Running as Intimacy
"Modern man is well aware of the obvious forms of repression and social affliction. Poverty, prejudice, and violence take their daily toll. We are less aware, however, of more subtle forms of dehumanization, namely, those brought on by the erosion of a genuinely human environment in aesthetic terms. ... We refer here not to the world of art but to the drama of our doing, undoing, celebrating, and suffering that comprises the rhythm of everyday ordinary living. Too often this rhythm is submerged in a bland environment, rendering us insensitive to differences, horizons, and crises. In time, we drift through life without variety or intimacy." --John McDermott, "Feeling as Insight" I resemble this person. McDermott wrote these words in 1973, three years before I was born. There are aspects of the expression of his idea that seem dated now. The notion of repression has fallen out of favor. We are perhaps more skeptical now of appeals to the "genuinely human,...