People never fail to amaze me. They face the unimaginable with a shot of grace and a rush of adrenaline; they steel their nerves; they summon their cool or anger or faith or whatever it takes to pull them through, and they go on to live another day.
There was a time when people accepted magical experiences as natural. There were no priests then, and no one went chasing after the secrets of the occult.
We all look to have transcendent experiences that lift us out of the everyday, and fear is a good one. But, I think it's the same reason why people want to laugh their heads off.
It's great when people appreciate your work, but I don't know how seriously to take it. The amazing thing is that I found something so early that I can support myself doing, and that can even be extremely lucrative, but I love it either way.
To experience poetry is to see over and above reality. It is to discover that which is beyond the physical, to experience another life and another level of feeling. It is to wonder about the world, to understand the nature of people and, most importantly, to be shared with another, old or young, known or unknown.
You cannot love a car the way you love a horse. The horse brings out human feelings the way machines cannot do. Things like machines may develop or neglect certain things in people ... Machines make our life impersonal and stultify certain elements in us and create an impersonal environment.
But leisure has little to do with one's happiness. To the contrary, I've found that the happiest people have found some cause and they stride through life propelled by a commitment.
People do not naturally become morally excellent or practically wise. They become so, if at all, only as the result of lifelong personal and community effort.