What is it about an other that can be so… well, whatever you wouldn’t come up with yourself? When it comes to creativity — making something new whether on canvas, with sound, in writing, or out of clay – most people work alone. It’s a solitary life, the way of an artist, isn’t it? Then …
Just thinking: Obamacare may well raise America’s creative capital — from the arts to invention, entrepreneurs to public intellectuals. I’m hearing a lot these days in reaction to a CBO study showing that one effect of national health care is that fewer people will work full-time. I cannot tell you how many times I have …
It was only when I began revising an essay that I discovered what it was about. I had thought the piece would be a simple meditation on what I’d learned about Cyrus the Great over these past few years – the sexy “messiah” byline, author of the first declaration of human rights, all that… and …
What if I took a psalm a day, read it, took a walk, and returned to my desk with jot-able thoughts? There are the year-of-living-some-way books, the applications-of-a-classic books, the travel-across-somewhere or enduring-peculiar-deprivations books,… Why not a scholar’s-nonscholarship-of-a-biblical-book book? Turns out, there are several reasons not, not for me, anyway, not now. The house where …
I had the wonderful opportunity last night to hear Joan Baez live in our little town. Yes, Joan Baez of anti-war, hippie-days, protest, and beautiful love fame. And she was beautiful. The place, Charlottesville’s Pavilion on the downtown mall was packed. Lots of gray heads in the crowd but not all, and everyone seemed to …
How do you manage the challenge of doing work and keeping your head while also dealing with the trials of life? There’s the challenge of managing time, of course, but also: how do you concentrate? And how do you keep positive and productive in the midst? How when faced with frustration, disappointment, and worse does …
