EPISODE 32: Am I Wasting My Life? Are YOU Wasting Your Life? (James Wright's Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota)
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
-James Wright
Shook as we all are at the moment by global pandemics, and social protest, perhaps this is a good time to think about what wasting our lives and those of others might look like. And what about not-wasting? How to define as well as apply that to our lives? I reflect on this koan via Mike Leigh's 1993 film Naked, Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Saved from Drowning, Harold Brodkey's short story "Dumbness is Everything", and the philosopher Robert Kane's ideas about three dimensions of value that stack up or make up the landscape and inscape of our lives.
Transcript and shownotes (including links to films discussed which you can watch for free online): http://stevewasserman.co.uk/am-i-wasting-my-life-are-you-wasting-your-life-james-wrights-lying-in-a-hammock-at-william-duffys-farm-in-pine-island-minnesota/
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