Considering the Snail

Considering the Snail

BY THOM GUNN

The snail pushes through a green

night, for the grass is heavy

with water and meets over

he bright path he makes, where rain

has darkened the earth’s dark. He

moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring

as he hunts. I cannot tell

what power is at work, drenched there

with purpose, knowing nothing.

What is a snail’s fury? All

I think is that if later

I parted the blades above

the tunnel and saw the thin

trail of broken white across

litter, I would never have

imagined the slow passion

to that deliberate progress.

Sometimes it feels like we are a snail. As a class. In ourselves. I sometimes feel like the students are snails, moving, it seems, hardly at all. Moving glacially, imperceptibly, grudgingly. Accruing knowledge? It’s hard to say. We could test, to see if there is progress; but the things we could test are not the movement we seek or the changes we dream of.

They move slowly. They get hung up on becoming. They are stubborn in their willingness to take a risk. They stay in the fetal posture when things get tough. They don’t move forward. They want to retreat, to turn themselves it invisible. They hide behind repetitions of half-truths. They hold on to a half-broken limb near the shore. They mask their real desires. They say falsehoods which stand diametrically opposed to the inner truths clawing inside them, waiting to be born.

I believe they have fury in them. That they are deliberate. That their actions have purpose. But these deliberations and motions toward defined purpose seem inscrutable.

The poem tell us we have to keep looking, and when we look we have to believe that there is more than meets the eye. There is deliberation, brightness, fury, and passion in the little motion.

Then, At the start of the Ski trip, in morning meeting, Isabel read the following poem by Rabinathe Tagore. It tells us that even amid the seeming slow movement, we are making great leaps into the unknown, always coming closer to ourselves.

Journey Home

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my

voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,

and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,

and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'

The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand

streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!'

And so we went with those words trailing behind us or in us. It was a long journey, and we left our tracks in the snow, with the sun shining in the packed trails with the blue sky and wide road in front of us. We skied up 59, down 59, into the deep woods of Gilmore Trail, back across 59, into the Hobbit Trail and onto Brooks road. Up and up. Stopping to snack an eat hear and there, mittened and layered, skiing in lines or four abreast, talking, slowing, zooming ahead, coming back, keeping the tail moving behind the head. At the top of Brooks Road we stopped to eat with a small fire, where we had eaten last year, and then on above Sugar Hill reservoir, little dips and turns, clambering up, plowing down, curses thrown into the bright woods. Tony passed us in the groomer with Griffin trotting behind on.

Down to Blueberry Hill. Into the Touring Center. Warm, potbelly stove; food laid out. Noisy hyper, adrenaline/hormone charged rosy-cheeked teens piling in. Food, desert, some short skiing- under the stars, sleeping bags, noise, games, guitars, woodsmoke, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and to bed on the hard floor. Morning and breakfast, and out into the woods again. Around Hogback, up and down into the woods again, to the Goshen Dam. Lunch by the reservoir, a big fire, hot dogs and not-dogs, sliding down the big hill.

Then the speedsters hauling out to lead us back, EXCEPT, leaders took the groomed trail, not the trail we wanted. Eric sped after the groups and sent them back, all of them having done extra miles. We came trickling into Rikert right on time, all of us tired and having known something of the poet’s idea that, “It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself.”

***

Evan presented his project on Drop City, Arcosanti, and The Farm. He talked about influences, such as John Cage, Bucky Fuller, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Rauschenberg, Tearing down the fourth wall, the use of popular images in art, radical reorganization of ideas about society and art.

We sat through a performance of Cage’s “4:33.” IN fact, we watched it, but because it was silent, we were also IN it. Are we the first middle school to be a part of the performing of “4:33?” By being part of it, by listening, we “heard” ourselves and our own thoughts. The sounds: coughing. A whisper. A scuffing chair. The pecking of typewriter key. A pencil scratches. The turning of a paper. Musicians holding an instrument, Breathing. A loud cough in the hall. The murmur of a voice in another room. Someone licks their lips. Another cough, The turning of a page. The baton rises and falls. The score is turned. Someone chews. Smacking of chewing gum. A book closes. Someone’s watch beeping. Someone wheezing. Silence. Clapping. A laugh.

The kids noticed that yes, part of the art is one’s participation in it. Isabel said, “In dance I always move to music. This is more about how to move to silence…I am supposed to be hearing what is inside of me.”

Evan also told us about Paolo Soleri, who created both Cosanti, and Arcosanti, an “Urban Laboratary. He believed that cities should be built up. Things going “out” and spreading is anti-community. Studied with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West. He showed us slides of the city and then told us about Stephen Gaskin and the Farm, one of the most famous and enduring of the 1960’s “communes.” He told us about Stephen Gaskin’s “Monday Night Class,” Haight Ashbury, and the “Caravan.” We got the idea that a lot of it was about people searching for a new “family.” Searching for a place to be. A home for the Rollin’ Stones, the lonely drop-outs. Gaskin became like Guru, a cult leader, a messiah figure. A preacher/priest man; sort of a Jesus figure, St. Stephan, they called him. Our conclusion: The farm did not make a private Utopia; They stayed in involved in the wider world and transformed and evolved.

***

The Geometry Class Play: A murder concerning Postulate Pizza, Polygon Mansion, Utopias of Geometrical Shapes, Math Skills, Watson and Sherlock Holmes, “ A thrilling tale containing geometric theorems, postulates and definitions, not mention mystery, murder, subtle complexity, and pizza,” and ending with:

“In the end, truth always prevails. Your mind and heart have the power to seek after truth, so never stop searching: and remember your theorems, tey will help you solve mysteries and fight crime. And lastly, don’t get blood on your pizza.”

***

Neruda: “The Ship,” read by Sarah. “A Piece of the Storm,” by Mark Strand, read by Claire.

“It’s time. The air, the sky has an opening.”

We made a card for Cindy made out of the best mandalas. We sent it to her on a scroll to help her get well.

***

Lunch. One guitarist came over to play Tal his “Headmaster Has Low Self-Esteem Blues”, then later: two guitarists making up a song. A conversation about whether it is better to be an older or younger sibling; Science teacher comes in for instruction on the blues sale from aforementioned guitarists; Boy wearing his pants and shirt backwards: “Backwards people are cooler” another says. “—Wait, no, no, no don’t’ write that.”

Head teacher says: “Don’t’ be a hater. Be a lover.”

Sarah is writing a poem which she transcribes to the card for Cindy. Aylee looks up the lyrics to the Beatles’ “black bird” and copies them out.

Jesse comes over to explain her insight on a scene in “To Kill a Mockingbird”; she jumps up and down and connects it to a scene from chapter 20.

“Don’t be a fighter, be a lover,” says the headmaster again, when two seventh grade boys go toward a little rough-housing.

Yared hands in his story: “I wrote so many words! In the car on the way to soccer ! It’s awesome!”

Later, he came in: “Did you read it? Did you see my sweet metaphor about the ants?”

The guitarists have just improvised a new song.

“What’s the song?” the headmaster asks.

“A combination of “Stir it Up,” by Bob Marley, “Rollin’ Stone” by Bob Dylan, and “Angel of Harlem” by U2.”

Rider says: “Can you guys do my country song about Mars, and ‘Walking On My Own Damn Feet.’”

They say “Awww, Rider.”

“They want to create, not RE-create!” says the wise Headmaster.

“Okay,” says Rider, “Play a NEW country song.”

Now Cassie is saying her favorite book when she was three was “Goodbye Earl,” about two women poisoning Earl, an abusive man, with poison black-eyed peas.

“It was a country song,” she says by way of explanation.

Another boy sings “Headstrong,” by Trapt; Guitarists comply by strumming the three simple repeating chords.

“Hey Tal, Hey Tal, I got a new metaphor. I am a hot machine. I am an Epic Toaster.”

“Is this something to strive for?” The headmaster asks.

“Tal, can you move me, or can I move myself?” she is referring to the HellFires list.

“Yes, Anneke, you can move yourself.”

“Tal, astronomy is the best!” said Rider.

“You guys are going loco on these astronomy projects,” says the headmaster.

“What does that mean?”

“You guys are going crazy to make these great.”

“Tal, Tal, look at my poster. I redeemed myself.”

“It’s great.”

“Wanna see my first one? It’s horrible. A moment later Aylee is tearing her old one up as Anneke tries to post it on the board as an example of crappy work.

“Hey, Calder, you’re such a nerd,” says Ollie.

Before anyone can jump him for being a put-down artist, he says, “just kidding,”

“Then he says, “Hey Tal, Did you hear that? I said it but I was kidding around.”

“Yes, Ollie, you’re doing better. I see that you caught yourself. Now you are playing with the ‘trope’ of putting people down.”

“What’s a trope?”

“A set of images or ideas that are understood and pre-formed that you then play around with.”

Hey, Tal, have you ever had pulled pork?” someone asks.

“Of course, I’m from the South! I was born eating pulled pork.”

“My mom made some last night, it is so delicious. I have a sandwich of it and you can’t have any.”

“That’s not very nice,” says the Headmaster.

Tal says: “Where is Sigmund?”

Our Sigmund Freud action figure is missing from the bathroom. WE have a game that some of us play, where, once a day or during visits to the wash-closet, we each take turns hiding Sigmund so when the next participant comes in, they will find Sigmund in a new and adventurous pose.

“Sigmund who?” Says Hannah.

“Sigmund Freud. The action figure. The guy in the Gray suit with a cigar in the bathroom. He’s gone missing. We need to find him.”

“Don’t you have more important things to worry about, Tal?”

***

“I went to the college hockey game last night. Usually I go with my girlfriend or a bunch of kids and it’s really, I don’t know, boring. But last night I went with my dad, and, well, it was more fun.”

We all laughed in delight at the truth of that.

***

“I’m probably the coolest person alive,” said Luke. Luke was wearing his Purple Prune Pride long johns, also known as his PP pants.

***

We discussed the scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” where they go into the Museum. One of the most important scenes in American cinema, especially in the genre “growing up/coming of age adolescent comedy,” said Luke. “If you keep going into something, if you really look, you can see everything.

***

Standing on top of the Goshen Dam, looking up towards Romance Mountain.

“Tal,” said Rider. “It’s beautiful.”

“What’s beautiful?” Tal asked.

“Everything.”

The Revenge of the Mortal Hand

The joy of writing.

The power of preserving.

Revenge of a mortal hand.

—Wislawa Szymborska

We mostly worked on the play; we stood around the screen with the play lines projected there and read, all gathered up in a semi-circle; we set up the basement stage. A crew of “rats, mice, and squirrels" set up all the switches and cords and lights in the light booth. Other things going on: earths hanging from strings, volcanoes labeled; solar system diagrams; movies, brochures, songs, and advertising jingles on why various places in the Solar System might be Utopian Getaway Vacation Spots. Land roving on Mars? Windsailing on Neptune in 1000 KM winds? In addition, apparently, there is a play being written in the Math Room. I think this has to do with something about characters who play geometrical shapes in a murder mystery thriller. "Clue," Geometrical proofs, and Tennessee Williams all combined.

On Thursday we wrote scraps of poems about what we all might want to find if we parted the gray curtain of the Radley’s house. What would the distant golden glowing light in the recesses of the house be? What would we wan to see in that straining glimpse? What would be in Dolphus Raymond’s paper sack? What would we wish to find or put in the knot-hole of a great live oak? In the center of a candy box, surrounded by soft white cotton, what flower would be resting there? Or in the corner of a littered yar, the six red geraniums: what would those geraniums be for us? What would we extend on our cane fishing pole to the window to give to a hidden person, who might even be ourselves?

We are going to use these in the play somehow or another. In the meantime we read three stories on Friday, and it was pointed out that each of them dealt with loss and change, the response to loss and change, and the inevitable learning that comes from those experiences. We surmised that the only thing we have to hold and keep things that are dear to us that fall away is the telling of the story of them. We tell the story, we write it, we commit it to our own memory in the most vivid and potent form, we place it somewhere where it can be seen and understood by ourselves and others, and then it takes on greater substance. In relation to decay, mortality, and the ravages of time it becomes a monument to what matters most.

I said that at the recent alumni gathering we all came together and mostly all we did was tell old stories of what happened, the big stuff and the little stuff, way back some years ago. We hold onto the stories, and we tell them again and again, because that keeps the things of the stories for disappearing. It was then pointed out by the kids that our writing of stories, of capturing some element of time in a box or in pages, of recreating someone’s life or character in a story, is what Wislawa Szymborska wrote about when she said that writing is “the revenge of a mortal hand.” Our hands are mortal, but what we make with our hands is not.

But They've Left Us a Bit of Music

“The plot is simple: two friends under a sycamore tree, thinking about where they are going and how to get there.”

—Walker Allen, NBS .06

We read two stories, both about war and friendship. The two stories were by each of the combatants in the friendship war. Both of the boys wanted to be friends. Both boys tried to be friends, but somehow missed their chances for solidifying their connection. Both boys, without understanding why, found themselves and their actions being dictated by inner insecurities, fears, and anxieties. Both boys saw in the other strange reflections of their own weaknesses, and perceived each action and response from the other as direct criticism and aggression. In order to protect from the aggression, in order to preserve some sense of “safety,” each of the boys put up barriers to the other from which they launched grenades, which, if they had somehow been able to decipher truly, would have carried messages which read, “I still want to be friends, and I am willing to fight for it.”

In the end both boys found a way to remove the barriers, to seek a path to the golden glow of friendship. They both found the relief in unfolding the fist, the pride in finally creating the thing they had wanted all along. “Two dark islands, with the golden sun setting between them;" the ability to say, “I know he is my friend, and I am proud to say it.”

It reminded me of Blake’s poem, “The Poison Tree,” which begins with the idea that negative feelings, once expressed, will diminish. Feelings of anger that go unexpressed eventually become internalized, where they intensify and deepen.

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe;

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

The purpose of the writing of autobiographical narrative, of the purpose behind scrutinizing social relationships at this age, of spending some much time on it, is that the kids are beginning to learn how to move forward into what is difficult and to not shy from it. They are learning what a story is, how to tell it, and they are deciding what characters they are going to be. As is written on our school gavel, in a poem that Walker Allen wrote about Of Mice and Men, “The plot is simple: two friends under a sycamore tree, thinking about where they are going and how to get there.” It’s not enough, as in the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, to only talk about the rumors of what is inside the Radley house. It’s not enough to only go up and slap the side of the house, as if that was somehow a brave excursion into the soul of another story or person.

As Scout and Jem learn, understanding, compassion and ultimately freedom derive from being willing to go inside, to get inside the skin, to move past walls of fear that bookend our lives. As Jem and Scout discover, there are knot-hole openings in the world into which we must pass if we want to see. Otherwise we all end up behind our own closed doors. But in the stories, when two boys begin to talk to each other and begin to see that loving each other is all they ever wanted, whole other worlds begin to open up.

There was skiing going on after school. There was a clean-up election and new clean-up checkers chosen. We wrote 9000 words on the play together. We worked through the middle chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. We began writing Ye Olde Middle of the year Self-Evaluations, new story ideas and mandalas. We worked on stained glass and pizzas in the oven. We discussed relationships between boys and girls, the earthquake in Haiti, and how to engage in literature class instead of being passive. Rose packed four trash cans full of saw-dust, sticks, manure, fertilizer and copper shards in order to make a saw-dust firing for our clay objects. The trashcans were set up in the snowy field in perfect alignment with the four directions. The Ninths Grade boys were given the task of pyro-maniacally lighting the fires, but since Nathan was absent Bryn was duly deputized as a Ninety boy and got to light the fourth can. Rose read an Ethiopian folktale about truth and untruth on a journey to the mountain, and Hannah and Isabel did a dance in the softening snow, and we set it ablaze.

Bryn gave her project on The Dust Bowl, The Great Depression, The Crash, Westward Movement, Woody Guthrie, Herbert Hoover, FDR, WPA; Hoover-Villes, Dorothea Lange; Eleanor Roosevelt, the New Deal, CCC, FSA, FDA, NYA, SEC, SS, Migrant workers, “okies”, Woody Guthrie’s guitar—“this machine kills fascists.” The wheat region of Kansas and OK as “paradise”—“heaven on earth” “–the Great Plowing.” Disruption of natural and native growth cycles, Black Sunday, the paradise of California, the lure of the Orange, the burning of food, Weedpatch Camp, The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, a million people hungry. She played us “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and “Pastures of Plenty” by Woody Guthrie. The she gave us a single boiled potato at the end of class to give us the feeling of what it was like to be a hungry migrant worker. We did not have breakfast, so we were very hungry. Before she let us have our boiled potato she showed us some oranges, sliced and juicy. When members of the class asked her if they could have some, she would not let us, as it was true that the oranges were beyond the reach of the migrants and the hungry migrant farmers of California has to eat boiled potatoes while acres and tons of oranges burned. This made us feel angry and wrathful towards Bryn, who represented the Big Farm growers, as she as taught us tons about an important time in history.

Miles presented Wolves in the second installment of his project on elements of Utopia and Dystopia in Animal Communities—(before he did Bees, next to come is Meerkats and Whales). He told us about social hierarchies in wolf packs and Alpha and Omega wolves. The omega wolf is the one beaten on so that the aggressions of the pack are channeled away from the pack tearing itself up and only focusing on Omega. A comment was made that this was similar to how the Nazis chose "Omega" groups to focus their hatred and aggression on (against Jews and other groups in their communities ) as a way of organizing and solidifying their own group feeling. He told us about communication by and between wolves: howling, barking, and growling, through body language of ears, lips, eyes, tail, and stance, and fur movements. Essentially they show emotions this way. He showed us videos of how wolves work together to hunt, and how caribou feed the wolves while the wolves thin out weaker caribou—a kind of caribou eugenics inflicted by the wolves. He told us wolves do not waste, they eat everything, working in teams to find weak prey. They like it when prey is on the run and they back down if prey takes a stand against them. They also play with Ravens, and work symbiotically with ravens to locate food and provide it for the birds.

Then Miles asked us: So how are they Utopian (or dystopian)? We answered: They strategize and work together, respectful of boundaries and each other; body language is respected and understood, actions are based of direct and accurate observation of the other being. They have a clear understanding of each other, and directly communicate. They mourn the dead, and care about the pack. They like to play, in peaceful interaction with other animals such as crows. They don’t kill each other, or waste their own species without purpose, whereas we will kill each other out of anger (see earlier part of this article about the two boys!)

Isabel read Ahkmatova: “I taught myself to live simply and wisely,/to look at the sky and pray to God,/and to wander long before evening/to tire my superfluous worries.” Cassie read a poem by Bukowski, part of which is follows.

But they’ve left is a bit of music

And a spiked show in the corner,

A jigger of scotch, a blue necktie,

A small volume of Rimbaud,

Horse running as if the devil were

Twisting his tail

Over bluegrass and screaming, and then,

Love again

Like a streetcar turning the corner

On time...

Each week we try to live well and consider what it is that we have before us. Power chords. Soft snow. Longer light, reddish and gold, in evening. Lavender shadows on the field. A soft voice finally reading a poem. A nuthatch hopping headfirst down the tree. Two guitars chiming a blues. There are so many things, and we are keeping our eyes open to all of it.

The Merry Disorder of Young Consciousness

"...the merry disorder of young consciousness."

—New York Times

The above quotation is a description of a Belgian theater troupe comprised of young adolescents. It’s an apt term for what we are trying to do these days at the North Branch School.

It is particularly apropos because we are attempting to transform ourselves into theater troupe as we write our play. Normally we are autobiographical narrative writers, literary deconstructionists, or astronomical observers, or bread-bakers, or Utopian theorists, or poem-intoners, or geometers, or volcanic geologists.

Now, utilizing the miraculous powers of the merry disorder of young consciousness, we are creating a dramatic and comically serious version of ourselves. I need to say that this is mind-bendingly difficult. As far as the teaching arts go, having a class of students write something together which accurately reflects some important and personal truths, to have them do this in a general state of collaborative joy and assent, to have them say something together and something about each of themselves—that is a feat of teaching that requires singular genius.

When I say genius, I mean more than just originality, creativity, or intelligence. I mean the kind of “genius associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power,” according to Wikipedia, that "fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience. Genius may be generalized, or be particular to a discrete field such as sports, literature, art, or science."

Our work of genius will be a work of art and laughter. There are ten thousand decisions to make, energies to direct, voices to moderate, ideas to bring forth. Our noble intention is first to achieve insight into ourselves, for ourselves: insight about our ways of working, who we have been and who we are becoming. Second, we want to do it well enough that it can fundamentally alter the expectations of the audience in a way that makes the audience have more respect forthe power and abilities of a merry, disordered band of young adolescents.

I am not saying that I am a genius, but I am the animating force. Let us just say that I am the one that pulls the string on the spinning top, and, therefore, the one who releases the initial motion. But the blur of color the top makes, where it goes, the frictions it encounters or avoids, how wildly it spins or wobbles is also as much a function of the mass and make-up of the kids. The top, the class, is its own full spinning and tilting orb throwing off merry disorder like the arms of some wild hormonal nebula of the Green Mountain Galaxy. What we make, then, is an as yet unknowable motion that will track its own path, form its own luminous patterns, something spectacular enough that we will want observe and study it and gaze on it for time to come.

Part of the joy of the play is that the kids know that this is what we are doing, what they are being given to do. Perhaps it is the same glee a small child feels in having a trusted adult toss them up in the air, only to be caught again. They know I am winding them up and letting them go.

They know they are making some kind of cosmic true expression of the dimensions of their minds. That joy is elemental source that keeps them saying, “When are we going to work on the play?!” and “Can we work on the play?!” It is the same as, “Will you toss me up and let me go?”

I want them to feel this feeling and to want to be wild and free and then express that free wildness. It should be obvious, though, that this dynamic is also going to lead us into provocative, difficult, and complex territory. After all, we are dealing with forces of nature, growing beings, chemical reactions, magmatic ideas, identity in formation. Still, I have to say to them: “Say anything.” I say that because I trust that no matter what comes out first, there is always something good behind it. I say this knowing that they will probably say some “wrong” things. We end up with a messy mass of material. Invariably the first part to come out is shallow and comical; next to come is more serious, meditative, philosophical. From our mistakes, miss-sayings or wrong-doings we make sift and adjustments and alterations. The learning happens in the tension between the wild, gay abandon and that focused, technical crafting and final shaping.

Right now all the characters are coming out and being formed, it is crazy and wild and we have to let everything come out. We have to see what we have and what we are and what we are all willing to work with. There are all types of kids who will try or want to do all types of things, try anything, push the proverbial universal envelope. We are "playing,” (as in a play) like little kids playing (in a sandbox) and we will do some things "over the top” and then have to decide how to do it right, like learning to understand the rules, pull back or go further. We all have to trust each other to know that we will make something that is valuable, first to us, and then perhaps to the audience.

Schopenhauer said, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.” We are attempting to hit the target only we have seen. That target—that glowing mandala that we hover around or pour ourselves into everyday is a composite of all that we have felt, observed, heard, laughed, talked, cried and written about—finds its apotheosis in the play. Our target, the one we aim to show, the one we aim to hit—a theatrical, dynamic, poetic, comical and visual expression of the year’s collective soul. There are 27 souls involved, so there will be many shots toward the target. Sometimes we will miss, it is always messy and still forming. We have eighty days for it to grow and bloom.

***

NBS Alums Doug Woos, Head lecturer, and assistant Tim Woos, computer operator and astro-photographer, came to give us a talk about astronomy: Doug presented on the concept of time and relative distance in the universe, the gas-make-up of Jupiter, the Greek names of stars, how elements emit light differently, star-life cycles and kinds of stars, the origins of star names (Greek names, COOL; 17^th century European names, LAME); the elements in stars; nebula, galaxies (and whether they “feed” off each other or if they are “hungry," black holes and worm-holes, the construction of telescopes, and much more. Doug reminded us that there are four forces at work in the universe, “Five, if you’re like Tal, and you think love is one of the animating forces.” We were left wondering if the most fascinating part of this is the observable, knowable, measurable stuff, or the philosophical ramifications of the things we don’t know.