Tag: Annie Dillard

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AI AI: Large Language Models Claude

Witnessing the Incomparable: A Total Solar Eclipse

eclipse digital wallpaper
Photo by Drew Rae on Pexels.com

“Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.” This poetic analogy from author Annie Dillard captures the profound divide between a partial and total solar eclipse. While both are extraordinary astronomical events, experiencing totality is utterly unparalleled.

A partial solar eclipse, where the moon passes between the Earth and sun but only obscures a portion of the sun’s disk, is certainly a marvel to behold. The sun’s brilliant light fades as the moon’s dark silhouette encroaches, creating eerie shadows and lighting effects. Birds may go quiet, temperatures can drop, and the world takes on an unusual hue as day seemstransitionally to turn into night. It’s undoubtedly a memorable phenomenon.

However, as Dillard articulates through her vivid comparisons, a partial eclipse merely hints at the profoundness awaiting in totality. It’s akin to an introductory gesture, whetting the appetite for something far more consequential lying ahead. Just as a first kiss is an enticing prelude to marriage’s covenantal intimacy, or an airplane flight can’t foreshadow the terrifying free-fall of jumping out mid-air, so too does a partial eclipse only skim the surface of its total counterpart’s depths.

During the fleeting minutes when the moon entirely blocks out the sun’s light along the narrow corridor of totality, the world undergoes a metamorphosis like no other. Dillard’s quote contrasts the total eclipse’s uniqueness by anchoring the familiar – kisses, airplanes – with their respective life-shaking counterparts of matrimony and plummeting from heights. By such comparisons, totality emerges as an almost otherworldly, paradigm-shifting event.

When totality strikes, day is obliterated in an instant, replaced by an ethereal twilight glow surrounding the revealed solar corona, the sun’s incandescent outer atmosphere. The tenuous corona, extending millions of miles into space yet normally obstructed by the sun’s blinding brightness, streams like a heavenly crown encircling the blackened lunar disk suspended in the heavens. Surrounding stars and planets materialize in the striking negative sky. Dillard, speaking from experience, has witnessed grown folks “turn and squall with oversuffered tendernesses” when confronted by totality’s dizzying effects.

This sense of being transported to another realm, of something extraordinary enfolding one’s existence, is what sets totality apart from its “kissing” cousin, the partial eclipse. The latter may be beautiful, but can never prepare the psyche for totality’s sensory overload and utter transformation of the familiar heavens. The two phenomena occupy entirely separate phenomenological universes.

Like a first kiss versus marriage, or routine flight versus existential free-fall, the total solar eclipse represents a singular, almost mythical boundary realm. Its awesome imposition of cosmic forces makes onlookers feel part of something greater transpiring around them. As Dillard conveys, totality disturbs our rational moorings, allowing a breathtaking glimpse beyond the veil of everyday reality into the sublime mysteries unfolding above.

Undoubtedly, even reading vivid descriptions or seeing stunning images and video cannot substitute for the visceral, perception-altering experience itself. But Dillard’s eloquent analogies provide profound entry points to begin comprehending totality’s grandeur. Only by metaphorically situating the total solar eclipse alongside those rarest of life events – marriage, plummeting through the void – can one conceptually grope towards its world-upending gravitas.

So while a partial eclipse may be deeply moving in its own right, it is but the opening act to totality’s astonishing main spectacle. The former merely scratches the surface of the holistic dissolution of boundaries and merging with the cosmos that totality offers. For those longing to encounter something truly elemental, to be shaken to one’s existential core by the cosmos’ rhythms writ large, a total solar eclipse stands in a category by itself. As Dillard reminds us, nothing can quite prepare us for that paradigmatic plunge.

Note: This post was written mostly by Anthropic’s Claude 3 Sonnet. It began with me searching for the word “eclipse” in my Readwise highlights database. The first quotation found was the excellent one by Annie Dillard that’s cited in the first paragraph. I used this prompt with Claude:

You are an expert writer of blog posts that are simple, clear and to the point. Write a 750 word post musing on the following quotation: “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane. Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it.” (Annie Dillard, The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New)

Where I live we will only be experiencing about a 35% of totality solar eclipse later this morning. Here’s to those of you from Texas up through the American Heartland into eastern Canada who will be experiencing totality (including Dayton, Ohio where I mostly grew up).

I also note this from FlightRadar 24: Air Canada flight 1070 will fly entirely within the path of totality for the total eclipse – from Dallas to Montreal.

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AI AI: Large Language Models Creativity Writing

A Writer’s Lament

The Agony (and Ecstasy) of Sitting Up with a Book

“I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.”

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Each morning, a subscription service called Readwise creates a list of ten highlights from the thousands of highlights I’ve made from my reading and sends the list to me. Once in a while, one of those highlights just hits and something goes off in my mind. This morning it was Annie Dillard’s comment about writing a book being similar to sitting up with it like with a dying friend. What a metaphor!

Sometimes, when I want to explore one of these sparks of inspiration triggered from one of my highlights, I’ll use one of the AI chatbots to help me think some more about it. Often, my thinking will be extended further, sometimes in unusual ways. This morning I asked Google Gemini to help me explore the meaning of Dillard’s comment. Here’s what I got back – a most interesting and, in some ways, beautiful response:

Annie Dillard, in her insightful book “The Writing Life,” compares the experience of writing a book to “sitting up with a dying friend.” This metaphor, while morbid at first glance, offers a profound truth about the creative process. It’s a powerful reminder that bringing a book to life is not a joyous celebration but a labor of love, fraught with challenges and uncertainties.

During “visiting hours,” as Dillard aptly describes them, the writer enters the book’s “room” with a mix of dread and sympathy. The dread stems from the daunting task at hand, the endless revisions, the self-doubt that gnaws at the edges of every sentence. The sympathy arises from the recognition of the book’s “disorders,” the plot holes, the clunky dialogues, the characters who refuse to come alive.

The writer, like a caregiver, holds the book’s metaphorical hand, hoping for improvement, hoping to witness a spark of life emerge from the chaos. This involves countless hours of rewriting, editing, and polishing, a relentless pursuit of the elusive magic that transforms a collection of words into a cohesive narrative.

But amidst the anxiety and frustration, there are moments of grace, fleeting glimpses of the book’s potential. A character suddenly speaks in a voice that resonates, a scene unfolds with unexpected depth, a sentence shimmers with unexpected beauty. These moments are the lifeblood of the writing process, the tiny victories that keep the writer going, fueling the hope that the book will eventually recover, that it will stand on its own two legs and tell its story to the world.

Dillard’s analogy not only captures the emotional roller coaster of writing but also emphasizes the profound connection that develops between a writer and their work. It becomes more than just a project; it becomes a companion, a source of both immense frustration and overwhelming joy. As the writer pours their heart and soul into the book, it becomes a reflection of their own struggles and triumphs, a testament to the human spirit’s ability to create even in the face of immense challenges.

So, the next time you pick up a book and marvel at its intricate narrative, remember the invisible caregiver behind it. Remember the writer who sat up through countless nights, holding their creation’s hand, willing it to health, hoping that their story would resonate with yours.

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Living Nature

Back to Tinker Creek

I recently came across this comment which brought back my memories of reading this wonderful book:

“More than any other book I’ve ever read, ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’ helps me understand how to pay attention, which I think is maybe the most important skill or muscle I have as an artist and a human.”

“Pilgrim at Tinker Creek“ by Annie Dillard is a masterpiece of deep attention and insight into the natural world. In the book, Dillard spends a year exploring the woods and waterways near her home in Virginia, observing nature with intense focus and describing her experiences in vivid prose.

The quote says this book helps the reader understand “how to pay attention,” which is “the most important skill or muscle I have as an artist and a human.” This rings very true to me after reading Dillard’s book. Her powers of observation, meditation, and description provide a model for mindful engagement with the world.

Dillard notices the smallest details – the way a moth flutters, how the light filters through the trees, the ripple of creek water over rocks. She sits for hours watching a heron stalk its prey or scanning the treetops for nesting birds. Her senses are fully immersed as she takes in the smells, sounds, textures, and minute movements around her.

As a writer, Dillard’s deep noticing transforms into poetic prose that awakens a sense of wonder and mystery in the everyday. She describes a mockingbird’s song as “a slurred, intricate, continuous invention, a waltz with a hundred steps and no apparent repetitions.” Tiny seeds in the creek water become “pale floating rosaries.” Through metaphor and vivid imagery, she paints our mundane world as fresh and new.

Paying such close attention is difficult. Our default mode is to move quickly through life and tune out the small details around us. The noise and distractions of modern life make sustained focus a struggle. Dillard’s discipline and patience in observation challenges me. She sits still, open, curious – letting the world come to her.

Mindful attention takes effort but brings insight. Noticing the worms, weeds, and algae in the creek, Dillard sees that “the extravagance of the world has no measure.” Observing monarch caterpillars chomping milkweed leaves, she feels awe at the bizarre forms life can take. Immersing herself in a winter snowfall, she senses time itself slowing down. Her attentiveness uncovers magic beneath the surface of ordinary events.

As an artist, deep attention also allows Dillard to capture fleeting moments and preserve their emotional essence. A waking grouse’s burst into flight becomes “a terrible explosion” from its “wringing, furious silence.” Touching a frozen pond, she finds it not solid but “fragile and attenuated … smooth brittle ice shell sensitive as skin itself.” Her imaginative language gives sensory weight to transient experiences.

This quality of attention applies to our interactions with people too. The book recounts Dillard’s talks with neighbors, scientists, and eccentrics, whom she listens to with probing curiosity. Whether describing a passionate lepidopterist or a man building a dam on the creek, she tunes in to the spirit and motivation beneath each personality.

As our world moves faster, cultivating an ability to focus matters more than ever. If I can slow down and pay closer attention – open all my senses, suspend judgment, find poetry in the ordinary – I will not just see more beauty in the world but understand life more deeply. Dillard inspires me to embrace the present moment, seek out what amazing things are happening right under my nose, and appreciate the texture of time passing. Our lives become richer when we fully inhabit each moment.

Note: Claude helped me think about the book again and to write this post.