When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or “want,” and whose object can be “something” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in the presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else.
I was caught too, by that "old sense" of terrible. Like maybe that Psalm "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" could just be "I am terribly made" like a crashing wave, or a lightening struck tree. We are terribly made, so beautiful it hurts, and so terminal that it's beautiful.
I hold on to your words. I always have. Your Evolution Traverse trip report, the piece about changing the oil on the Ranger and if you could centrifuge the microns of metal out that they could tell a story of all the places you'd been. Or the piece in the guide book, Gravity Wants You. I liked how different narrative perspectives took turns, intimate and omniscient. I like how you are scared of pretense. I like when you share your words.
Speaking of which, think this response is a too intimate for substack? Well I'm trying to be more courageous. Maybe I'll take it down later..
I see you and nod. And even if not exactly, I may understand soon.
Do you get this thing, even with people you love, demotivated and inspired too? Well I get that reading Marilynne Robinson, and I get that reading you. But recently, I see a seed of it in me too. I recognize a root of common greatness in each off us.
That's what makes the writing so good, what makes it stop us in our tracks with awe. It makes us recognize greatness in us all. Terribly and greatly "I" and "us".
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing - for participating! It's a little miracle to stir another conscious mind and feeling heart. And it nurtures faith in a sameness we share, as part of a family in our case, and as members of that greater family.
In reading certain words we do both experience that dual sense of demotivation / inspiration. Maybe a better duality is awe / audacity. Has a nice ring to it anyway. Being awed by thoughts from another mind and having the audacity to broadcast your own. Does require dispelling briefly the fear of pretense, since it is a great pretense to believe that your thoughts can be worth sharing (and are shareable) and that they might elicit awe in another.
Anyway, vulnerability is courage and nothing's too intimate, feelingswise, in this little corner of the internet, so don't be deleting yours!
I was caught too, by that "old sense" of terrible. Like maybe that Psalm "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" could just be "I am terribly made" like a crashing wave, or a lightening struck tree. We are terribly made, so beautiful it hurts, and so terminal that it's beautiful.
I hold on to your words. I always have. Your Evolution Traverse trip report, the piece about changing the oil on the Ranger and if you could centrifuge the microns of metal out that they could tell a story of all the places you'd been. Or the piece in the guide book, Gravity Wants You. I liked how different narrative perspectives took turns, intimate and omniscient. I like how you are scared of pretense. I like when you share your words.
Speaking of which, think this response is a too intimate for substack? Well I'm trying to be more courageous. Maybe I'll take it down later..
I see you and nod. And even if not exactly, I may understand soon.
Do you get this thing, even with people you love, demotivated and inspired too? Well I get that reading Marilynne Robinson, and I get that reading you. But recently, I see a seed of it in me too. I recognize a root of common greatness in each off us.
That's what makes the writing so good, what makes it stop us in our tracks with awe. It makes us recognize greatness in us all. Terribly and greatly "I" and "us".
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing - for participating! It's a little miracle to stir another conscious mind and feeling heart. And it nurtures faith in a sameness we share, as part of a family in our case, and as members of that greater family.
In reading certain words we do both experience that dual sense of demotivation / inspiration. Maybe a better duality is awe / audacity. Has a nice ring to it anyway. Being awed by thoughts from another mind and having the audacity to broadcast your own. Does require dispelling briefly the fear of pretense, since it is a great pretense to believe that your thoughts can be worth sharing (and are shareable) and that they might elicit awe in another.
Anyway, vulnerability is courage and nothing's too intimate, feelingswise, in this little corner of the internet, so don't be deleting yours!