We Are Not Diverse from Space, Light, and Time

Good grief, I was tired when I did this. I apologize for that, but it should be great for those who are having trouble drifting off to sleep.

Explanation: I had just spent the previous two days wandering around Washington D.C. with my teen, skipping meals, dashing around from museum to museum from morning until past dark —which is a far cry from sitting in front of a laptop all day long, per usual.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art won the gold star this visit, for the permanent exhibits, the excellent special exhibits, and especially for the staff! Once docent event walked us from the gallery in which she was working all the way over to a different section, just to show us her inspiration piece.

Corcoran Gallery folks — we weren’t getting the same vibe from you all, but the kind young gentleman at the exit made up for the rest of you Sad Sacks.

Back to the podcast — although I thought I was holding up pretty well after several days of hectic Smithsonianing — the recording betrays how zzzzzzz I was.

Here’s the Emerson piece I used — from his Nature — in case you want to just read it and move on with your day.

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The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct…. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. Fo the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things from space, from light from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (?)

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Best of all things to you, my friend.