More Than a Rock

Experience, Uninterrupted65

If the remission of pain is happiness, then the emergence from distraction is aesthetic bliss. I use these terms loosely, for I am not making an argument but rather attempting to describe the pleasure that comes from recognition or rediscovery of certain essences permanently associated with human life. These essences are restored to our consciousness by persons who are described as artists.

—Saul Bellow

My reading list recently consisted of the personal accounts of some pioneering photographers, artists, scientists, and explorers. It polarized for me a trend I have been aware of for some time—that of an ongoing decline in the awe, reverence, and sense of rapport that accompany encounters with the natural world.

Many ...