I’d never heard of Pico Iyer or his views on the urgency of slowing down, and I’ve only traveled to Japan in my imagination while listening to Dave Brubeck’s Kyoto Song. But I like how Pico thinks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbdD9gPnhhM
“I can soon begin to tell the time by how the light is slanting off our walls at sunrise and when the darkness falls” describes what happens in the cabin next to the wetland in Minnesota. Like Pico in Kyoto, I become more essentially human in the midst of real time.
Thanks to David Kerrigan for featuring the On Being interview with Krista Tippett.
Yes, and I think we all know that sensation. We have more and more time-saving devices but less and less time, it seems to us. When I was a boy, the sense of luxury had to do with a lot of space, maybe having a big house or a huge car. Now I think luxury has to do with having a lot of time. The ultimate luxury now might be just a blank space in the calendar. And interestingly enough, that’s what we crave, I think, so many of us.
When I moved from New York City to rural Japan — after my year in Kyoto, I essentially moved to a two-room apartment, which is where I still live with my wife and, formerly, our two kids. We don’t have a car or a bicycle or a T.V. I can understand. It’s very simple, but it feels very luxurious. One…
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Views from the Edge 