WEBVTT

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I'm going to read you just
a couple of short pieces

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from the new manuscript,
which is about halfway done.

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Hopefully, this one won't
take me 20 years to finish.

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One of the things that
you should know about this

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particular piece is Keats's
idea of negative capability,

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which to sum up in a kind of
pedestrian way is to understand

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and accept there are things
in life that we cannot know,

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and to be OK with that.

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"Negative Capability
and the Superposition

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of Animate Matter."

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You are certain you've
passed this tree before.

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The ridged bark, the needles,
evergreen crush of wind

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familiar as an ocean you
dreamt in and the stone beach.

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You're lost after all, and
the sun is more behind clouds

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each time you
gauge north or not.

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Not even a compass would help
you identify the lichen that

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clings to the fur.

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Not even a simile
would put up with you.

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After all, you're lost
and have passed this tree

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before, haven't you, after all?

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Needle's done as beeswax
collecting on the ground.

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Behind you is the way you came.

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Ahead seems more the same.

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Get lost, they prescribe.

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Find yourself, they lament.

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Once when you were a child,
you were lost in the woods.

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Every tree looked
exactly like the next.

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And now is once and now is
again and the problem with trees

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is you can't see past them.

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Knowing, after all,
is lost on you.

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