Adventures in Going Nowhere with Pico Iyer
About this Conversation
In these overwhelming times, it's urgent to slow down and relish in being still.
Join us for a conversation with Pico Iyer, the author of The Art of Stillness, revered by the New Yorker as a “spiritual and intellectual adventurer”.
His four TED talks have been watched more than 10 million times for his reflections on what he calls our “inner world”.
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Show Notes
00:55 – Pico Iyer on TED
05:40 – Paradise Lost
24:07 – Pope Francis’ 2020 Easter address
32:11 – The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer
33:00 – Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the 14th Dalai Lama
Pico Iyer
Novelist and nonfiction author Pico Iyer writes on subjects ranging from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism, from Graham Greene to forgotten nations and the 21st-century global order.
““Going nowhere, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.””
Why should you listen?
Pico Iyer's books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
His 2008 meditation on the XIVth Dalai Lama, The Open Road, and his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, were best-sellers across the US.
Outside magazine called him "arguably the greatest living travel-writer," and the New Yorker said, "As a guide to far-flung places, he can hardly be surpassed."
Since 2013, Iyer has delivered four talks for TED, including the closing talk for the first-ever TEDSummit, in 2016, and the opening talk for the second TEDSummit, in 2019.
An essayist for TIME since 1986, Iyer is a constant contributor to the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, Granta, and more than 200 other newspapers and magazines worldwide, and he has published introductions to 70 other works.
Transcription
Outtake: Pico Iyer 00:00
I think what this moment is reminding us of is we have much less control over the outside world than we imagined. But we have much more control over our own world than we suspect.
Click to read more...
Intro: Derek Handley 00:55
In these overwhelming times, it's urgent to slow down and relish in being still. In this episode, I talk with Pico Iyer from his Kyoto home. He's the author of The Art of Stillness, and is revered by the New Yorker, as a spiritual and intellectual adventurer. His four TED talks have been watched more than 10 million times. His reflections are on what he calls our inner world. Join us.
Conversation:Derek Handley 01:27
I thought that in these crazy times were, in a sense, you know, our cities are still our homes are at times still, our economies are still, our minds and our hearts though or anything, but, for the most part, still. And as we're even more confined in spaces and places like New Zealand, and Australia and New York, where we are under whatever you call it, lockdown, or sheltering place, or however people are describing it. There's this shared sense of going nowhere, going nowhereness, which is another phrase that Pico, you have used. So it's an exceptionally rare opportunity for stillness. And I wanted to start by asking, I guess, opening it up Pico. In amongst all of this, what have you been reflecting on? And what have you been seeing as this all unfolds with regards to, I guess, this whole idea of being still?
Pico Iyer 02:32
Yes. Before I say anything, I'm just so delighted to be talking to you. This is a beautiful fruit of this curious moment that you and I get to talk without ever having met in person across 2000 miles, or however far it is, and join in a larger conversation. I think what I've noticed, and the reason that I wrote that book, and gave a TED talk about stillness was that for the last 10 years, I'm sure you've had the same experience, all my friends have been saying I don't have time, my life is out of control. I wish I could spend more time with my family. I'm on this roller coaster I never wanted to get on and now I don't know how to get off it. The world is accelerating at the pace determined by machines. I suppose my feeling was that humans can't live it at a pace determined by machines unless we want to become machines, ourselves, which none of us do, and that the more we've been trying to keep up with the moment, the more we've been falling behind. I keep on hearing, in the last 15 years, people are overwhelmed, they have more data coming in then they know what to do with. They've lost the chance to think about what they really care about. So in this curious, unsought moment, suddenly, we've been forced to stop. I think everybody is part of this conversation, everyone around the world is most thinking about the people who are undefended, who don't have a roof over their heads, who don't have a job to go back to, who don't have resources or who are sick. That's clearly the first priority. But for some of us, like maybe some in this conversation who may be able to come out of this relatively intact. I think this gives us a wonderful opportunity. First, to remember what really sustains us. Is racing around doing 16 things at once really going to make us happier, clearer, or more productive? Or is taking a deep breath and stepping away from the world, so as better to know how to go back into it the best way to advance? Many people have always thought we advance by taking a retreat. In some ways, this is an enforced retreat. Of course, I as you know, I say in my book quite early on, nobody wants to be in a forced position of stillness. None of us wants to be imprisoned, or an invalid or stuck in one place forever against our will. But now and then as a way to reboot and reminding us not to take too much for granted, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world.
Derek Handley 04:55
Yeah, because you say in your book: Going nowhere is the grand adventure that makes sense of everything else. I can't remember if that something that you said, or someone else you quoted. But is this some sort of twisted prize of this quarantine, like for those of us who aren't at the frontlines, aren't you know, really at the coalface of the trauma and the pain, is this some sort of bonus booby prize that we should be forced into this scenario?
Pico Iyer 05:24
It's maybe a secret prize, secret treasure. I remember, when I was a kid growing up in England, we had to learn Shakespeare, and we read there: There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. If you listened to the Dalai Lama, who might have been travelling with for 45 years, he says exactly the same thing. In Paradise Lost, there's a famous line, "The mind is its own place that can make a hell of heaven, where heaven is hell." I think what this moment is reminding us of, is we have much less control over the outside world than we imagine. But we have much more control over our own world than we suspect. To that degree it's up to us whether to see this just in terms of pain and frustration and inconvenience or opportunity.
Pico Iyer 06:08
I remember, for example, I was once in my family home in California, some years ago, I saw this distant line of orange cutting through a hillside. I went to call the fire department, the next minute, our whole house was encircled by 70 foot flames and our house and every last thing in it, except for me got wiped out by a forest fire, which if you told that, to me, I just said, that's the worst thing that could happen. There goes everything. But after maybe a year of adjustment, I noticed that that first fire actually offered me the opportunity to live much more lightly. I didn't need to replace most of the things I'd lost, I could start spending much more time in Japan, which I love now that I didn't have a physical home in California. I'd lost all my handwritten notes but as a writer, that meant I could try fiction instead of nonfiction. And so one way or another, this fire which seems like such a trauma, actually was an opportunity as much. I think that's the case, as you said, for those of us not in the frontlines and not deeply vulnerable right now. Because some of something in us has been crying out for this for quite a while. And I've heard this sentence so much, I need a break. You know, I'm a full-time journalist, and I've never used a cell phone. When I say that to friends that, "I wish I could be like that", well, we're still using our cell phones more than ever now, probably most people. But this isn't the equivalent of. This is the freedom you said you wanted. Where you don't have to multitask, you don't have to be racing from 2pm appointment to 6pm appointment, pharmacy on the other side of town. Make the most of it. I wrote a book last year about living with mortality and uncertainty here in Japan. Because Japan's been living with suffering for a long time, I think the thing they've learned most of all is you can't argue with reality, that's a battle you'll always lose. What you have to do is make friends with reality and get on the same side of it. Then you can work together to produce possibility. So this has really dramatically brought that home to all of us, I think.
Derek Handley 08:05
You know, people living in their homes now, working in their homes, trying to create a sense of separation or stillness but being kind of, in a way more cramped, more crowded. There could be or there is a risk of blurring, you know, work, and the family and the day of tasks and the lack of separation. How do you manage in your own home to delineate those things so that people who are now for the first time trying to manage this whole environment that they have protected, their home now blurs into everything via zoom, and all the other things that are going on in the world?
Pico Iyer 08:43
To some extent, I think we've all been blurring those distinctions for a long time. Many of my colleagues send me emails over the weekend, they work from home, even in the best of times, while they're at the dinner table with their kids and wife, they're saying, "Oh, sorry, I've got to take this." All kinds of things are coming in on them. I think we've been facing that danger for a long time. When you say about people trying to create a sense of separateness the first thing that came to me is, so many people now are trying to create a sense of community. That's what you're doing right now with this broadcast, which we wouldn't have thought of maybe three months from now. I think our sense of community is quickened by this moment. In my case, I'm strict with my schedule. I begin my first eight hours of every day, now included at my desk and then I tell my wife, currently, I'll be free at 3pm and I'm all yours. Like you and everybody listening to this, we've been taking walks around our neighbourhood recently. We've been in the same neighbourhood for 27 and a half years, but just three nights ago we took a street we hadn't taken before and then in five minutes, we came to this extraordinary bamboo forest with avenues of cherry blossoms lined up in front of it, nightingales singing, teaching their young to sing. This beautiful place, five minutes from our flat we've never seen for 27 and a half years, which tiny indication of the way this necessity is forcing us to really useful invention and discovering the treasures all around us.
Pico Iyer 10:16
In terms of separating ourselves from our working life, somehow true life, I've always felt that that's up to us. In other words, so many people complain about information overload these days, and I say the problems, not in the machines, it's in us. And it's in our inability to turn away from my machines or turn the machines off. But the machines, of course, are just neutral instruments. It's up to us to make wise and discerning use of them. That's the case usually and certainly the case now.
Pico Iyer 10:45
I've often had the experience of meeting kids, let's say teenagers, and they'll come up to me, and they'll say, "my parents took me on a cruise ship and we couldn't get on connectivity there. The first day of our trip was the worst day of my life. I couldn't email my friends or go on Instagram or talk on the phone. The second day was the second worst day of my life and the week was the best week of my life." It always takes a little while to adjust. But once we're adjusted, there's suddenly realising how wonderful it is to be liberated from some of these things to which we've got mindlessly addicted, that are not making us happier and stronger and richer but depleting us in every way. When I was 29, I was living was working in midtown Manhattan with the 25th floor office and pretty stimulating life. But I thought, am I really positioned with close to the things that are most important to me? And so I left that for a backstreet single room in Kyoto, Japan, no toilet of my own, no telephone of my own, no visible bed. One reason I did that was as soon as I arrived in Japan, away from congestion and distraction in New York City, I thought every day is going to last 1,000 hours. I won't have as much money as I had before. But I will have more time. I will have the luxury of waking up and seeing that there are endless time for doing everything I wanted. I never had that sensation in New York, and I'm sure people in Auckland, Sydney and London feel the same. As you rightly point out, we all have to make a living. But our living is only as good as the life we make. The life we make comes not from being tethered to the office and taking care of our work emails, but being with our friends, our family, meeting a new friend as you and I are doing right now.
Pico Iyer 12:29
I noticed in the last three weeks, my friends have been sending very long emails, people haven't heard from the years written to me or Skype me. In a curious way, the whole world is in this moment together. I think the sense of community and a certain kind of equality is stronger than it often has been. When I think of what were we doing two and a half months ago, many of my friends were following Megan and Harry's voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, fuming over the latest Tweet from the White House, wondering about the Kardashians and thinking about whether Brad Pitt was going to get together again with Jennifer Aniston. Now we're thinking about life, death, what we care about, all the questions you're raising. I think that's a progression.
Derek Handley 13:14
So you are read somewhere that you don't actually meditate? Even though, you know, lots of people you're friends with, obviously do. And you talk about stillness and quiet. And you write obviously every day. Do you think that the ordinary person who's not a writer, not a journalist, could use writing as a daily tool, a daily habit, to write through our thoughts to access a pool of that kind of stillness or quiet? Do you find it therapeutic for yourself? And do you think that that's a tool that people should be thinking about right now?
Pico Iyer 13:54
I happen to find it fantastically therapeutic. As a writer, I don't really care what happens to my writing, whether it goes out into the world or not. The main thing is it gives me the luxury of person seeing my experience understanding the people around me, taking a break every morning when I go to my desk and that commute, you describe. It feels like stepping out of the congested city streets into a cabin in the woods where I get a chance to spend just time thinking about what's really on my mind and getting it out of me. For me, it's very helpful. But I think for other people making music, or sketching or reading, or just being quiet for 20 minutes at the beginning of the day, what I noticed again a few years ago was that many of us now go to a health club every day. We do 30 minutes on the treadmill or weight training or whatever it is to make our bodies strong. But we won't give that time to making our minds and hearts and spirit strong, which is much more important to us. If you have 30 minutes to take a run every day or to go to the health club, surely you have 30 minutes to sit quietly without your devices. Maybe write if it's a way of getting your thoughts out and clarifying them to yourself, it's, for me very free therapy and it's kind of layman's meditation. It's a meditation without all the hard work and discipline. But it may take another form. My wife has begun playing the piano every day for a few minutes, it releases something in her that usually, she wouldn't have the chance to release. I think, again, life is giving us an opportunity now, not to be getting back into control that ratio of experienced reflection. Recently, I think many of us have had too much experience and not enough time to reflect on it. Suddenly, we realised, wait a minute, I can actually live a little better, without trying to cram 16 movements across town into my day.
Derek Handley 15:45
What I've noticed amongst friends, at least here in Auckland is a lot more cooking is taking place reflective therapeutic. It's an experience really. And if you're learning to cook, it's also educational I mean, it's also a gift when you're cooking for people. Gardening, because it's still you know, it's still this. The weather here is not cold, it's quite good actually in Auckland, and connecting with nature and spending time in the garden and these kinds of activities in past times that I think maybe people have overrun in the past where it's easier to choose not to do those things. So I think these are naturally occurring. If people have the ability to do those, if you're living in an apartment, obviously, that's not, you know, something that's going to happen. So these are activities and past times. One of the things that we were talking about was, what's the opportunity to rethink what we might want to see in the world going forward when we are back into or when things are released. And when the world is moving back to where it was, what would you wish to see, in terms of where people could go?
Pico Iyer 16:52
I think the two things we can really get in this moment, are a sense of priorities, which we lose when moving around too much, and the sense of perspective. Whatever the nature of your life is. In recent years, we've all been aware that people almost boast about how busy they are. Even though we know that people who are busy are seldom very wise, and people who are wise are seldom too busy, and people who are busy, are also seldom very happy and seldom very kind. I find my happiest moments come when I'm really, really absorbed in something and my least happy moments are when I'm all over the place, and distracted as well. This moment of kind of enforced absorption might remind us how we can best do justice to our business as well as our family and every other aspect of our lives. I know you're in the business world, and I'm often in Silicon Valley, for example, where the companies have really figured this out. I have a friend at Google, who, in a normal run of things, he makes appointments with himself every week because he figures only if he can spend, let's say 3pm to 4pm every Tuesday by himself, which means going for a walk thinking something through just resting. Only by doing that, does he have something to bring to the rest of his appointments? That's why those companies give their employees 20% of their paid time free because that's going to make their work more productive.
Derek Handley 18:15
How do we not lose that? I mean, that's partly to do with paying, it's about attension, right paying attention to different things. And how do we maintain that or build rhythm now, when we've got this sense of spaciousness, but also going forward? When we are maybe swamped or taken back into the slipstream, when things move towards normality.
Pico Iyer 18:37
I would build a new rhythm in the light of what you've discovered. Right now we're all going to a new country that most of us have never been to before. Like every new catchy, it's full of challenges and shots. But there are certain things you think, Oh, I like the way they do things here in Italy or California, Why don't I take that back into my life in Auckland or Japan? There are certain things that we noticed that make us richer, more wide-awake, more attentive in this moment. I think we can build a new rhythm in which we do that. For example, I have, like everybody little rules for myself, I never go online for two hours before I sleep. Because if I do, my sleep is much worse and I wake up very jangled. I try to go as long as possible. After I wake up without going online or checking my messages. Of course, many people's jobs don't allow that. But within the parameters of your job, there's more scope. I have friends who when they drive to the office every morning to address this, they'll go 20 minutes early and then notice sit in their car for 20 minutes, which sounds boring, but actually, it's the way they prepare themselves for everything that's going to follow. They built in that quiet time into their very unquiet days. A long time ago because I'm a busy journalist. I got into the habit every three months I go on retreat to Benedictine monastery for three days. They're always not a Christian. They're always a million reasons not to go. But I go there the same way I take my car, in fact to have its tires realigned and an oil check every few months, it's my oil check. After three days of just silence, I come back so much more energetic, joyful, refreshed and knowing exactly what to do in the next few months. If I didn't take that break, I'd be just in chaos fighting my way blindly through those months. I think it behoves every one of us to make those little spaces in the day. If we haven't had enough of them before, this moment is reminding us how precious they are, and that we can make them nobody is too busy to do that. You know, I travel every year across Japan with the Dalai Lama. I think one of the most overburdened people on the planet, he spends four hours every morning before 8.30 when his day begins meditating. I figured if the Dalai Lama is spiritual and temporal leader of Tibetans, responsible for 14 million people can spend four hours, I can probably spend 20 minutes. I think if you're a CEO, a busy mother, or whoever you are, most of us who are not in war zones and not living on the streets have that more chance than we know, just to make [time] and we will always feel the better for it. As I say, you can spend 30 minutes in the health club 30 minutes in the mental health club is not wasted.
Derek Handley 21:24
It's a very good idea, the gym for the mind, how can you know you're the luxury of the Benedictine monk, I guess, pilgrimage that you do every year and have been doing for decades, is there a smaller version of that that you can do in your home? Or that you can carry with you in your pocket that you take when you travel?
Pico Iyer 21:42
It's such a good question, Derek, thank you. I mean one thing I took me a long time to learn as a writer is my best writing comes when I take a walk. Every day in the normal run of things, I take two walks a day. I know Steve Jobs did most of his thinking while taking a walk. Bill Gates famously retreats every few months to his version of a Benedictine monk just to read and catch up with the thinking in the world. But it's when walking, then I can really think outside the envelope. When I'm at my desk, I can make outlines and I can deal with all the micro stuff. But it's only when I'm taking a walk that I can think, let me start that book at the end or let me completely reverse everything. Well, let me turn eight chapters into nine chapters. Whatever the project you're working on, I think it's by getting away from the details that you can actually liberate yourself.
Pico Iyer 22:30
This new year's day, I was going through a really hard time in California. There was no like water at our house had been a forest fire and almost wiped out our house the electricity wasn't working. My mother is 88 years old and very frail. I thought, what am I going to do because it was New Year's Day, I thought, well wait a minute, there's a little kind of retreat house in my hometown. Let me go and just spend an hour, it could have been 30 minutes just sitting in the garden there. I can't tell you how refreshing that [hour was]. All my troubles fell away in just that one hour in a place 15 minutes from my house. Then when I went back to my house, I somehow really felt renewed and nothing could have. When I'm on the treadmill at the health club, I don't turn on the TV. Suddenly, I've got kind of a little vacation. I love listening to the radio and podcasts when I'm driving around in California. Sometimes I'll turn the radio off. Suddenly, again, my mind can roam around and sort through what am I going to talk about with Derek? Or what am I going to do with my wife this evening? Whatever it has, or how am I going to do, redo this article? I love taking a shower for that same reason. That's when I get a lot of my creative ideas. The fact that so many of us get our creative ideas, driving to work or in the shower reminds us let's make a space for that. As you said sort of micro retreat, the ultimate luxury is three days in such a way, but three minutes is a help.
Derek Handley 23:50
You said earlier you travel around with the Dalai Lama, I think you met him when you were just a kid? You know, what do you think he would say at the moment? And what do you think he thinks of the situation and the view that we have at the moment of the world?
Pico Iyer 24:02
I've actually been engaging with his office quite a bit in the last few days. I saw Pope Francis gave a beautiful message at Easter, which I think is very much what the Dalai Lama would say too. As a Buddhist he believes that everybody deals with suffering. It's the nature of life that most of us get sick at some point. If we're lucky, we go through old age and all of us die. Suffering is non-negotiable. He would say unhappiness is different from suffering. Unhappiness is the position we choose or if we want cannot choose to bring to the world. He would also say it reminds us of how much we have in common and right now, two months ago, people were talking about China fighting the United States, Democrats are fighting against Republicans. The world has never been so polarised. Now the situation has reminded us we're all sitting at home. The Dalai Lama, like Pope Francis, always thinks about the problems. The gulf between the rich and the poor, and he thinks about climate change is our big crisis. I think he's been talking a lot about thinking about the long term. I mean, friends of mine have been saying this is like being in World War II. I think like you, Derek, I've been lucky enough in the course of my life, I've never been caught up in a world war. I've never actually been hungry one day of my life, I've never been homeless one day in my life. I've been in a very fortunate position. We've been in the situation for six weeks now. I don't think it's similar to five years of World War, sending your loved ones off, probably never to see them again. This too will pass every Japanese person says. What they say around Kyoto is, "take care of the mind, and you take care of the world." Again, what I was saying before that Shakespeare says, and what they also say around here is that life is a joyful participation in a world of sorrow, that sorrows are always going to be part of life. But that's a reason not for grief, but actually, a finding joy right now because we don't know how long our lives will last. The Dalai Lama, as you know, always speaks about compassion. But I think two of the main things he talks about are, interconnectedness, and impermanence. That's what this moment is bringing home to every one of us. We can't count on tomorrow, but we are all stitched together. You and I couldn't have had this conversation 14 years ago.
Derek Handley 26:16
Yeah. I know you're not a Buddhist, you don't really ascribe to any religion, I think unless that's changed. But dude, can you please tell us about your name? Because it's amazing. I just think it's fascinating.
Pico Iyer 26:29
You're right. You really you know more about my life than I do. But so you're right I'm not a member of any religion. But I suppose my luck was both my parents were philosophers. They were from India, but I was born and grew up in England, so they knew Western philosophy as well as Eastern philosophy. When I was born, they gave me a long, unpronounceable Indian name but they thought this poor kid is growing up in England, he needs a name that everybody can spell and pronounce. So they gave me this perfect global name Pico, which is in honour of Renaissance, Catholic heretic, Pico della Mirandola, who is a philosopher that they both admired. My first name technically is Siddharth which is the Buddha's name. My first name is the Buddha's name. Siddharth is my first name, Pico the Catholic heritage is my second name. My third name is Raghavan, which is my father's name, and he was a theosophist. My fourth name, Iyer is a very typical South Indian Hindu name. It took me many, many decades before I realised, wait a minute, my parents were wise, they set me up for this global destiny and global life, many of us are leading by giving me four major religious traditions in the space of my four names. Most of all, this name, Pico, which seems, makes me feel like local everywhere. Nobody ever has trouble with Pico. Here in Japan, everyone falls around when they hear the name Pico, because it's equivalent to Tweety. It's the name they give to every pet bird. So when I say Hello, my name is Pico, it's as I'm Rover or Tweety or something. Still they don't have trouble pronouncing it or spelling it.
Derek Handley 28:05
I think it's fascinating that they, they chose to string those together. I read somewhere. And again, I'm not sure if it's your words or someone else's: "You can survive without tea, but you can't survive without water." What does that mean? And what does that mean for us today, in relation to what you were just talking about with regards to your name?
Pico Iyer 28:29
Well it actually speaks to exactly what we were just talking about because that is a quote from the Dalai Lama. He's distinguishing between kindness and humanity and religion. He always says that religion is a great thing if you can get if you've got some religious direction and order and community around you that's terrific. That's like tea is a great luxury, it gives savour and flavour to life. But the thing that nobody can live without is water. That's just everyday kindness and a sense of responsibility. One of the great things about the Dalai Lama, as a major religious figure is he always says, doesn't matter if you have religion. 2 billion people, or 4 billion people in the world, don't have religion, no problem they are is capable of leading a good and purposeful and compassionate life as everyone, sometimes they live more compassionate lives than then priests or monks. One of his last major books was titled Beyond Religion. Of course, he's a great believer in science, and he only trusts what can be proven in a laboratory. Nowadays, in labs, they have found that acts of kindness, for example, help our immune system and meditation actually has all kinds of psychological benefits that can be measured and are measured in Stanford, and Princeton, and Harvard, and other universities around the world. So I think the Dalai Lama was just stating, you don't have to get caught up in texts and theologies unless you want to, but just think about who you are as a human, who the people that you can help and what you can do right now. It doesn't have to get fancy and complicated and theoretical, just the way water is something we [need to] survive we don't think about it. But if we don't have it, we're really missing it. I love the way the Dalai Lama always says, "my first teacher was my mother." That's probably the case with most of us. You know, she's the one who taught us how to be self sufficient, or how to think about others before ourselves, or how to not take sweets from strangers, whatever it might be. I think the power of the Dalai Lama lies in the fact he always reminds us about common humanity and that we will we share the same hopes fears vulnerabilities he as much as the rest of us.
Derek Handley 29:04
We have a few questions if you're happy to take them?
Pico Iyer 30:22
Gladly, yes, absolutely.
Derek Handley 30:43
Another one, if you don't follow any religion, do you find your guides for living from proof in the pudding? Kind of advice? Like? How do you... What works to make you a better person in your own assessment?
Pico Iyer 31:00
So good. And of course, grandmother's wisdom is as good as the Pope Francis's wisdom. The kind of proof in the pudding thing we all know that we assess people much more by their actions than their words. When I read about somebody who sees a kid fall down on the subway track and just jumps down to save the kid reflexively, that teaches me as much as something I would get from the Bible, and humbles me. I will say that I really respect the people who do have a religion and many of my closest friends and the people I think of as my life teachers are the ones who because they have a religious commitment, [are] kinder, more self aware, more humble than most of people that I otherwise run into. But as the questioner suggests, it doesn't have to be that as somebody who studied literature, I love reading Emily Dickinson and all her form of religion probably was sitting 26 years in a single room and feeling the world very intensely. I'm happy to learn from the eight year olds with whom I play ping pong every day here in Japan. I'm very happy to learn from Leonard Cohen, whom I got to know quite well and the Dalai Lama who have the deepest religious practices.
Derek Handley 32:11
Okay, I'm going to end with a short piece that I love the end of your book, The Art of Stillness: In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.
Derek Handley 32:40
Thanks for joining us on Wiser Conversations together at home. If you liked this episode, please share it. And if you haven't yet, go on and push subscribe. See you next time.