...it's late
kate: i had to think about your question, but i think the most important human quality is being Aware. not aware in the sense of alert, but Aware in the sense of having discovered the brilliance of everything and recognizing it as miracle, like Blake does. i think every charcoal-shoveler or stock car-racer or media executive is in just as radiant (your word) a world as Blake; it's a matter of realizing as fact what Aldous Huxley calls "the burning brightness of unmitigated reality" all around us. to realize suchness like that is to be consummatley human.
"...a stucco wall with a shadow slanting across it, blank but unforgettably beautiful, empty but charged with all the meaning and the mystery of existence." -Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
it's best summed with one of Masaoka Shiki's haikus:
"Roses:
The flowers are easy to paint
The leaves difficult."
...actually i don't know if that has anything to do with what you were asking me. thanks for making me think, though.
"...a stucco wall with a shadow slanting across it, blank but unforgettably beautiful, empty but charged with all the meaning and the mystery of existence." -Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
it's best summed with one of Masaoka Shiki's haikus:
"Roses:
The flowers are easy to paint
The leaves difficult."
...actually i don't know if that has anything to do with what you were asking me. thanks for making me think, though.