Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living

light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. It’s a very important story for our times. This task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It’s the restoration of the world. And this is, of course, a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born,

the reality of what is my deepest desire and what is your deepest desire.

there is more change possible in our lifetimes than we can foresee.

The balance of our world frequently is seen as a question of power. If I have more power and more knowledge, more capacity, then I can do more. And when we have power, we can very quickly push people down. I’m the one that knows and you don’t know, and I’m strong and I’m powerful, I have the knowledge. This is the history of humanity. And it is in

what makes you resilient to trauma is to own yourself fully. So if somebody says hurtful or insulting things, you can say, “interesting, that person is saying hurtful and insulting things.” But you can separate your sense of yourself from them. We are really beginning to seriously understand how human beings can learn how to do that, to observe and

You do like this language of being a “maker” … as much or maybe more than being called an “artist.” And it’s just occurring to me that this language lends itself to the rest of us too. Being an artist is specialized, but making is something we all do, each in our own ways, including in our family lives.

risk falling down,

It references reality at every turn and reveres truth.

Life is fluid, evanescent, evolving in every cell, in every breath. Never perfect. To be alive is by definition messy, always leaning towards disorder and surprise.