In Detail
The point of going somewhere like the Napo River in Ecuador is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there. We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place. We might as well get a feel for the fringes and hollows in which life is lived, for the Amazon basin, which covers half a continent, and for the life that - there, like anywhere else - is always and necessarily lived in detail: on the tributaries, in the riverside villages, sucking this particular white-fleshed guava in this particular pattern of shade. What is there is interesting.
- Annie Dillard
Revisiting old friends on my book shelves, I dipped into Annie Dillard's essays on expeditions and encounters, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It's that kind of March day in the Northwest, where an expedition of any kind seems necessary to shake off the dregs of winter discontent. After reading her notes above, I thought what if I looked at life as it is in detail? What is there that is interesting? What details mark the particulars of my life, the way my days unfold? What valuable information does the obvious contain, just there for the seeing?
Sometimes I think we work far too hard, seeking excitement from the unfamiliar rather than wading in the freshness of what is hidden in plain sight. I don't think any of us will ever be done excavating the layers of ourselves, our histories, the rhythm and song of our days. But from time to time we tumble into a rut, and soon bored or frustrated, move on; leaving much of ourselves unknown and left behind. What if like Annie Dillard we explored not a place of the unknown, but a place of the familiar? And there, within the self or daily life, observed with neutrality and strangeness the detail, the uniqueness, the pattern of life lived? We would certainly find unexpected things, both unique and interesting. We have this one life, one planet, perhaps one home and table and simple blue bowl. What do they tell us? Why do we choose them? Where have they led us?
Life resides in the details. And knowledge of any kind is grounded in the specific as well. Mastering the unknown begins at the level of the fundamental. Perhaps before Ecuador, the self. As Dillard suggests, we might as well get a feel for the place.
- Annie Dillard
Revisiting old friends on my book shelves, I dipped into Annie Dillard's essays on expeditions and encounters, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It's that kind of March day in the Northwest, where an expedition of any kind seems necessary to shake off the dregs of winter discontent. After reading her notes above, I thought what if I looked at life as it is in detail? What is there that is interesting? What details mark the particulars of my life, the way my days unfold? What valuable information does the obvious contain, just there for the seeing?
Sometimes I think we work far too hard, seeking excitement from the unfamiliar rather than wading in the freshness of what is hidden in plain sight. I don't think any of us will ever be done excavating the layers of ourselves, our histories, the rhythm and song of our days. But from time to time we tumble into a rut, and soon bored or frustrated, move on; leaving much of ourselves unknown and left behind. What if like Annie Dillard we explored not a place of the unknown, but a place of the familiar? And there, within the self or daily life, observed with neutrality and strangeness the detail, the uniqueness, the pattern of life lived? We would certainly find unexpected things, both unique and interesting. We have this one life, one planet, perhaps one home and table and simple blue bowl. What do they tell us? Why do we choose them? Where have they led us?
Life resides in the details. And knowledge of any kind is grounded in the specific as well. Mastering the unknown begins at the level of the fundamental. Perhaps before Ecuador, the self. As Dillard suggests, we might as well get a feel for the place.
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