thank you,” I said. “I want to go straight from school to work for a company that will send me to wonderful faraway places like Africa or China.” You must remember that there was virtually …
Dahl on the life of businessmen and writers
In the following excerpt from Roald Dahl’s Boy, he’s left public school at 18 to take a job with Shell Oil company. He is taking their internal training courses and is learning the business. …[E]very morning, six days a week, Saturdays included, I would dress neatly in a sombre grey suit, have breakfast at seven …
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Great words
From the final Hold this Thought broadcast: “In East of Eden, John Steinbeck writes: ‘A child may ask, “What is the world’s story about?” And a grown man or woman may wonder, “What way will the world go? How does it end and, while we’re at it, what’s the story about?” I believe that there …
On acting and life
By then, the veterans had developed an informal set of rules for themselves: Take the craft seriously ([Judi] Dench: “deadly”). Don’t take yourself seriously ([Patrick] Stewart: “That’s death to creativity”). Never think you know it all (Dench: “Absolutely fatal”). Ian McKellen: The Player – TIME
“The Midnight Disease”
A few years ago, I read and enjoyed Alice W. Flaherty’s memoir, The Midnight Disease. Suffering from postpartum depression after the death of her newborn child, she began experiencing hypergraphia — the uncontrollable urge to write. She filled pages and pages with her writing, and couldn’t stop — the opposite of writer’s block. Flaherty is …
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