"We must dare to find new ways to be ourselves, new ways to discover the unimaginable aspects of ourselves and those closest to us.
"Our first months of life, we're in a state of perpetual dumbfoundedness. Then, like a film, like a word, things go — though not without exception — from inscrutable to scrutable to familiar to dull. Unless we are vigilant: this tendency, I believe, can be fought. Maybe it's not so much about possession of the world as a kind of understanding of it. A glint of its insane detail and complexity.
"The highest ethical calling, it strikes me, is curiosity. The greatest reverence, the greatest rapture, are in it. My parents tell the story that as a child I went through a few months when just about all I did was point to things and shout, 'What's it!' 'Ta-ble-cloth.' 'What's it!' 'Nap-kin.' 'What's it!' 'Cup-board.' 'What's it!' 'Pea-nut-but-ter.' 'What's it!' . . . Bless them, they conferred early on and made the decision to answer every single time with as much enthusiasm as they could muster, never to shut down or silence my inquiry no matter how it grated on them. I started a collection of exceptional sticks by the corner of the driveway that soon came to hold every stick I found that week. How can I stay so irrepressibly curious? How can we keep the bit rate of our lives up?
"Heather McHugh: We don't care how a poet looks; we care how a poet looks.
"Forrest Gander: 'Maybe the best we can do is try to leave ourselves unprotected. To keep brushing off habits, how we see things and what we expect, as they crust around us. Brushing the green flies of the usual off the tablecloth. To pay attention.' "
