LISTEN. John Kaag's workshop on his latest book yesterday, and ours in CoPhi--Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life--was a delight.
It was also the sort of marvel of the Internet Age we've already begun to take for granted: the author was in Massachusetts, the organizer in Potsdam Germany, and we participants were scattered around the globe... and yet here we all were in our little Zoom rectangles. James would be astonished and filled with "zest," that life-affirming vivacious quality John spoke of that makes life worth living. I must keep reminding myself, every time I log on for class, that we're doing something our ancestors would have regarded with awe and envy.
Envy, of an appreciative and not resentful sort, is part of what I feel about the books John has written that I wish I had. And gratitude that someone has. These ideas really can help save lives, in the extreme instances, and ameliorate them in many others. How sad and self-indicting that some academics resent and criticize John's successful efforts, so much in the spirit of William James (like a good stroll) to reach a broad audience of non-academics... (continues)
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