exceeding our materials
After tearing through Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide, I decided to give his debut book a try. I haven't even got past the prelude, and I'm already taking notes. He ends this prelude with this lovely paean to art and science:
It is ironic, but true: the one reality science cannot reduce is the only reality we will ever know. This is why we need art. By expressing our actual experience, the artist reminds us that our science is incomplete, that no map of matter will ever explain the immateriality of our consciousness.

The moral of this book is that we are made of art and science. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, but we are also just stuff. We now know enough about the brain to realize that its mystery will always remain. Like a work of art, we exceed our materials.

...The experiment and poem complete each other. The mind is made whole.
He's got a nice touch with verbage--thoughtful, poetic and heartfelt. I'm doing my best to save this read for the coming Thanksgiving holiday, so I can enjoy it at home in our cozy living room, rather than on a cramped Bart or bus ride home.
Labels: art, books, cool science, eyeshurt, inspiration, reading

:: ewee 12:36:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
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:: Monday, August 17, 2009 ::

Beyond my imagination...
Good, productive weekend of bursty work patterns and getting things done. Think I've been overdoing it for a bit, because I'm worn out and honestly a bit sick today (tired, achy, slow). But that's also data, and so I'm resting and getting myself together for the next charge. In the meantime, I got to finish a book of substance (recommended by the general herself): Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

It's a quick read, but far from easy. It's wrenchingly, quietly, painfully, beautifully difficult in places. And transcendent throughout. She's not my favorite writer (The Namesake gets a nod, but that's it), and at times I disliked her stories intensely. Perhaps the quiet ordinary despair was just too much for a midweek commute read. But she's a good writer, and excellent at her craft--she uses words so well and with such skill, that her prose is transparent, light-weight, and devastating.

If you only have 15 minutes, read the last story in the series. But I'd recommend just reading the entire book, and savoring the last story at the end.
"Whenever he is discouraged, I tell him that if I can survive on three continents, then there is no obstacle he cannot conquer. While astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have know, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."

-from Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Labels: books, eyeshurt, inspiration, random, reading, words

:: ewee 5:15:00 PM [+] :: 0 comments ::
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