readings that do make sense

"Photographic pictures are a modern invention. How did people in the past salvage
their experience? By telling stories-a timeless and universal technique. We
need other people for many important reasons, not the least of which is that they
provide an audience. However, it is an impatient audience. All want to have a say, so
no one is allowed more than a couple of sentences. And these had better be punchy thus
greatly distorting the experience-in order to be heeded at all. For example, a
student may tell an audience about all-night carousing in the city-that's OK, that's
dramatic-but not about the third cup of coffee, which woke him up and led him to
observe "the empty streets bathed in celestial, early-morning light."
If scientists are a special breed because they experiment, humanists are a special
breed because they conscientiously and systematically reflect on experience. Reflection
may seem, at first blush, a commonplace sort of activity open to all. It does not
require, for example, special training and equipment, as scientific experimentation
does. Yet it is rare. A variety of factors limit its wide practice. For a start, there is
temperament-a biological given. Some individuals (a small minority in any population)
may just be more inclined to make sense of what they have undergone. Then,
society must encourage-at least should not discourage-withdrawal. In such a society,
protected spaces are available into which people can retreat to reflect alone or

in the company of a very small group of kindred, enquiring spirits. Lastly-and here
I think primarily of the practicing humanist scholar-he or she needs to have a firm
grasp of the socioeconomic and intellectual conditions that promote the savoring
of life. With such a backdrop, the scholar is in a position to examine experience
systematically, starting perhaps with his or her own, and moving on from there to
the thick-textured lives of other people in other places and other times. A special
target of examination ought to be how societies differ in making room for pauses in
the midst of life, for it is during such pauses that individuals are able to appraise the
meaning of what they have undergone. Humanists, as I conceive them, have lived in
different societies. They are variously trained; they have diverse skills and points of
departure. But, in one way or another, they can all be said to savor life. And they
may all agree that the unsavored life is not worth living."

Yi Fu Tuan, Life as a Field Trip