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The popular common reference point for a
haiku is a very short and kind of

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opaque poem.

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And that is not necessarily wrong.

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The traditions of Japanese poetry
leading back several centuries

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are leaning towards a real emphasis on

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concision. going back through the great
collections from the earlier centuries,

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the Kokenshu, the Manyoshu, where you're
taking vast

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complexes of emotion and interpretation

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and scene and materiality and
immateriality and body and

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spirit and all of this.

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compressing it into remarkably tight
lines that just

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evoke so much more than actually get
said or written, that

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is a consistent thread throughout. And
you can see the haiku is just another

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step in that progression where it
becomes even shorter.

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This can be confusing to a lot of
people.

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This can be very hard to follow because
it's a very tough nut to crack,

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especially if you're saying, well, okay,
well, a poem has to mean something.

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What is the meaning? And I'm going to
open that up and there's going to be the

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meaning. And that's not always the most
fruitful way of approaching this stuff.

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With Matsuo Basho, you get this
wonderful talent that is

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also kind of playful and fun.

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And in The Narrow Road to the Deep
North, this great collection of writings

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posing as a kind of travel narrative. He
writes this just a few years before his

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death. He doesn't live a long life. I
think he dies when he's around 50.

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But at around 45 or so, he goes on this
journey.

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And this is supposedly a recording of
that journey. It's not entirely

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truthful in that. It is not necessarily
a journalistic enterprise.

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Subsequent scholarship suggests that he
didn't actually do a lot of writing

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while he was on this journey.

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Like he explicitly says at times that he
does.

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He's fibbing a little there.

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But a lot of the poems and a lot of the
writing

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comes actually afterwards when he is
reconstructing everything in his mind,

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which, let's face it, is what writing
is.

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Very few people have an experience and
simultaneously write about it. If they

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do, that writing is often bad. garbage
and who the hell wants to read it? I had

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cereal five minutes ago and now I am
finishing a cup of coffee. You know, who

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really needs to know all that?

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But the process of time, the process of
a little objective distance

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allows you to sift through all that
experience, to sift through all of those

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thoughts and pick out the real Important
ones and start

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to thread all of those together. And
that's what you get here in this

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document where you get a mixture

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of prose and poetry. Also not uncommon
within the Japanese

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00:04:00,230 --> 00:04:06,850
tradition where you get fairly
conventional at times, it

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seems at least.

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prose exposition, talking about going
someplace, doing something,

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and it all seems very real. And then all
of a sudden they interject a little

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moment of poetry.

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I went to this place and I saw this and
I saw that and then I was moved to write

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this. And there's a short poem there, a
short haiku.

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And it's just another way of

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bringing out the thought process that
happens on the journey. It's another way

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of documenting your experience.

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And you can take it as that.

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But that is a first -level reading, I
would say. The more

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significant thoughts tend to come from
thinking about the

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connections,

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and the disparities between these two
modes of writing, prosaic and the

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And this book is a multifaceted
exploration of exactly

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that sort of experience, that experience
of being between two

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things, the in -between -ness of it, the
liminal is the high -end literary word,

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the liminal quality.

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of the experience.

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Where it is poetry, it is also prose,
but the most significant

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moment is the betweenness of them. Again
and again and again, this

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story, if you want to use that loose and
inaccurate word here,

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dwells on continuities and
discontinuities.

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It is, on the one hand, a journey.

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Okay. He wakes up one morning, he says,
and wants to go on a journey.

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That's fine.

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That's fair. That happens.

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But you have two ways of looking at a
journey.

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Is it a journey from point A to point B,
where the

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important parts are, point A and point
B?

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Or is the journey itself...

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The point.

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Like the classic line, it's not the
destination, it's the journey.

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Those sorts of thoughts start to come
up. And again and again and again, you

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read through this, and you find moments
where he's talking about history.

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And the distant past.

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And he's reflecting on the distant past
as an analog of sorts

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to...

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The present.

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So you get time collapsed like that,
where you're considering not just the

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distant past and the present, but the
moments between, what happens in

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Just like they use the present.

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from time to time in the shadow of the
distant past to try and predict the

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future. They speculate on the future.
The text speculates on the future. And

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you are suddenly the present is between
two things, between the past and the

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future. It is a liminal space between
them. It is a moment of uncertainty.

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Significantly, Basho is going on this
journey at age 45, which I got to tell

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is... middle age.

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And when you are middle age, you start
thinking about the fact that, well, gee,

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I got more time behind me than I do in
front of me. I'm going to die one day.

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And, you know, some people go out and
buy a Corvette, and some people go out

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a nice long walking journey and write
poetry about it.

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So he is between two things, between
birth and death, and he is very much

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of this throughout.

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He is aware of the passage of time.
There is a constant reference to

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constant reference to the passage of
time. The haiku form here

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always has an element within it that
tells you...

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What time of year it is. What is the
season? What is the climate like in that

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season?

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So all of these references are stacking
up. The differences between art and

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nature. He is walking through nature
very frequently, but he is writing about

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at the same time, producing art from
nature. But it is not also...

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the direct experience of nature because
we know that he is reflecting on it at a

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later date and writing it as if he were
there.

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So is that truth or is that fiction?
Another bifurcation there. Truth and

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fiction, art and nature, all of these
little poles are pulling at him but also

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joining together.

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You find references to rivers, which...

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Show a passage of time.

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It is a constant reference. It is a
deeply symbolic image in most Japanese

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poetry, Asian poetry broadly, world
poetry broadly. Time. You can never

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your hand in the same river twice
because it's always changing. But it is

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constant continuity of change that is in
itself a kind of stability.

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He is always getting between these two
and also finding it joined together.

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A river divides two land masses, but it
is also a place where they meet.

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A line can join as much as it divides.

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Another little way of thinking about all
of these distinctions.

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And when you start thinking about them,
when you start considering them,

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You see all of these recurrences
stacking up, all of these instances

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of distinctions that tend to blur
together.

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We like organized information.

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We like to be able to say this is that
and this is that and never the twain

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shall meet.

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But here we're starting to see that,
well, it's not so simple.

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And in that, you can see that same
concern

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with materiality and immateriality, body

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and soul, that pervades world
literature, world culture

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of all time, quite frankly.

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Waxing and waning through history, but
it's always there.

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The struggle to get a hold of it, the
impetus to explore it,

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is also part and parcel with the Age of

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Enlightenment over in Europe. Because
think about this. He goes

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on this journey, and it might seem like
just an

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idle little stroll, a meander.

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But still, he was impelled to go on it.
He was impelled to know. He wants to

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know something.

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That's right out of the Enlightenment
handbook.

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So there is a kind of quest to know.
There is a journey aspect

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to this that is very much a goal
-oriented...

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He wants to know something. He may not
know what he wants to know, but he is

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driven to explore something.

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And you see him again and again and
again going to all of these sites, going

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all of these places, and striving to
know.

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And it's not just looking at stuff.

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going and saying, hey, wow, you know,
that's a really cool beach. I'm going to

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hang out there, watch the sunset, and,
you know, order up some Mai Tais.

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He's going to fairly specific places
that have signs or

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connections to culture.

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They're often natural spots, often quite
secluded, but with

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connections to human civilization.

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So again and again you see him say, and
I was in this place where we, you know,

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where this poet had written about that.
And this temple is connected to that.

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And all of these little marks of human
civilization he is exploring and

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writing about and commenting on very
obliquely, but it's there.

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This is an intellectual endeavor as much
as it is a spiritual endeavor.

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And that mind -body connection is just

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like every other polarity that we see in
this, where is it an intellectual

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process? Are we reasonable beings? Are
we thinking beings? Is there no spirit?

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Or are we all spirit?

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Or are we all immaterial? Are we all
part of God or the divinity in whatever

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version you want?

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And the physical stuff we see is just an
illusion.

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These are the questions being weighed
here. Along the way, it's a fun little

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00:14:26,290 --> 00:14:28,610
journey. Along the way, it's
interesting.

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Along the way, it is at moments really
quite beautiful.

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The months and days, the travelers of a
hundred ages, the years that come and

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go, voyagers too, floating away their
lives on boats, growing old, they lead

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horses by the bit. For them, each day, a
journey, travel their home.

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Many, too, are the ancients who perished
on the road. Some years ago, seized by

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wanderlust, I wandered along the shores
of the sea. Seized by wanderlust,

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wanderlust, that hunger to know, to see,
to just go out and experience, to

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leave the safe harbor of what you know
and to forge

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into an unknown world.

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00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:23,540
Then, and here we're back into prose.

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Simple little switch. Is it a difference
or is it just a continuation?

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00:15:28,380 --> 00:15:33,240
Then, last autumn, I swept away the old
cobwebs in my dilapidated dwelling on

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00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:34,240
the river's edge.

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00:15:34,260 --> 00:15:35,780
River's edge, very symbolic.

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As the year gradually came to an end and
spring arrived, filling the sky with

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mist, I longed to cross the Shirakawa
barrier, the most revered of poetic

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00:15:46,940 --> 00:15:48,520
places. Poetic places?

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00:15:49,280 --> 00:15:51,640
Not just anywhere. Places of culture.

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00:15:52,060 --> 00:15:57,140
Somehow or other, I became possessed by
a spirit which crazed my soul.

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00:15:57,580 --> 00:16:01,920
Unable to sit still, I accepted the
summons of the deity of the road.

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00:16:02,590 --> 00:16:05,610
No sooner had I repaired the holes in my
trousers,

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00:16:06,370 --> 00:16:12,030
attached a new cord to my rain hat, and
cauterized my legs with maksa, than my

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00:16:12,030 --> 00:16:16,910
thoughts were on the famous moon of
Matsushima. I turned my dwelling to

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00:16:16,910 --> 00:16:18,910
and moved to Senpu's villa.

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00:16:19,210 --> 00:16:23,730
Notice the switching back and forth
between material concerns and poetic

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00:16:23,730 --> 00:16:28,110
concerns, between the body and the soul,
between art and nature, between

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00:16:28,110 --> 00:16:29,850
physicality and spirits.

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00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:35,320
I repaired the holes in my trousers,
attached a new cord to my rain hat, and

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00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:36,980
cauterized my legs with moxa.

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00:16:37,280 --> 00:16:43,380
All very physical, all very material,
practical concerns. Then my thoughts

200
00:16:43,380 --> 00:16:48,060
on the famous moon at Matsushima, and
suddenly he's off on an aesthetic

201
00:16:48,140 --> 00:16:51,960
Suddenly he's thinking about something
that is more artistic, more spiritual,

202
00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:55,180
more beautiful, and less practical.

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00:16:56,030 --> 00:17:00,570
And then back into a poem. You get a
short haiku.

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00:17:00,930 --> 00:17:07,290
Time even for the grass hut to change
owner's house of dolls, which you go

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00:17:07,290 --> 00:17:13,050
to the footnote, and it tells you that
it is alluding to a particular time of

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00:17:13,050 --> 00:17:19,890
year, the doll festival, a sign of
culture, a sign of passage of time,

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00:17:20,089 --> 00:17:21,630
a sign of civilization.

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00:17:23,380 --> 00:17:29,780
but that is compared to time even for
the grass hut to change owner. A grass

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00:17:29,780 --> 00:17:35,620
is a very unsophisticated dwelling, a
very uncultured dwelling. A grass hut is

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00:17:35,620 --> 00:17:41,100
very humble and has nothing to do, you
might think, with the palace and the

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00:17:41,100 --> 00:17:42,660
culture of the palace.

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00:17:43,450 --> 00:17:49,650
Or does it? Is it all a continuum? We
don't really know. There are these

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00:17:49,950 --> 00:17:54,510
and the lines divide, but the lines
conjoin, and it is all uncertain.

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00:17:55,010 --> 00:18:00,150
I left a sheet of eight linked verses on
the Pillar of the Hermitage. I started

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00:18:00,150 --> 00:18:05,310
out on the 27th day of the third month,
connecting already the difference

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00:18:05,310 --> 00:18:09,890
between culture, between the art and
nature, between...

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00:18:10,540 --> 00:18:16,100
spirit and body, between writing and
experiencing, all of this is getting

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00:18:16,100 --> 00:18:18,680
pointed out again and again and again.

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00:18:19,310 --> 00:18:24,190
You just have to recognize it. The dawn
sky was misting over. Another

220
00:18:24,190 --> 00:18:28,090
reference to passing time.

221
00:18:28,330 --> 00:18:31,130
The moon lingered, giving off a pale
light.

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00:18:31,370 --> 00:18:34,970
Beautiful, but also a sign again of
passing time.

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00:18:35,170 --> 00:18:38,090
The peak of Mount Fuji appeared in the
distance.

224
00:18:38,330 --> 00:18:43,250
I felt uncertain, wondering whether I
would see again the cherry blossoms on

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00:18:43,250 --> 00:18:45,690
boughs at Ueno and Yanaka.

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00:18:46,220 --> 00:18:51,040
The experience of outside nature makes
him think of his inside nature. He's

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00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:56,900
registering his emotional state as he is
recording the outside environment.

228
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:02,140
My friends had gathered the night before
to see me off and join me on the boat.

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00:19:02,220 --> 00:19:06,920
When I disembarked at a place called
Senju, my breast was overwhelmed by

230
00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:09,240
thoughts of the 3 ,000 leagues ahead.

231
00:19:09,500 --> 00:19:14,420
And standing at the crossroads of this
illusory word, I wept at the parting.

232
00:19:14,940 --> 00:19:20,160
a reference to society, but still very
vague. He's talking about friends coming

233
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:25,760
to see him, and yet it is a very
internal thing. They don't register in

234
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:27,220
itself. We don't get names.

235
00:19:27,420 --> 00:19:29,420
They have no snippets of dialogue or
anything.

236
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:36,160
But it shows him in society, and yet at
the same time, he seems very much alone.

237
00:19:36,500 --> 00:19:41,100
He is registering all this and
internalizing it and recording what is

238
00:19:41,100 --> 00:19:47,380
internally, separate from society, even
as he is in society. Even as he is among

239
00:19:47,380 --> 00:19:49,840
friends, he is separate from the
friends.

240
00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:54,260
Is that really a thing? Who else can say
that they do that? Have you ever been

241
00:19:54,260 --> 00:19:58,920
in a crowd and suddenly felt like you're
just sort of sitting there in your own

242
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:03,300
thoughts and, you know, you could be
among your best friends in the world,

243
00:20:03,300 --> 00:20:06,460
you're just sitting back and just lost
in your own little ideas?

244
00:20:07,300 --> 00:20:12,140
Spring going, birds crying and tears in
the eyes of the fish.

245
00:20:13,120 --> 00:20:18,100
spring going passage of time spring
birds crying and tears in the eyes of

246
00:20:18,100 --> 00:20:25,040
fish objectifying nature as a reflection
of his own internal state you don't

247
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,320
have to break apart that little haiku
and say well what does this mean what

248
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:29,740
that mean what does this mean sometimes

249
00:20:30,700 --> 00:20:34,380
That's just not helpful. Sometimes just
register, well, what are my first

250
00:20:34,380 --> 00:20:39,100
impressions here? And this is it for me.
It is the passage of time. It is a

251
00:20:39,100 --> 00:20:44,520
reflection on the outside nature. And it
is somehow connected to or

252
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:50,040
distinguished from the inside nature,
the interior drama going on in this

253
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:51,040
person's soul.

254
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:56,560
Making this my first journal entry, we
set off but made little progress.

255
00:20:57,180 --> 00:21:01,040
People lying the sides of the street
seeing us off, it seems, as long as they

256
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:07,520
could see our back. Making this my first
journal entry, we know that he did not

257
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:12,660
necessarily write all this stuff as he's
going along. Some of this was after the

258
00:21:12,660 --> 00:21:16,000
fact, and most of it was after the fact,
quite frankly.

259
00:21:17,140 --> 00:21:21,680
So you can say that as him being a
little disingenuous here, but this...

260
00:21:23,820 --> 00:21:28,800
just points out again the difference
between fact and fiction, between art

261
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:35,660
nature, between reality and imagination.
All of these

262
00:21:35,660 --> 00:21:41,720
things are meeting here, and it's
telling us again and again that this is

263
00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:48,500
we need to focus. This is that knot
between everything else, this liminal

264
00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:52,620
space between all of these polarities
that we need to consider.

265
00:21:54,600 --> 00:22:00,840
Because maybe there is no such thing as
polarities. Maybe there is no such thing

266
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:03,980
as A and B. There is only the infinite
space in between.

267
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:11,000
These are the considerations that the
poetry is driving you to. These are the

268
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:17,060
considerations that the culture broadly
is driving you to at this point in time.

269
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:19,540
And again, think in terms of the
historic...

270
00:22:20,620 --> 00:22:27,060
position of Japan at this time. Japan at
this time was in a

271
00:22:27,060 --> 00:22:29,600
mode of transition.

272
00:22:30,100 --> 00:22:33,820
It was starting to open up to the
outside world.

273
00:22:34,020 --> 00:22:39,940
Portuguese explorers had stumbled across
Japan some years before, and there was

274
00:22:39,940 --> 00:22:44,610
this... kind of uncertain how much do we
want to reach out to the world how much

275
00:22:44,610 --> 00:22:51,390
do we want to retrench and focus on our
own stuff and this journey around japan

276
00:22:51,390 --> 00:22:52,910
is a way of saying

277
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:59,160
Well, you can read it as, well, he is
focusing on Japanese culture, and he is

278
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:02,660
visiting all of these sites of Japanese
culture. But at the same time, it is

279
00:23:02,660 --> 00:23:07,220
also a journey. He is yearning. So he's
going around. Maybe he wants to see

280
00:23:07,220 --> 00:23:09,640
something broader, something outside
himself.

281
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:15,480
He does not just reflect on his Japanese
culture in his own hometown. He is

282
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:21,100
motivated to leave, to reach out. And so
you can see this position. And the

283
00:23:21,100 --> 00:23:26,700
whole idea of Japanese culture, in
itself has a long history with Chinese

284
00:23:26,700 --> 00:23:33,640
culture. China was always the big dog on
the block. And Japan had a bit of

285
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:39,880
a colonial mindset for a long time. They
took a lot of their early art, early

286
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:45,400
literature, early writing from China.

287
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,760
And so they have this somewhat

288
00:23:50,830 --> 00:23:56,990
struggling sense of identity themselves
so as you're reading this uh

289
00:23:56,990 --> 00:24:03,870
this journal you can call it that uh
this journal of one

290
00:24:03,870 --> 00:24:09,330
person trying to find their way through
the world you can see it as one person

291
00:24:09,330 --> 00:24:16,270
trying to figure out an individual
identity in opposition to so many

292
00:24:16,270 --> 00:24:17,530
other identities

293
00:24:19,580 --> 00:24:25,860
exploring that liminal space between the
self and the other. The other could be

294
00:24:25,860 --> 00:24:30,340
the broader outside world of European
explorers or whatever. The broader could

295
00:24:30,340 --> 00:24:34,060
be the experience of China.

296
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:40,540
The broader could be the experience of
India when they talk about Buddhism.

297
00:24:40,740 --> 00:24:44,360
Buddhism is essentially an import from
India.

298
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,420
through to China, and then ultimately
into Japan.

299
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:52,900
And that contrasts with the more
naturalistic indigenous Shinto religion

300
00:24:52,900 --> 00:24:59,220
Japan. All of these issues are being
wrestled out, and they meet

301
00:24:59,220 --> 00:25:03,640
in the mind of this traveler, of this

302
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:09,960
pilgrim of sorts, just trying

303
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,980
to make sense of it all. And who among
us...

304
00:25:14,460 --> 00:25:21,460
It hasn't been in that place where
you're just trying

305
00:25:21,460 --> 00:25:25,860
to make sense of the world. And
sometimes you go on a journey.

306
00:25:26,100 --> 00:25:28,060
Sometimes you just go out and go for a
walk.

307
00:25:30,580 --> 00:25:35,660
Go for a walk along, you know, go for a
walk through the city streets. Go for a

308
00:25:35,660 --> 00:25:39,800
walk in the park. Go for a walk on the
beach. Go for just a walk. It doesn't

309
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:41,640
even matter where you're.

310
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:48,540
trying to organize your ideas a little
bit, and you don't even realize it.

311
00:25:49,380 --> 00:25:54,840
You just feel like you need to get out.

312
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,300
Maybe you're trying to escape something.
Maybe you're trying to escape to

313
00:25:59,300 --> 00:26:03,060
something. Maybe you're not even trying
to escape, but you're trying to bring

314
00:26:03,060 --> 00:26:05,920
what you had to someplace new.

315
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:10,420
It's all uncertain.

316
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:16,900
But in reading this, you do find all
these little recurrences, all these

317
00:26:16,900 --> 00:26:23,800
prods, all these little hints of time
passing, of places, of art and nature

318
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:29,980
and soul and body and spirit and nature
and

319
00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:36,640
physicality and materiality. And all of
this is being considered

320
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,600
again and again and again. And you can
ignore it.

321
00:26:41,139 --> 00:26:44,420
And just say, well, that's just the
words that this guy is coming up with as

322
00:26:44,420 --> 00:26:47,920
he's sitting there writing about, oh,
and one day I went for a walk and I did

323
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:49,820
this and I did that and I did the other
thing.

324
00:26:52,660 --> 00:26:58,520
Yeah, you can read it on that level. And
in that case, it's sort of interesting

325
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:04,800
because it does take advantage of some
of the conventions of journalism,

326
00:27:05,020 --> 00:27:06,780
to use that term.

327
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,600
which is a little loaded, travel
narrative.

328
00:27:11,460 --> 00:27:17,280
There is a long history of travel
narratives, especially in the so -called

329
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:24,180
of Exploration, where people are just
really interested, especially as the

330
00:27:24,180 --> 00:27:28,700
printing press and popular literacy
begins to spread.

331
00:27:30,500 --> 00:27:32,620
People want to hear about other places.

332
00:27:33,220 --> 00:27:36,900
Ordinary people who don't get out, don't
get to travel very much, want to hear

333
00:27:36,900 --> 00:27:40,100
about ordinary places. And it can be the
place two towns over. It can be the

334
00:27:40,100 --> 00:27:43,420
place on the other side of the world.
They don't really care because they're

335
00:27:43,420 --> 00:27:44,420
going to either.

336
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,680
They're going to be born, live and die
probably in the same three square miles.

337
00:27:49,540 --> 00:27:53,600
But they like hearing about other things
because of that intellectual curiosity

338
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,740
that so fuels this era.

339
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,280
And you can read it on that level where
you're just learning about, oh, and that

340
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:07,120
looks like a lovely spot. And hey, I
wish I had a postcard from there.

341
00:28:08,060 --> 00:28:11,140
And you can enjoy it on that level.

342
00:28:13,140 --> 00:28:17,700
But if you just scratch that surface a
little and start to think about, well,

343
00:28:17,780 --> 00:28:23,820
okay, there are so many ways to tell a
story of a travel, to tell a story of a

344
00:28:23,820 --> 00:28:24,820
journey.

345
00:28:26,120 --> 00:28:30,680
Why this detail? Why this detail right
after this other detail?

346
00:28:31,500 --> 00:28:37,420
Why the constant, and then the time
passed, and then the day moved, and then

347
00:28:37,420 --> 00:28:43,040
weather changed, and suddenly there was
frost on the ground. Why all of that?

348
00:28:43,300 --> 00:28:44,299
You know, why?

349
00:28:44,300 --> 00:28:45,300
It gets repetitive.

350
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:46,760
It's annoying.

351
00:28:46,900 --> 00:28:48,060
I don't like repetition.

352
00:28:49,860 --> 00:28:54,660
But repetition is a very common poetic
device, because it makes you...

353
00:28:55,290 --> 00:28:56,290
see it.

354
00:28:56,390 --> 00:28:58,910
It makes itself conspicuous.

355
00:28:59,170 --> 00:29:02,770
Repetition is conspicuous. Repetition is
conspicuous.

356
00:29:03,110 --> 00:29:09,830
Repetition is conspicuous. And that is
the writer, the text itself,

357
00:29:09,930 --> 00:29:14,470
shouting at you to pay attention to
this.

358
00:29:15,430 --> 00:29:18,230
I'm repeating it because I'm trying to
make a point.

359
00:29:18,650 --> 00:29:22,990
The point might not be all that clear,
but think about it.

360
00:29:29,930 --> 00:29:31,250
That's what reading is.

361
00:29:33,590 --> 00:29:35,630
It's not just taking in information.

362
00:29:35,950 --> 00:29:38,390
Again, information is cheap.

363
00:29:38,610 --> 00:29:41,990
Information is not all that interesting
when you get right down to it.

364
00:29:42,910 --> 00:29:47,150
But the way you shape that information
can imply so much more.

365
00:29:48,330 --> 00:29:54,190
Because by dwelling on the space between

366
00:29:54,190 --> 00:29:58,810
the information, it's not A or B.

367
00:29:59,740 --> 00:30:06,420
space in between, that develops a
faculty of thinking that can be

368
00:30:06,420 --> 00:30:13,120
so many other facets of life. Because A
and B are

369
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,480
always going to change. They are
variables.

370
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:20,040
But the ability to imagine the different
relationships between A and B.

371
00:30:20,740 --> 00:30:27,680
Imagine, well, you know, there is

372
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:28,680
an infinity.

373
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:30,060
between those two points.

374
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:32,960
You know?

375
00:30:34,060 --> 00:30:39,860
The nature of infinity is that you can
divide anything by it, you know, in half

376
00:30:39,860 --> 00:30:46,140
again. You can keep subdividing
something. So in between two things that

377
00:30:46,140 --> 00:30:50,140
seem to be right next to one another, in
between there is infinite space.

378
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:56,740
And understanding that,

379
00:30:57,540 --> 00:31:02,040
allows you to think about things in a
much more sophisticated way, a much more

380
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:03,040
subtle way.

381
00:31:03,060 --> 00:31:08,200
And quite frankly, the people who see A
and B and say, okay, I know what A and B

382
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,220
is, those people are great.

383
00:31:13,380 --> 00:31:17,120
They're not necessarily going to change
the world or anything, though.

384
00:31:19,140 --> 00:31:25,020
The subtler thinkers, the people who can
see A and B and imagine what's beyond

385
00:31:25,020 --> 00:31:26,020
them,

386
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:30,220
What's between them? What's connecting
them and what's dividing them? Those

387
00:31:30,220 --> 00:31:37,200
people, those are the people that change
the world. Those are the

388
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:42,880
people that imagine what is there when
everybody else says there's nothing

389
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:43,880
there.

390
00:31:46,820 --> 00:31:53,320
You can decide for yourself whether or
not that is a skill worth cultivating,

391
00:31:55,520 --> 00:32:02,500
I think the evidence of really
successful people from

392
00:32:02,500 --> 00:32:09,260
the beginning of time, successful in
terms of cultural

393
00:32:09,260 --> 00:32:16,100
relevance, successful in terms of cha
-ching bank account, however you want to

394
00:32:16,100 --> 00:32:22,220
measure success, they're the people who
tend to see

395
00:32:22,220 --> 00:32:23,220
between.

396
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:26,140
See that liminal space.

397
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:31,620
And see polarities as just progressions

398
00:32:31,620 --> 00:32:38,340
that have extent beyond

399
00:32:38,340 --> 00:32:44,900
those polarities, but also an infinite
reduction between

400
00:32:44,900 --> 00:32:45,900
them.

401
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,580
And that's more satisfying, ultimately.

402
00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:52,960
It's more...

403
00:32:54,530 --> 00:32:55,530
Interesting.

404
00:32:57,930 --> 00:32:59,290
A and B is dull.

405
00:33:00,650 --> 00:33:01,990
The infinity between?

406
00:33:05,270 --> 00:33:07,370
That'll occupy you for the rest of your
life.