hineinhorchen […] it seems to me that this word is untranslatable. Hearkening to myself, to others, to the world. […] I listen very intently, with my whole being, and try to fathom the meaning of things. […] I keep on looking for something but don’t know what […].*
(Etty Hillesum)

“Flanerie, [Pierre-Alexis Dumas] explained, is not about “being idle” or “doing nothing.” It’s an “attitude”of curiosity … about exploring everything.” It flourished in the nineteenth century,” he continued, “as a form of resistance to industrialisation and the rationalisation of everyday life.”**
(Lauren Elkin)

In a world bent on ever-increasing noise and busyness, the need to be be heard, updating our social media, a world of the false self and power-gain, listening curiously and deeply is our resistance.

(*From Patrick Woodhouse’s Etty Hillesum: A Life Transformed.)
(**Lauren Elkin, in the The Paris Review: Radical Flaneuserie, 25/8/16.)

the imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos*
(Wallace Stevens)

Seeing things in an unconventional way is threatening to those who benefit from the status quo.**
(Linda Rottenberg)

Three questions:

How open can we be?
How present are we able to be?
How do we make ideas happen?

Perhaps a fourth:

How much do we want to learn these things?

Some rush to the third question; others can’t get out of the first two. The three questions add up to something powerful and beautiful.

The fourth question reminds us that we don’t know how far we can develop our openness, our presence, and our making of things happen.

(*From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)
(**From Linda Rottenberg’s Crazy is a Complement.)