Not long after I started a diary, I changed my handwriting to something less schoolgirl, more monk. It made my life feel more vertical, more intense. The onward flow of days was matched by the downward pull of calligraphy. This was where I lived. For sure.
Casey Cep in The New Yorker reviewed The Wandering Mind by Jamie Kreiner, a study of monkish attention in mediaeval times. Their efforts look both 'riotously strange, yet .... annoyingly familiar'. How far do you have to go to concentrate properly?
Thirty-five years on top of a pillar. Twenty days without sleeping. Sixty years living next to a river and never once looking at it.
What does it take and what are we looking for? Something worthy of our attention, somewhere to rest.
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