I suspect that many of you woke up last Wednesday after the election with a sinking feeling that the nation rejected rational thought, the bedrock of science that we all cherish and love. I wanted to say something to my students later that morning, but I didn’t want to sink into the despair and anger I felt. Instead, I projected the following quotes on the screen as the students walked in. These have helped me maintain perspective during the past week. Maybe they will help you. Print them out and put them above your desk, on your door, under your pillow, wherever you can read them at a moment’s notice as we continue to hear bad news about appointments to the cabinet.
from The Once and Future King
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”
– T.H. White
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
– Wendell Berry