Acts of Beauty

I read this story in the New York Times and was intrigued by Maggie Doyne and the work she's doing so I went over to her website and found this video. It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long while. Make sure you watch it.

Maggie Doyne — Why the human family can do better from The DO Lectures on Vimeo.

Nonreading

Bookstores don't provide
a remote control for Proust,
you can't switch
to a soccer match,
or a quiz show, win a Cadillac.

We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.

We travel faster, farther, more often,
but bring back slides instead of memories.
Here I am with some guy.
There I guess that's my ex.
Here everyone's naked
so this must be a beach.

Seven volumes -- mercy.
Couldn't it be cut or summarized,
or better yet put into pictures.
There was that series called "The Doll,"
but my sister-in-law says that's some other P.*

And by the way, who was he anyway.
They say he wrote in bed for years on end.
Page after page
at a snail's pace.
But we're still going in fifth gear
and, knock on wood, never better.


* The reference is to the Polish novelist Boleslaw Prus (1847-1912), whose most famous work, The Doll (1890), later became a popular TV miniseries.


- Wislawa Szymborska

Beautiful people do not just happen

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

- Elizabeth Kubler Ross