They Would Not Understand

A Hole Is to Dig: A First Book of Definitions byRuth Krauss, pictures by Maurice Sendak

The Face
by Franz Wright, from Ill Lit: Selected and New Poems

Is there a single thing in nature
that can approach in mystery
the absolute uniqueness of any human face, first, then   
its transformation from childhood to old age—

We are surrounded at every instant   
by sights that ought to strike the sane   
unbenumbed person tongue-tied, mute   
with gratitude and terror. However,

there may be three sane people on earth   
at any given time: and if
you got the chance to ask them how they do it,   
they would not understand.

I think they might just stare at you
with the embarrassment of pity. Maybe smile
the way you do when children suddenly reveal a secret   
preoccupation with their origins, careful not to cause them shame,

on the contrary, to evince the great congratulating pleasure   
one feels in the presence of a superior talent and intelligence;   
or simply as one smiles to greet a friend who’s waking up,
to prove no harm awaits him, you’ve dealt with and banished all harm.

---

See also: "Small Thoughts in Big Brains," from This American Life, July 22, 2004

What Really Gave You Joy

How to Make Origami Paper from Notebook Paper

Stuart Brown in conversation with Krista Tippett, from "Play, Spirit, and Character," On Being, June 19, 2014: 

I don’t want to foster broken bones and concussions and that sort of thing in kids, but an inherent part of being playful is taking risks. What you don't want to do is have the risks be excessive. And the natural history of play in the world, both animal and human, is that persistent play increases the risk of death and damage while it's taking place, but it appears to be absolutely necessary for the well-being and the future of the species.

So it's a conundrum. But to remove all risk from kids' play is to not allow them the spontaneity from within to develop themselves. It's a judgment call on the part of parents. And this is where I have some beef with the media — in that "if it bleeds, it leads" — the perceptions of the levels of violence and risk in our culture are really beyond what the actual risks are, so that a responsible parent feels they can't let their kid be out on the streets in the afternoon and that sort of thing...

I think it's safer for the person who is a player to take a few hard knocks and maybe have a fracture in childhood, than it is to insulate them from the possibility of that. I think that that constricts their psyches and their futures much more.

Any parent with a young child — say a child over three but under 12 — if you just observe them, and don't try and direct them, and watch what it is they like to do in play, and get some sense of how their temperament intermixes with their play desires, you often will see a key to their innate talents. And if those talents are given fairly free reign, if you allow those innate talents to build upon themselves and the environment is favorable enough so that it supports that...I think that then you see that there is a union between self and talent.

And that this is nature's way of sort of saying this is who you are and what you are. And I'm sure if you go back and think about your children or yourself and go back to your earliest emotion-laden, visual and visceral memories of what really gave you joy, you'll have some sense of what was natural for you and where your talents lie. I think it’s pretty important.

Listen to the whole conversation...

Poetic or Sad of Beautiful

"My poems tend to be about being a middle-aged, middle class, straight, white guy living in middle America. I'm thinking, how do I become one of the great mass of people who sort of, well, keeps America's cars clean and lawns mowed? Exploring ways in which that is poetic or sad or beautiful—that's really exciting to me."  

~ George Bilgere

Poet - George Bilgere from Cleveland Arts Prize on Vimeo.

---

Bilgere, G. (2014). Imperial. Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press. (library, Amazon.com)

The Important of Kindness and Hush

Excerpt from Fine Line: Mental Health/Mental Illness, Michael Nye's portraits of the people experiencing mental illness and homelessness in San Antonio. 

My favorite place to be is a place that I'm most safe. It's a corner in my kitchen and I've got it fixed up to look like a tree house. On my left is a window with plants everywhere and everything a person would want—books, music—that's in my safe place. 

I spend three-quarters of my waking life in that safe place. 

How is it possible to love someone that beats you up, that uses you, that degrades you? I don't understand why a parent would grab a child's hair and twist it around and slam that child into a wall. How a father's who's going  through a drought of loneliness takes one of his children and strip that child of dignity and knowledge and give that child pain. Why would a parent deprive him of food, lock them in a cabinet—why would that happen? 

I'd like to wrap my arms around someone--whether my age or older, younger—wrap my arms around someone that is going through this until they finally believe it's not their fault, they're a beautiful person. 

Kindness is more important than anything else in this world. I think that every philosopher has probably tried to tell us that. That's what it comes down to. What else are we here for, but to take care of each other? To nurture the planet. What else are we here for? 

There's a thing when we're children we experience. It usually exists in libraries and it's called the hush. Like this magic world called Hush. There's not many places now to find hush. Somethimes I really do think if every person would experience hush—even if they almost have to force it on themselves for a while—just the bird, just the wind, nothing else, hush—there would be less violence. 

---

See also:

• "Regarding the Pain of Others," To the Best of Our Knowledge, April 20, 2014
• Posts on pausing, silence, kindness, and soothing difficult emotions 

What if we based education on the study and practice of being happy and healthy?

"What bums me out is to know that a lot of kids today are just wishing to be happy, to be healthy, to be safe, not bullied, and loved for who they are. So it seems to me, when adults say, What do you want to be when you grow up? they just automatically assume that you'll be happy and healthy. Maybe that's not the case.

Go to school. Go to college. Get a job. Get married. Boom! Then you'll be happy. Right? We don't seem to make learning how to be happy and healthy a priority in our schools. It's separate from schools and for some kids, it doesn't exist at all. 

But what if we didn't make it separate? What if we based education on the study and practice of being happy and healthy? Because that's what it is: a practice. And a simple practice at that." 

~ Logan Laplante, from "Hackschooling Makes Me Happy," TEDxUniversityofNevada