Wednesday, midweek and I am running on fumes.  What is my body, the universe saying to me?  That I should care less about my disagreements with others, those niggling, aggravating differences, when heard, I am loathe to offer any reply.

A podcast is a way to gain information in a format that is part entertainment, part education.  Why resent the entertainment, a personal dimension of the presentation?  I enjoy the relaxed mode of presentation, a contrast to a tightly worded text, pitched at a more abstract level for academic consumption.  Sometimes hor d’ourves rather than a heavier meal is appreciated…  I know that I am not compelled “to defend” in order to justify a worthwhile life.  To do so is to defeat the whole of the given destiny that belongs solely to me.

I found these quotations from Simone Weil which I like very much:

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.
Original: L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité.

From an April 13, 1942 letter to poet Joë Bousquet, published in their collected correspondence (Correspondance [Lausanne: Editions l’Age d’Homme, 1982], p. 18).

What is the lesson to-be-learned here?  That I need to be busy about my art, dedicating the force of my attention to the vision that captures me, to the execution of work to which I am satisfied to place my signature.  The work of others is their business, not mine.

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This song by Dido White Flag captures the spirit of Simone Weil.