Speed of Life

We went and saw Speed the Plow last night, and a review of it will follow but for this moment I want to focus on the conversation we had afterwards - which is, have any of us read anything that changed our lives.

I said change your life is a big statement. I've certainly read things that affected me, but changed me, changed my thinking, made me look at the world differently from when before I read it. (we extended the discussion to any art form - film, tv, art etc... Was there anything we saw or witnessed that was not part of 'real' life, that changed our lives.)

I've been thinking about it ever since. My immediate answer, last night, of something that I had read which changed my perspective, was the writing of Donald Winnocott. Perhaps it's because I didn't know very much about therapy when I read his thoughts, but his work on the 'good enough mother' and the idea that boredom is the sea from which creativity is borne are things I think about often and in depth.

And then 3 (out of 4 of us!) agreed that Ayn Rand had had a huge impact with her books. So a secret cult of Randists were dining together! I left Ayn Rand, needing something with more compassion, but when I was 17, I really loved her ideas.

And now I'm trying to think about it some more.. what have I read or seen, or observed that changed my perspective... Of course so many things have a drip, drip, drip affect. Which is why certain tv shows are not permitted in the house or why we don't let our 11 yo play certain computer games - things that have a negative effect are easy to find.

I really loved the works of Rumi, a Sufi poet. For a while, when reading him, I could enter his world of overwhelming love. I like poetry in general. There was a time where every so often I would email everyone a poem that had really spoken to me. And anyone who reads this blog will find songs that I remember and lyrics that I keep whispering in my mind. And I often read books who have a phrase, an image, an incident, which lingers and returns to me.

We all agreed that we had found these life changing texts when in college, where thinking about life and philosophy and who and what we are was the accepted thing to do.

And then I bumped into a friend in the school yard this morning and we discussed Jewish education and I said that I hoped/planned that our son would continue with his after his 13th birthday, that some of the best and most memorable school lessons I ever had were in my Jewish studies classes in years 9 - 12.

It's amazing that that jolt of cocaine that is Speed the Plow can give rise to such contemplation. Mamet would be pleased...