Hello! As promised, here is the next edition of our new travel series, for seekers of Quiet, Depth, and Beauty. Coming soon: editions on London, Oxford, the San Francisco Bay Area, and a much overlooked Caribbean island. (The recently did a post on Paris, courtesy of , which you should also check out!)

But before we dive into guides to specific cities, I thought I’d lay out my own approach to travel - a kind of manifesto for traveling introverts.

Be a flâneur. The best way to see a city is on foot. (If you are lucky to have the physical capacity to walk for hours, use it while you can!) But the term flâneur also captures a psychological position that resonates for many introverts:

Read more

Thank you so much to those of you who came out for our Candlelight Chat last Sunday with Kate Bowler, bestselling author of Joyful, Anyway. Kate is a being of grace, humor and poetry, and it was a rare treat to spend time with her. You’ll see what I mean, when you watch the video.

We talked about:

• Kate’s years of living with incurable cancer (since age 35 - she was given months to live just when she’d felt that her life was “coming together”) and how she found joy throughout

• Her father’s crippling depression all through Kate’s childhood — and their enduringly close relationship

• How to feel joy, whether or not your life is going well.

• The difference between happiness and joy.

• Kate’s admissions that she is full of resentment (which is especially interesting, given her natural kindness, warmth and cheer)

• Why “the ache” that we all feel is, in Kate’s view, a holy engine

• and much more.

If you missed the Candlelight Chat — or want to experience it again — here you go. I hope you love it.

Read more

First of all, thanks sooo much to those of you who came out for our Candlelight Chat this Sunday with , bestselling author of Joyful, Anyway. We talked about Kate’s years of living with incurable cancer, her father’s crippling depression all through Kate’s childhood and their enduringly close relationship — and how to feel joy, whether or not your life is going well.

Kate is a being of grace, humor and poetry, and it was a rare treat to spend time with her.

If you missed it, fear not! We will send all Quiet Life members the video replay in a few days, and you can watch it as many times as you like!

Today, I want to share with you one of my favorite poems: “Fern Hill”, by Dylan Thomas. I was reminded of it by a guy named Cian McCarthy, who notes that this poem is “such poignant reading as we stand on the cusp of early Autumn.” We are all growing older, the seasons remind us, even when we’re young.

I hope you find this poem as incalculably beautiful as I do. And if you feel, at first, that you can’t understand exactly what Dylan Thomas is saying, try to just relax into the words and images, and the meaning will come through loud and clear: especially the glorious final stanza, which gives me goosebumps no matter how many times I read it.

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

Here, too, is a wonderful meditation on the poem, from America magazine, by Jayme Stayer:

“To understand this poem, you don’t need biography [of Thomas]. Your own personal understanding of the loss of innocence and the pain of mortality serve just as well as Thomas’s disastrous attempts at adulting. But to understand how this poem and a few others avoid the pitfalls of his other work, the biographical background is illuminating.

The context that matters is not that Thomas spent summers as a child on a farm—any decent artist could have invented such a childhood. The more relevant context is the yawning gap between the child and the adult. Thomas’s youthful summers were idyllic, and his adult fall was low and sordid: alcoholism, adultery, financial insecurity, emotional instability, professional uncertainty, neglected responsibilities. Observing that gap, he feels the pain of lost innocence more than any stable adult might feel it. “Fern Hill” is an aching cry that turns both the observation and the feeling to artistic account, creating a childhood that is too perfect to be believed. When he is plumbing his own grief and nostalgia, rather than posing as an oracle, Thomas strikes the true lyric note, singing in his chains like the sea.”

*Did you love this poem too? Which are your favorite lines?

(For me, there are so many of them. But “the sabbath rang slowly/In the pebbles of the holy streams” is just a marvel. And “the whinnying green stable” and the “fields of praise”….and then the “farm forever fled from the childless land” - OMG.)

Leave a comment

I’m really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow, for our next Candlelight Chat!

This one’s for you, if you’re interested in the idea of experiencing joy, whether or not your life is going well.

We’re very honored to host special guest Kate Bowler, Duke professor; host of the critically acclaimed podcast, Everything Happens; and author of seven books, including the instant bestselling book, Joyful, Anyway.

Here are just a few of the topics we’ll discuss with Kate:

• Kate’s experience with cancer

• How to feel joy even when life isn’t going well

• The self-help and wellness industry

• Resentment, sadness and barriers to joy

• and much more.

As usual, we’ll also invite you to ask your questions of Kate. You’ll be able to talk to her either via the written chat, or by “raising your hand” and coming online to chat with her.

Also as usual, please have a candle handy, but don’t light it yet. We’ll do that together.

And don’t worry if you can’t make it live. We’ll send out a video recording to paid and scholarship subscribers next week.

Here are your log-in instructions:

Read more

Okay you’re going to love our next Candlelight Chat guest.

If you aren’t already familiar with the wise and hilarious Kate Bowler, I’m going to let her introduce herself to you in her own words:

“Writer. Professor. Small talk survivor.

I am a Duke professor, podcaster, and author with a single mission: giving you permission to feel human. (And letting you have whatever weird or boring hobbies you can’t explain to strangers. Do I love roadside attractions and exotic potato chip flavors? Yes. More than I should say.)

I believe that the world would be a gentler place if we took apart the well-meaning clichés we use when life is hard. (What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Maybe what doesn’t kill you might try again tomorrow. 🙂 )

I am determined to create a gentler world for everyone who wants to admit that they are not always “living their best life.” After years of being told I was incurable, I was declared cancer-free. But there’s no going back. I am forever changed by what I discovered: life is so beautiful and life is so hard. For everyone. And while we can’t always be happy, we can be joyful, anyway.”

We’ll be discussing Kate’s life and times and new book, Joyful, Anyway, including:

*Kate’s experience with cancer

*How to feel joy even when life isn’t going well

*The self-help and wellness industry

*Resentment, sadness and barriers to joy

and much more.

*
If these topics (and Kate’s unique way of being in the world) resonate, this Sunday’s Candlelight Chat is for you. Please join us on Zoom, from 1-2 pm ET. We’ll send log-in instructions this Saturday. To participate, you must be a paid or scholarship member of The Quiet Life. Members can participate either live, or by watching the video replay, which we’ll send the following week.

As usual, we’ll also invite you to ask your questions of Kate. You’ll be able to talk to her either via the written chat, or by “raising your hand” and coming online to chat with her.

I really hope you join us!

Subscribe now

Have you ever wished for a guide to one of the world’s great travel destinations — Paris — from the POV of introverts?

That’s what I’m excited to bring you today, with this guide to Paris, from Jo Piazza, author of THE PARISIAN HEIST. This travel guide first appeared at the Silent Book Club, an organization you might also like to check out!:

*

But first! As a parent of two amazing teen boys, I’m very happy to announce that today’s Kindred Letter is sponsored by Ten Speed Press, publisher of The Success Trap: How the Pressure to Stand Out Is Fueling Anxiety, Depression, and Burnout in Teens—and the Fundamental Fix They Deserve.

This crucial new investigation into the teen mental health epidemic reveals how rising expectations in school, extracurriculars, and daily life have driven unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression. Dr. Stuart Slavin offers thoughtful, practical guidance for parents, educators – and students – to help redefine what true success looks like: not just achievement, but mentally resilient, healthy, and happy teens.

You can learn more here!

Learn more about the book

And now, here’s Jo Piazza. Jo is a bestselling author, podcast host, mom, travel writer, and introvert.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris over the past few years while I’ve been working on The Parisian Heist. Most of that time was spent researching, some writing (I still write 1500 words a day even when I travel) and some just wandering in search of inspiration or to let my mind gather up the tiny details it needs for sparks of creativity.

My favorite places in the city (besides anywhere I can eat cheese) tend to be the ones where I can alternate between reading a book and looking at interesting things.

My favorite bookstore in Paris is actually a used bookstore tucked inside the concept shop Merci, which also happens to be one of my favorite stores on the planet. Concept shop seems to mean a store that sells everything from soap to sneakers to curtains to candles in the shape of food.

I’ve spent entire days there, alternating between browsing the books (almost all of them in French….I like to look at the covers), sitting down to write, and strolling through the rest of the store.

I do something similar at the Musée d’Orsay, where my favorite place to post up is Le Restaurant, their wildly beautiful dining room with chandeliers, gilded ceilings, and murals overhead. I like to wander through the museum, stop for lunch and a perfect cheese plate, read or write for a while, and then go back to wandering among the art.

The Red Wheelbarrow is my favorite English-language bookstore in Paris. I like to grab a book there and then take it to the Luxembourg Gardens across the street to read in the grass and people watch.

When I need more caffeine I head to Maison Fleuret, a literary coffee shop. It’s tucked inside an old bookstore (that dates back to 1872) in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. You can have coffee, eat one of the best croissants in Paris, and surround yourself with books. If you like their pastries they also offer baking classes which I love taking in Paris because they give my brain something new to learn.

Near Shakespeare and Company, the Bistro des Livres combines books and food. It’s a perfect place to gaze at the line at Shakespeare and decide if you’re willing to brave it. But here’s a pro tip. You don’t have to. The line has gotten completely out of control as the bookstore has become more popular with influencers. But if you order a book ahead of time for pickup you can skip the line.

I am also obsessed with wandering around the Museum of Hunting and Nature in the Marais when I need a break from words. It is one of the strangest and most wonderful museums in Paris, filled with art and taxidermy and beautiful rooms that make you feel like you’ve stumbled into a mad person’s very eccentric house.

When the sun starts to go down there is a hidden bar called Bar À Bulles behind the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre with a rooftop garden and a gorgeous view of the windmill. It is weirdly not touristy, especially on a weeknight, and an absolute delight for a reading spot with a drink.

One of my favorite nighttime restaurants is Le Bon Georges for a solo dinner outside, preferably in the fall when they give you cozy blankets. They make a perfect steak poivre and serve you vats of chocolate mousse and rice pudding.

So this is my Paris prescription, buy a book, find somewhere beautiful to sit with it, order something delicious, wander around for a while, and repeat. Paris is one of the best cities in the world for being alone in public, which is frankly the greatest luxury an introverted writer can ask for.”

*
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

*Would you like to see more such travel guides for seekers of Quiet, Depth and Beauty?

*What was your favorite of Jo’s picks?

*If you know Paris well or have visited, do you have other spots to share? I haven’t been to Paris for decades and would love to hear your recs.

We love all your comments!

Leave a comment

I’m fascinated by one particular aspect of the human condition, and based on your many many letters and comments over the many many years, I suspect that you share this fascination too.

The poet Federico Garcia Lorca called this aspect the “mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains.”

So today we’re going to talk about duende - a feeling for the mysterious and profound mix of darkness and joy that’s the secret ingredient of all love songs, and of all love itself.

We’re also going to talk about the most important thing you should do, if you’re a person who senses this mysterious power - and its ability to deliver you to a richer, deeper form of happiness.

Read more

In the age of machines, what makes life worth living?

“If we are not to become ever more diminished as humans, we need to remain in control of machines, not come under their control. I am not talking about an apocalyptic future; I am talking about apocalypse now.”

As I’ve mentioned, lately I’ve been reading the work of the great author and psychiatrist, Iain McGilchrist. Today, I thought I’d share this crucial and lovely bit with you here, from his 2024 essay, “Resist the Machine Apocalypse”.

“No two ways about it: We are making ourselves wretched. We are more affluent than ever, but riches — and power, the only point in having riches — do not make people happy. Ask a psychiatrist. Or take a look at the face of Vladimir Putin, who has, alas, the power of life and death over millions of people and is the owner of the most expensive toilet-paper dispenser in the world. No, affluent as we are, we are also more anxious, depressed, lonely, isolated, and lacking in purpose than ever. Why is this? I suggest it is because we no longer have the foggiest idea what human life is about [emphasis added]. Indeed, there is a sense in which we no longer live in a world at all, but exist in a simulacrum of our own making.

Leaving nuance aside, and condensing three decades of research and a vast body of supporting evidence into a phrase: We are now mesmerized by the least intelligent part of the human brain. For reasons of survival, one hemisphere of the brain, the left, has evolved over millions of years to favor manipulation — grabbing, getting, and controlling — while the other, the right, has been tasked with understanding the whole picture. So conflicting are these goals that in humans the hemispheres are largely sequestered, one from the other. Our seeming ability these days to hear only what comes from the left hemisphere does not arise from the brain’s having changed radically in the last couple of centuries, though it is indeed always evolving. It’s more like this: You buy a radio set, and you soon find a couple of channels worth listening to. After a while, you find yourself listening to only one. It’s not the radio set that has changed; it’s you. In the case of the brain, it would not matter so much if we had settled on the intelligent channel-but we didn’t. We settled on the one whose value has nothing to do with truth, or with courage, magnanimity, or generosity, but only with greed, grabbing, and getting. Manipulation….

What makes life worth living is what can only be called resonance: the encounter with other living beings, with the natural world, and with the greatest products of the human soul — some would say, with the cosmos at large, or with God. Only in encountering the uncontrollable do we experience the world in its depth and complexity and come fully alive. The resonance we enjoy in a real relationship with a sentient other is not possible where there is no freedom, no spontaneity, no life. If we are not to become ever more diminished as humans, we need to remain in control of machines, not come under their control. I am not talking about an apocalyptic future; I am talking about apocalypse now. We are already calmly and quietly surrendering our liberty, our privacy, our dignity, our time, our values, and our talents to the machine. Machines serve us well when they relieve us of drudgery, but we must leave human affairs to humans. If not, we sign our own death warrant.”

The above is from a 2024 essay by Iain McGilchrist, called “Resist the Machine Apocalypse.” You can read the rest on McGilchist’s wonderful site.

*

And for today’s prompts, I ask you:

*Where do you most experience what McGilchrist calls “resonance” - with (as he puts it) other living beings, the natural world, or “the greatest products of the human soul”)?

*What are the parts of your life that you most want to guard from AI/machine takeover?

*What aspects of your life have been improved — or diminished — by tech?

Leave a comment

Today’s Kindred Letter is on an especially important topic: the decline of the Humanities, and how to reverse it. If you’re a fellow devotee of art, literature, poetry, mythology …please consider sharing.

Share

As an English major in the 1980s, I was so lucky to attend a university whose commitment to wisdom seemed to match the promise of its soaring architecture. It was the end of an era, though I didn’t know it yet – the era in which universities were temples where many of us went to pray, where we went searching for awe and wonder and the far reaches of the human soul. In the late ’80s, books – our beautiful, sacred books – were starting to be viewed as mere “texts” to be “interrogated”. But this view, so curiously disrespectful of literature, seemed still a sideline; I had no idea that it — along with the growing primacy of pre-professional majors, and students’ legitimate worries about making a living — would soon eat up the Humanities departments.

During the last decade, the number of Humanities majors nationwide dropped by a third, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. On campus, everyone knows that it’s the STEM and business subjects that get the shiny new buildings and the fiercest competition from hopeful applicants.

Universities are taking various steps to address some of these problems.

But what we really need, I believe, is a new vision for the humanities: one I call Sacred Humanism.

The true purpose of the Humanities is to help us understand the human condition, and each other, and to quench our thirst for meaning, depth, beauty and truth. We need to teach poetry, literature, art and history not only as texts to critique -- but as gateways to the sacred. We need to develop in students a character strength that positive psychologists call the “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence” (which is a secular, and rather muted, way of saying spiritual awe) -- and which is a fundamentally constructive rather than deconstructive impulse. We should emphasize that which gives us chills, reverence, and consolation.

Studies by the psychologists Jonathan Haidt, Dacher Keltner, and others, show that awe is linked to lower stress and inflammation, higher life satisfaction, generosity and empathy. If the Humanities departments were to place awe at the center of their mission, the students might return -- not to satisfy curricular requirements, but out of spiritual hunger.

Students once flooded the mythologist Joseph Campbell’s classes at Sarah Lawrence College, because he taught them myth and meaning and the art of living a good life; more recently, the Northwestern University literature professor Gary Saul Morson’s classes on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky draw standing ovations for similar reasons. These examples point the way forward for Sacred Humanism.

In contrast, since the 1950s, the prevailing worldview in U.S. academia was “Secular Humanism.” Secular humanism emphasizes reason and ethics while rejecting dogma, supernaturalism, and authoritarianism. This philosophy was, in part, a response to the barbarisms of the 20th century. As a lifelong atheist and now agnostic, who is allergic to dogma and utopianism, I’ve long admired this view, and still do.

But too often Secular Humanism saw the spiritual impulse as a narrow experience shared by a credulous few, rather than a deep yearning that animates us all — and so the thirst for wisdom and elevation gave way to analyses of power dynamics.

Such inquiries are not without value; it’s useful to analyze, say, “Girl with a Pearl Earring” from, say, the perspective of women’s role in society. But no one fell in love with “Pearl Earring” as a statement on patriarchy. They fell in love with its luminosity. They beheld it and wanted to know where this kind of sensitivity and insight comes from, and what they could do to embody it themselves, and inspire it in others. They wanted depth, they wanted solace, they wanted to nourish their souls.

The deepest purpose of poetry and art is to show us what transcendence – the ecstatic apprehension of the world beyond the self -- feels like. In the Humanities, you can study mythology, to explore the depths of the human psyche, around the world, across the centuries. You can study history because if it doesn’t repeat then at least it rhymes, and maybe we’ll get something right next time. You can read literature, to know that humans two thousand years ago experienced the same exact thing you felt last week when you broke up with your boyfriend.

None of this requires adherence to a particular religion, or to any religion. But it does make room for it. And it makes room for the experience of awe that uplifts us all, and brings us together -- whether we’re atheists, believers, or somewhere in between.

*

As always, I would love to hear from you, if you’re so inclined.

*Does the phrase/idea of “Sacred Humanism” resonate with you?

*Can you think of a work of art, poetry, literature, mythology, that inspires awe in you?

*If we lose the Humanities altogether, what do you think we lose? If we succeed in restoring them to their former glory, what do you think we gain?

Please do leave a comment below! And, if you have a friend or colleague who you think would like to hear about Sacred Humanism, please do share this Kindred Letter.

Share

Leave a comment

© Susan Cain

Last week, 400 people joined us for a live event with , who’s a writer and also a maestro of how to work and thrive on Substack. I highly recommend her Substack!

And, if you missed our conversation, the video replay is below!

We discussed:

*How and why I write my “newsletters” (I really dislike that word) as Kindred Letters;

*How to love your writing life;

*Envy and jealousy of other writers;

*The magic of our Quiet Life Candlelight Chats;

*Why “vibe” is the word of 2026;

*and more.

You can watch here!

Read more

Read more

Hello everyone! I’m going live on Substack today at 2 pm ET/1 pm CT - as a guest of , the maestro of Substack Writers at Work.

You can join from your desktop, phone, or in the app: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/268274

Join and add it to your calendar, here: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/268274.

I hope to see you there! And if you can’t make it — I realize this is very short notice — we’ll send out the replay later.

xo Susan

Our Candlelight Chat this past Sunday, on the Wendell Berry poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” and on being a Highly Sensitive Person (“HSP”), was so so good. Thank you so much to all who attended, for your uniquely thoughtful and kind-hearted energy, which I felt all the way across the Internet.

And, if you missed it, not to worry; we’ll send out the replay video to all subscribers/scholarship members soon!

As per the Wendell Berry poem, in which the poet “comes into” the peace of wild animals “who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief,” we talked a little about anticipatory anxiety and anticipatory grief. Surely these are some of the more useless and unpleasant of emotional states. How can we manage not to succumb to them?

I shared a few tips on Sunday, and promised to share more here. So that’s what we’re talking about today.

But the first and most important thing to realize is that these states of being, annoying though they are, do serve a purpose. Sometimes, we worry because there really is something we can fix - and only the unpleasantness of worrying gets us to do the work of fixing it.

Read more

Many of you have requested that we devote a Candlelight Chat to the phenomenon of being a “highly sensitive person” - what it’s like to be one, its challenges, its unexpected rewards.

So, we’re going to do that, tomorrow - from 1-2 pm ET, on Zoom!

Please come with your thoughts, experiences, and questions (though as usual, you’re welcome to share them in writing, via the chat box, or not at all; that is, you’re welcome to participate purely by listening).

Tomorrow’s Candlelight Chat will be “just us” – meaning, no esteemed guest this time - just a chance for us to talk to each other.

As promised, we’re also going to discuss the poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” by Wendell Berry. See below, to read the poem in advance.

You’ll also be able to “ask me anything” - whether on the above topics or not (though as usual we won’t be covering politics).

Here are your log-in instructions:

Read more

Where are you on your life journey, and where and what is the home to which you are traveling?

In honor of the new Odyssey movie, by Christopher Nolan, here is one of my all-time favorite poems, by Constantine Cavafy.

Cavafy was a Greek poet who often wrote about events from ancient history and literature. This one is based on Homer’s Odyssey -- and Ulysses’ famous journey back to his homeland, Ithaka, after the Trojan war.

The poem is a metaphor for the journey of life itself, with Ithaka symbolizing the fulfillment of that life journey.

Read it through, and then I’ll give you my interpretation.

Subscribe now

Ithaka

BY C. P. CAVAFY​

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

As usual, Cavafy ends with a goosebump-inducing line: “you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

And he’s already told us what they mean, with the OTHER goosebump-inducing line that preceded this final one: “Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.”

In other words: this poem conveys the timeless idea that the journey, not the destination, is the ultimate point.

But also: that the destination’s whole point is to facilitate the journey.

But I think the poem has a spiritual element too, the same one that’s at the heart of my book Bittersweet and that I’ve been trying to share for years now. Early in Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, we meet Ulysses, weeping on a beach, longing for home (Ithaka).

And the reader understands that it’s this very homesickness that sets his journey in motion; and that this longing for Ithaka represents the spiritual longing we all feel (whether we’re atheists, believers, or somewhere in between) to return to the perfect and beautiful world from whence we came.

Freud interpreted this longed-for world as the womb. The Judeo-Christian tradition calls it the Garden of Eden. The Sufis call it the Beloved of the Soul, with whom they long for union. The Wizard of Oz calls it Somewhere Over the Rainbow. But it’s all the same thing. And this longing is what J.R. Tolkien called “our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human.”

So please ask yourself: who or what do you long for, and where will your longing carry you?

*

Of course, there’s one big thing you have to overlook, in order to fully relish this poem: What about the people back home – Ulysses’ son, Telemachus, who longed for him, all the years of his absence, without the benefit of an exciting journey to distract and enrich him? What about Ulysses’ wife Penelope, trapped in her womanly role of weaving and unweaving all day and night, in an effort to fend off Ithaka’s would-be plunderers?

Many poets have addressed this question. One of my favorites is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “An Ancient Gesture,” which I came across in my 9th grade literature textbook, and which immediately seized me.

An Ancient Gesture

Edna St. Vincent Millay

​I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.
​
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope…
Penelope, who really cried.

“Penelope, who really cried.” I think about that line, ALL THE TIME, when I see politicians or other public figures mimicking deep emotions for the crowd’s consumption.

False tears won’t carry us home – but true ones might.

Incidentally, one other person who has addressed Penelope’s situation is actually… me. My very first (unpublished) writing project, after leaving my law career at age 33 to become a writer, was a coming-of-age memoir. I wrote (parts of) it both in prose and sonnet form; and in the sonnet version, I rewrote Penelope’s story, imagining that she’d had many private, unrecorded, but equally glorious adventures of her own, during all the years she waited for Ulysses.

Then I told my own story as a modern-day version of hers, concluding:

“I’m Penelope’s descendant/Heiress to a life transcendent.”

And this I believe: whoever you are, and wherever you are on your journey, you are heir to Homer’s Ulysses. And, you are Penelope’s descendant.

And you will come to understand, if you don’t already, what all these Ithakas mean.

*

As always, I’d love to hear from you, if you’re inclined to share.

*Where are you on your own life journey?

*What is your Ithaka?

*Are you inclined to read more Cavafy? You should!

Share

Leave a comment

Have you had the feeling I do, that the deepest life, the most authentic life, occurs far away from the spotlight — and that the constant bidding for you to become more visible is actually leading you AWAY from such a life? (I realize, as I write this, that I am officially a public/online person, but, you know, not really. Or at least, not completely.)

If this resonates with you, you’re going to love this essential new essay by the great psychologist (and friend of The Quiet Life), Scott Barry Kaufman. The essay discusses Abraham Maslow’s essential research on the elements of an “actualized life” - and how Maslow’s findings directly contradict everything you’re told today about the importance of connectivity and visibility.

SBK shows us why today’s sages are ignoring Maslow’s findings - and how to resist them.

I urge you not to miss this one! And, to follow SBK’s “Beautiful Minds” newsletter.

Here’s SBK:

“In Chasing Productivity, We Lost the Inner Life

Read more

“I don’t easily express my feelings, nor do I even know what they are 99.9% of the time, but in these Candlelight Chats, something always hits me so deeply that I feel it practically in every bone in my body, and that makes it easier for me to express my feelings.” - a Quiet Life member.

I always feel a little nervous about hosting these Candlelight Chats, because by nature the role of “host” is not my forte.

And yet. And yet. These Chats are one of the most meaningful things we do at The Quiet Life (TQL).

And so I appreciated the above feedback from a TQL member; and so I look forward to hosting our next one.

This next Chat will be on Sunday, July 26, from 1-2 pm Eastern time, on Zoom, and it will be “Just Us” - i.e., no guest speakers. It will be a chance for us to talk to each other, and listen, and be together as we think - write - experience quietly. As always, there will be no pressure for you to come onscreen and speak, though you’ll be welcome to, if you’d like. You can also participate via commenting in the chat box, or simply by watching and listening.

Log-in info will be distributed to Quiet Life members the day before the Chat. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that here:

Subscribe now

One thing we’ll talk about for sure is the Wendell Berry poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” which I find myself continually recommending to individual TQL members - so much so that I think we should discuss it (and find solace and inspiration in it) together, as well.

Here’s the poem, which you can start contemplating now:

As always, I’d love to hear from you:

*How do you feel generally about our Candlelight Chats? Who has been your favorite Candlelight Chat guest (or topic) so far?

*Do you have a dream guest you’d like me to interview in future?

*Do you prefer “Just Us” Chats?

*Is there a question or topic that you’d like to discuss at the upcoming “Just Us” Chat?

All of us at The Quiet Life are so honored, and thrilled, that you’re here.

Leave a comment

“We can choose to dispose our attention in a certain way, and depending on how we dispose it, we find a different world.” — Iain McGilchrist

This weekend I’ve been immersed in the work of the great author and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, including the profound insight above.

But it’s not actually his work I’m sharing with you today; today, I just want to share this reflection of his, on his own shyness.

This is for you if you’re shy too, or if you have imposter syndrome, or if you’re a writer or researcher who tends to feel that you’ve never learned quite enough and that there’s still one more study you really should read, one more point you really should make, to ensure that your argument is airtight and able to withstand the slings and arrows of the most formidable imaginary PhD examiner.

I don’t know why we love so much to know that we’re not alone in our idiosyncrasies, but we do.

So here’s Iain:

“I cannot account for it: my parents did not in any way undermine me, they rather supported me, and would have given me confidence. And at school, I certainly wasn’t told I was not good enough, or anything like that. But I’ve always gone through life with the, you know, what they call the ‘imposter syndrome’. I am aware of how little I know. And so you feel like you’re skating on thin ice all the time. And you can never have enough knowledge of an area. So when I’m writing, I’m drilling down and gathering in and trying to make sure that what I’m saying is grounded on something that is very hard to refute. I’m a shy person, but I’ve developed a persona as many shy people do for performing. And it’s interesting to me as a psychiatrist that some of the people who have what’s now diagnosed as social phobia (in the past, they would just have been said to be rather a shy, retiring person), often take jobs that involve them being on stage. Or being a DJ is another famous one. You’d think you’d have to have a lot of confidence to do these things. But actually it’s a kind of way of performing which is not too threatening.” - Iain McGilchrist

Share

“We imagine the full impact of what might go wrong, but don’t imagine our own resilience.” -

It’s not so often that I read an essay that gives me multiple new ways of understanding something as familiar as anxiety. But this one did!

Today I’m so happy to share with you this piece by Substacker , on the evolutionary roots of anxiety. Hertz’s essay is chockfull of useful insights (some of which I’ve bolded and annotated for you — see below). Even if you’re already familiar with the idea that the humans who survived and passed their genes on to us are the ones who reacted with greater alertness to real and imagined threats, I guarantee you’ll find other important gems - including insights that will help you outwit unwarranted anxiety.

Read on!

Read more

Today, we’re discussing the pull between going out into the world to help, vs. the desire to stay home and lead a quiet life.

This past week, I received a fantastic e-mail from a new member of The Quiet Life (Welcome, Dan!). It was fantastic, not just because of its honesty but also because it asked a question that many of us wonder about but don’t say out loud.

Rather than answer Dan privately, I asked if I could share his query and my response with you, here. He graciously agreed.

Here’s Dan’s question:

“I am a 62 year old man, partly retired, with very strong introversion tendencies. I now have the time to be helping out or contributing, physically, in the world. But due to my introverted tendencies, I really don't want to be doing that.

I have no guilt or bad feelings about being an introvert, this is what I am and I love being this way. Staying home reflecting, thinking, writing, etc, gives me tremendous pleasure, and I feel no guilt at all about not socializing more than I do. But I do feel guilt about not helping, and the nagging thought persists in my brain that these introverted days benefit no one but me and that feels bad.

I give money to the causes I care about but I don't give of myself - my time or energy. And I really don't want to do that, not deep down in the most honest part of my soul. But not doing that and quietly staying home feels like I am not doing my part.

Perhaps this question has already been answered or addressed earlier before I joined, but I am very interested to know if any other introverted people feel this way, or what I can do about it.

Thank you so much.

Dan Haverstock (name shared with permission)”

And here’s my answer:

Read more