Here I am again, if indeed I am. My eyes are sore, and my temples ache lightly. I have just spent several hours leaping among worlds and through ages. Have I arrived back in my big, soft chair, in the dimming light of a late spring evening? I suppose so, but just now I reminded myself to breathe, and noticed that I had stopped.

Earlier this afternoon, I outlined my class on blogs. I used a number two pencil, on a legal pad. This took a few hours. The limits — the absence of a computer — really helped; without Google, when I had a question, I followed its course in my own mind. But, also, writing this way had its own native advantages — the ability to make lists, draw signs (like a big ">" mark to the right of a list, leading into a question that pertains to the whole list), and make notes in the margins. Another huge advantage or limitation, depending on your perspective, is the speed: Of course you can only write as fast as your hand can move. And slowness, generally, helps literature. (At least, that's the case with me. Literature probably has its own native speed. Maybe some people naturally operate slower than that optimal speed in which case they would benefit from speeding up. I operate naturally faster than that optimal speed and thus am helped by slowing down.)

When I finished the outline, I opened up my computer, and began to enter it into Microsoft Word. Not long into the outline, I had a question — I can't remember what it was — and I climbed into the web.

Two hours later: "How little I know! How silly silly little!"

This tension — between writing what we know (speaking in a human voice, at a human speed), with what we have & reaching for what's novel, what's different, what's "out there"— has plagued me for years. I feel impaled on these two horns of possibility.

Kafka said "There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked." I believe this.

I also believe that the world must be experienced, must be seen, must be entered. In the world one can be lost. And also, in oneself.