Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.
—Samuel Johnson, in A Johnson Sampler, edited by Henry Darcy Curwen.
I’ve never thought about vivacity in this way …To master an art, Erich Fromm tells me, requires devotion to theory and practice and the making of both as worthy of supreme commitment. I imagine the scene attributed (by G. Baillie) to Rev. Thurman: Young man, I don’t know if law is what you need, but what this world does need is people who have come alive! If it’s law, do that, but if it isn’t, find out what it is for you.
I come alive when seeing/hearing/feeling Joanie teaching.
I come alive listening to Gould’s recordings of the Goldberg Variations.
I come alive writing in a Moleskine (and rereading filled Moleskines).
I come alive when asking a friend to do a Share the Wealth evening.
I come alive sending out a correspondence in less that 10 minutes each day, day after day.
I come alive Zooming with Danielle Mackey or Yael DiPlacido-Eastman.
I come alive reciting Ernesto Cardenal and Paul Eluard.
I come alive through these and other habitual, seemingly microscopic actions.
