[RESEND: Server outage fixed] The loveliest picture-book since The Little Prince, artist Agnes Martin on our greatest obstacle to happiness, and more

The loveliest, most profound picture-book since The Little Prince, artist Agnes Martin on our greatest obstacle to happiness, philosopher Erich Fromm on the key to a sane society, and more. NOTE: This message might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](. If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( – it's free. donating = loving I pour tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider supporting my labor of love with a recurring monthly [donation]( of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner: [Subscribe]( You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount: [Donate]( And if you've already donated, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. 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[This Is a Poem That Heals Fish: An Almost Unbearably Wonderful Picture-Book About How Poetry Works Its Magic]( can break open locked chambers of possibility, restore numbed zones to feeling, recharge desire,” Adrienne Rich wrote in contemplating [the cultural power of poetry](. But what is a poem, really, and what exactly is its use? Every once in a while, you stumble upon something so lovely, so unpretentiously beautiful and quietly profound, that you feel like the lungs of your soul have been pumped with a mighty gasp of Alpine air. [This Is a Poem That Heals Fish]( ([public library]( is one such vitalizing gasp of loveliness — a lyrical picture-book that offers a playful and penetrating answer to the question of what a poem is and what it does. And as it does that, it shines a sidewise gleam on the larger question of what we most hunger for in life and how we give shape to those deepest longings. Written by the French poet, novelist, and dramatist Jean-Pierre Simeón, translated into English by [Enchanted Lion Books]( founder Claudia Zoe Bedrick (the feat of translation which the Nobel-winning Polish poet [Wisława Szymborska]( had in mind when she spoke of “that rare miracle when a translation stops being a translation and becomes … a second original”), and illustrated by the inimitable [Olivier Tallec]( this poetic and philosophical tale follows young Arthur as he tries to salve his beloved red fish Leon’s affliction of boredom. Arthur’s mommy looks at him. She closes her eyes, she opens her eyes… Then she smiles: — Hurry, give him a poem! And she leaves for her tuba lesson. Puzzled and unsure what a poem is, Arthur goes looking in the pantry, only to hear the noodles sigh that there is no poem there. He searches in the closet and under his bed, but the vacuum cleaner and the dust balls have no poem, either. Determined, Arthur continues his search. He runs to Lolo’s bicycle shop. Lolo knows everything, laughs all the time, and is always in love. He is repairing a tire and singing. So begins the wonderful meta-story of how poetry comes into being as a tapestry of images, metaphors, and magpie borrowings. Each person along the way contributes to Arthur’s tapestry a different answer, infused with the singular poetic truth of his or her own life. Lolo offers: — A poem, Arthur, is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth. — Oh…? Okay. Next, he visits his friend the baker, Mrs. Round, who echoes Thom Gunn’s insistence that [“poetry is of many sorts and is all around us,”]( rather than something reserved for the special formal class of “poets.” Mrs. Round tells Arthur: — A poem? I don’t know much about that. But I know one, and it is hot like fresh bread. When you eat it, a little is always left over. — Oh…? Okay. Arthur turns to his neighbor next, “old Mahmoud who comes from the desert and waters his rhododendrons every morning at 9 o’clock.” Mahmoud offers his answer with easeful conviction: — A poem is when you hear the heartbeat of a stone. — Oh…? All right. Arthur hastens home to check on poor Leon, who appears to be asleep, “floating gently amidst the seaweed as if thinking.” And because this is the sort of story in which a canary can only be named after an Ancient Greek comic playwright, Arthur next seeks an answer from his canary named Aristophanes, “who is no bird brain.” Our imagination is left to ponder why, on the next page, the cage contains not the yellow canary but a red-haired woman, who sings Aristophanes’s answer. Perhaps she is a visual allusion to Aristophanes’s play Assemblywomen, or perhaps she represents a muse, whom Tallec invokes to remind us that the muse hides in many guises and reveals herself in the most improbable of places. — A poem is when words beat their wings. It is a song sung in a cage. — Oh…? Okay. Just then, Arthur’s grandmother arrives and is met with the same question, which she answers after thinking hard, evidenced by the way “she always smiles a silly smile when thinking.” — When you put your old sweater on backwards or inside out, dear Arthur, you might say that it is new again. A poem turns words around, upside down, and — suddenly! — the world is new. But grandma encourages Arthur to ask his grandfather, too, who “often writes poems … instead of repairing pipes.” — A poem? grandpa says, tugging on his mustache and looking worried. A poem, well… it’s what poets make. — Oh…? All right. — Even if the poets do not know it themselves! Frustrated with the multitude of confounding answers, Arthur returns to Leon’s fishbowl only to find him sound asleep beneath his large stone, enveloped in seaweed. — I’m sorry, Leon, I have not found a poem. All I know is this: A poem is when you have the sky in your mouth. It is hot like fresh bread, when you eat it, a little is always left over. A poem is when you hear the heartbeat of a stone, when words beat their wings. It is a song sung in a cage. A poem is words turned upside down and suddenly! the world is new. Leon opens one eye, then the other, and for the first time in his life he speaks. — Then I am a poet, Arthur. — Oh…? Complement the almost unbearably wonderful [This Is a Poem That Heals Fish]( with other poetic and profound Enchanted Lion treasures: [Cry, Heart, But Never Break]( a Danish illustrated meditation on loss and life, [What Color Is the Wind?]( a French serenade to the senses inspired by a blind child, and [Pinocchio: The Origin Story]( an Italian inquiry into the grandest questions of existence, then revisit poet Elizabeth Alexander on [what poetry does for the human spirit](. Illustrations courtesy of Enchanted Lion Books [Forward to a friend]( / [Read Online]( / [Like on Facebook]( [Beloved Artist Agnes Martin on Our Greatest Obstacle to Happiness and How to Transcend It]( Perhaps the greatest paradox of human life is that although happiness is the most universal of our longings, it is unobtainable by striving. Every seeming end we seek — love, money, purpose, the perfect cappuccino — we seek as a means to happiness, and yet happiness defies the usual laws of effort and achievement: The more ferociously we try to attain it, the more it eludes us. How to break out of this paradox and transcend our self-imposed limitations in the pursuit of happiness is what artist Agnes Martin (March 22, 1912–December 16, 2004) examines in a set of notes prepared for a 1979 lecture at the University of New Mexico, Santa Fe, included in [Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances]( ([public library]( — the wonderful monograph that gave us Martin on [inspiration, interruptions, and the ideal atmosphere for creative work](. Agnes Martin at her studio in New Mexico, 1953 (Photograph: Mildred Tolbert) Martin was deeply influenced by the Zen teachings of [D.T. Suzuki](. Reminiscent of the Chinese philosophy of wu-wei — roughly translated as [“trying not to try”]( — Martin’s ideas are formulated in a Zen-like style of profound simplicity evocative the [Tao Te Ching]( and speak to the difficult art of holding life with unattached awareness. She writes under the heading “The Current of the River of Life Moves Us”: What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy. The happiness of every living thing is what we want. We want it very much but we cannot bring it about. We cannot make even one individual happy. It seems that this thing that we want most of all is out of our reach. But we were born to serve happiness and we do serve it. The confusion is due to our lack of awareness of real happiness. Happiness is pervasive. It is everywhere… When we are unhappy it is because something is covering our minds and we are not able to be aware of happiness. When the difficulty is past we find happiness again. It is not that happiness is all around us. That is not it at all. It is not this or that or in this or that. It is an abstract thing. Happiness is unattached. Always the same. It does not appear and disappear. It is not sometimes more and sometimes less. It is our awareness of happiness that goes up and down. Happiness is our real condition. It is reality. It is life. In this life, life is represented by beauty and happiness. If you are completely unaware of them you are not alive. The times when you are not aware of beauty and happiness you are not alive. […] By awareness of life we are inspired to live. Life is consciousness of life itself. The measure of your life is the amount of beauty and happiness of which you are aware. Agnes Martin, Summer 1964 Martin considers the artist’s task as a midwife of awareness: The life of an artist is a very good opportunity for life. When we realize that we can see life we gradually give up the things that stand in the way of our complete awareness. As we paint we move along step by step. We realize that we are guided in our work by awareness of life. We are guided to greater expression of awareness and devotion to life. We recognize the great exultation with life of great artists like Beethoven and we realize that all great artists praise and exult life. Surely, a cynic might dismiss such a perspective as a function of privilege. But Martin had a hard and unusual life, working [an astonishing array of odd jobs]( before becoming an artist. Her ideas spring from a place of deep self-reflection and are heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy. Addressing her audience of young aspiring artists, 67-year-old Martin offers her most direct, life-tested advice: You must say to yourself: “How can I best step into this state of mind and devote myself to the expression of life.” You must not be led astray into the illustration of ideas because that is not art work. It is ineffective even though it is often accepted for a short time. it does not contribute to happiness and it is finally discarded. The art work in the Metropolitan Museum or the British Museum does not illustrate ideas. The great and fatal pitfall in the art field and in life is dependence on the intellect rather than inspiration. Dependence on intellect means a consideration of observed facts and deductions from observation as a guide in life. Dependence on inspiration means dependence on consciousness, a growing consciousness that develops from awareness of beauty and happiness. To live and work by inspiration you have to stop thinking. You have to hold your mind still in order to hear inspiration clearly. Agnes Martin, With My Back to the World, 1997 In a sentiment of discomfiting pertinence today, she points to one such major realm of conditioned ideas: The political world is a structure conceived and agreed to by us but it is not a reality. You have been conditioned to believe that this political world is in fact real. With this conception it is believed that we have come into ownership of the world and that we are responsible for creating it. And with this concept we have placed ourselves in a condition of perpetual responsibility and reform. But since we are not creating the world, since it was created before us and we are merely in it, and since we do not own it, our whole political concept is false. Turning once again to how our forceful striving stands in the way of attaining the very things we strive for, Martin considers the life-expanding alternative: The world evolves due to changes that take place in individuals. By individuals I mean all living things. The world evolves due to a growing awareness in the lives of all things and is expressed in their actions. The actions of all things are guided by a growing awareness of life. We call it inspiration. Living by inspiration is living. Living by intellect — by comparisons, calculations, schemes, concepts, ideas — is all a structure of pride in which there is not beauty or happiness — no life. […] Where pride walks nothing of life remains. It is the supreme destroyer of life. Pride leaves nothing in its path. It is death in life. Echoing Maya Angelou’s unforgettable assertion that [“life loves the liver of it,”]( Martin crystallizes her central point: If you want life on your side or to be on the side of life against death you must surrender completely to life. A century after Nietzsche proclaimed that [“no one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,”]( Martin counsels: Hold fast to your life, to beauty and happiness and inspiration, and to obedience to inspiration. Do not imitate others or seek advice anywhere except from your own mind. No-one can help you. No-one knows what your life should be. No-one knows what your life or life itself should be because it is in the process of being created. Life moves according to a growing consciousness of life and is completely unpredictable. If you live according to human knowledge, according to precept, values and standards, you live in the past. If you live entirely in the past you will not know beauty or happiness and you will not in fact live. You must believe in life. Believe that you can know the truth about life. […] The current of the river of life moves us. Awareness of life, beauty and happiness is the current of the river. With great awareness we move rapidly. With no awareness we do not move. Complement this particular fragment of the wholly fantastic [Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances]( with Hermann Hesse on [how to live with greater awareness]( Søren Kierkegaard on [our greatest source of unhappiness]( and Alan Watts on [happiness and how to live with presence]( then revisit this [rare vintage conversation]( with the reclusive Martin about art, life, and happiness. [Forward to a friend]( / [Read Online]( / [Like on Facebook]( [The Sane Society: The Great Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on How to Save Us From Ourselves]( “Every advance of intellect beyond the ordinary measure,” Schopenhauer wrote in examining [the relationship between genius and insanity]( “disposes to madness.” But could what is true of the individual also be true of society — could it be that the more so-called progress polishes our collective pride and the more intellectually advanced human civilization becomes, the more it risks madness? And, if so, what is the proper corrective to restore our collective sanity? That’s what the great German humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm (March 23, 1900–March 18, 1980) explores in his timely 1956 treatise [The Sane Society]( ([public library](. Fifteen years after his inquiry into why totalitarian regimes rise in [Escape from Freedom]( Fromm examines the promise and foibles of modern democracy, focusing on its central pitfall of alienation and the means to attaining its full potential — the idea that “progress can only occur when changes are made simultaneously in the economic, socio-political and cultural spheres; that any progress restricted to one sphere is destructive to progress in all spheres.” Erich Fromm Two decades before his elegant case for [setting ourselves free from the chains of our culture]( Fromm weighs the validity of our core assumption about our collective state: Nothing is more common than the idea that we, the people living in the Western world of the twentieth century, are eminently sane. Even the fact that a great number of individuals in our midst suffer from more or less severe forms of mental illness produces little doubt with respect to the general standard of our mental health. We are sure that by introducing better methods of mental hygiene we shall improve still further the state of our mental health, and as far as individual mental disturbances are concerned, we look at them as strictly individual incidents, perhaps with some amazement that so many of these incidents should occur in a culture which is supposedly so sane. Can we be so sure that we are not deceiving ourselves? Many an inmate of an insane asylum is convinced that everybody else is crazy, except himself. Illustration by Lisbeth Zwerger from a [special edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales]( Fromm notes that while modernity has increased the material wealth and comfort of the human race, it has also wrought major wars that killed millions, during which “every participant firmly believed that he was fighting in his self-defense, for his honor, or that he was backed up by God.” In a sentiment of chilling pertinence today, after more than half a century of alleged progress has drowned us in mind-numbing commercial media and left us to helplessly watch military budgets swell at the expense of funding for the arts and humanities, Fromm writes: We have a literacy above 90 per cent of the population. We have radio, television, movies, a newspaper a day for everybody. But instead of giving us the best of past and present literature and music, these media of communication, supplemented by advertising, fill the minds of men with the cheapest trash, lacking in any sense of reality, with sadistic phantasies which a halfway cultured person would be embarrassed to entertain even once in a while. But while the mind of everybody, young and old, is thus poisoned, we go on blissfully to see to it that no “immorality” occurs on the screen. Any suggestion that the government should finance the production of movies and radio programs which would enlighten and improve the minds of our people would be met again with indignation and accusations in the name of freedom and idealism. Art by Edward Gorey from [The Shrinking of Treehorn]( Less than a decade after the German philosopher Josef Pieper made his beautiful case for [why leisure is the basis of culture]( Fromm adds: We have reduced the average working hours to about half what they were one hundred years ago. We today have more free time available than our forefathers dared to dream of. But what has happened? We do not know how to use the newly gained free time; we try to kill the time we have saved, and are glad when another day is over… Society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. Fromm points out that we can only speak of a “sane” society if we acknowledge that a society can be not sane, which in turn requires a departure from previous theories of sociological relativism postulating that “each society is normal inasmuch as it functions, and that pathology can be defined only in terms of the individual’s lack of adjustment to the ways of life in his society.” Instead, Fromm proposes a model of normative humanism — a redemptive notion that relieves some of our self-blame for feeling like we are going crazy, by acknowledging that society itself, when bedeviled by certain pathologies, can be crazy-making for the individual. Illustration by Maurice Sendak for Bearskin from a [special edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales]( One key source of that tension between sanity and insanity, Fromm argues, is our misconception of “human nature” as a single, static monolith, when in fact the nature of the human experience is varied and dynamic. In a sentiment which Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert would echo half a century later in his famous aphorism that [“human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished,”]( Fromm writes: Just as man[*]( transforms the world around him, so he transforms himself in the process of history. He is his own creation, as it were. But just as he can only transform and modify the natural materials around him according to their nature, so he can only transform and modify himself according to his own nature. What man does in the process of history is to develop this potential, and to transform it according to its own possibilities. The point of view taken here is neither a “biological” nor a “sociological” one if that would mean separating these two aspects from each other. It is rather one transcending such dichotomy by the assumption that the main passions and drives in man result from the total existence of man, that they are definite and ascertainable, some of them conducive to health and happiness, others to sickness and unhappiness. Any given social order does not create these fundamental strivings but it determines which of the limited number of potential passions are to become manifest or dominant. Man as he appears in any given culture is always a manifestation of human nature, a manifestation, however, which in its specific outcome is determined by the social arrangements under which he lives. Just as the infant is born with all human potentialities which are to develop under favorable social and cultural conditions, so the human race, in the process of history, develops into what it potentially is. The most pernicious effect of any given social order, Fromm suggests, is that it breeds a culture of truth by consensus rather than truth by evidence, truth relative to collective opinion rather than absolute truth — the sort of relativism which Karl Popper memorably admonished is [“a betrayal of reason and of humanity.”]( In another passage of astounding pertinence today, as we witness a global groupthink elect destructive ideas to the status of truth and therefore power, Fromm observes something as true of religious delusions as it is of ruinous political ideologies: What is so deceptive about the state of mind of the members of a society is the “consensual validation” of their concepts. It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing whatsoever on reason or mental health… The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane. Art by Ben Shahn from [On Nonconformity]( More than a century after Kierkegaard contemplated [the individual vs. society, why we conform, and the power of the minority]( Fromm writes: For a minority, the pattern provided by the culture does not work… There are also those whose character structure, and hence whose conflicts, differ from those of the majority, so that the remedies which are effective for most of their fellow men are of no help to them. Among this group we sometimes find people of greater integrity and sensitivity than the majority, who for this very reason are incapable of accepting the cultural opiate, while at the same time they are not strong and healthy enough to live soundly “against the stream.” He considers what a sane society actually means: A sane society is that which corresponds to the needs of man — not necessarily to what he feels to be his needs, because even the most pathological aims can be felt subjectively as that which the person wants most; but to what his needs are objectively, as they can be ascertained by the study of man. It is our first task then, to ascertain what is the nature of man, and what are the needs which stem from this nature. A decade after Abraham Maslow placed self-actualization atop his [foundational hierarchy of needs]( Fromm illustrates our ultimate need as analogous to the development of children: Physical birth, if we think of the individual, is by no means as decisive and singular an act as it appears to be… In many respects the infant after birth is not different from the infant before birth; it cannot perceive things outside, cannot feed itself; it is completely dependent on the mother, and would perish without her help. Actually, the process of birth continues. The child begins to recognize outside objects, to react affectively, to grasp things and to co-ordinate his movements, to walk. But birth continues. The child learns to speak, it learns to know the use and function of things, it learns to relate itself to others, to avoid punishment and gain praise and liking. Slowly, the growing person learns to love, to develop reason, to look at the world objectively. He begins to develop his powers; to acquire a sense of identity, to overcome the seduction of his senses for the sake of an integrated life. Birth then, in the conventional meaning of the word, is only the beginning of birth in the broader sense. The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born, when we die — although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born. Art by Jean-Pierre Weill from [The Well of Being]( A sane society, Fromm suggests, is one which helps the individual continually give birth to herself, whereas a society which is not sane stymies that ongoing rebirth and renders the individual in a state of alienation. He outlines the consequences: The psychological results of alienation are [that] man regresses to a receptive and marketing orientation and ceases to be productive; that he loses his sense of self, becomes dependent on approval, hence tends to conform and yet to feel insecure; he is dissatisfied, bored, and anxious, and spends most of his energy in the attempt to compensate for or just to cover up this anxiety. His intelligence is excellent, his reason deteriorates and in view of his technical powers he is seriously endangering the existence of civilization, and even of the human race. […] Reason deteriorates while their intelligence rises, thus creating the dangerous situation of equipping man with the greatest material power without the wisdom to use it. This alienation and automatization leads to an ever-increasing insanity. Life has no meaning, there is no joy, no faith, no reality. Throughout history, Fromm observes, various thinkers have attempted to identify the root of alienation and to propose alternatives — while Marxists pointed to economic factors, thinkers like Tolstoy pointed to the spiritual and moral impoverishment of humanity. Fromm himself points to “robotism” — the mindless automation of our lives — as the seedbed of modern alienation, and proposes what he calls “humanistic democratic socialism” as the antidote. He writes: The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. Art by Laura Carlin for [The Iron Giant]( by Ted Hughes Noting that the gravest dangers of his time — which are equally the dangers of our time — are war and robotism, Fromm offers his best recipe for a sane society: [The alternative is] to get out of the rut in which we are moving, and to take the next step in the birth and self-realization of humanity. The first condition is the abolishment of the war threat hanging over all of us now and paralyzing faith and initiative. We must take the responsibility for the life of all men, and develop on an international scale what all great countries have developed internally, a relative sharing of wealth and a new and more just division of economic resources. This must lead eventually to forms of international economic co-operation and planning, to forms of world government and to complete disarmament. We must retain the industrial method. But we must decentralize work and state so as to give it human proportions, and permit centralization only to an optimal point which is necessary because of the requirements of industry. In the economic sphere we need co-management of all who work in an enterprise, to permit their active and responsible participation. The new forms for such participation can be found. In the political sphere, return to the town meetings, by creating thousands of small face-to-face groups, which are well informed, which discuss, and whose decisions are integrated in a new “lower house.” A cultural renaissance must combine work education for the young, adult education and a new system of popular art and secular ritual… Holding up what he calls “humanistic communitarianism” as our only hope for protecting ourselves from the alienation of robotism, Fromm writes: Man can protect himself from the consequences of his own madness only by creating a sane society which conforms with the needs of man, needs which are rooted in the very conditions of his existence. A society in which man relates to man lovingly, in which he is rooted in bonds of brotherliness and solidarity, rather than in the ties of blood and soil; a society which gives him the possibility of transcending nature by creating rather than by destroying, in which everyone gains a sense of self by experiencing himself as the subject of his powers rather than by conformity, in which a system of orientation and devotion exists without man’s needing to distort reality and to worship idols. […] Man today is confronted with the most fundamental choice; not that between Capitalism or Communism, but that between robotism (of both the capitalist and the communist variety), or Humanistic Communitarian Socialism. Most facts seem to indicate that he is choosing robotism, and that means, in the long run, insanity and destruction. But all these facts are not strong enough to destroy faith in man’s reason, good will and sanity. As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost; as long as we can consult together and plan together, we can hope. But, indeed, the shadows are lengthening; the voices of insanity are becoming louder. We are in reach of achieving a state of humanity which corresponds to the vision of our great teachers; yet we are in danger of the destruction of all civilization, or of robotization. A small tribe was told thousands of years ago: “I put before you life and death, blessing and curse — and you chose life.” This is our choice too. Complement Fromm’s stimulatingly sane-making [The Sane Society]( with H.L. Mencken on [reclaiming democracy from the mob mentality that masquerades for it]( and Hannah Arendt on [our only effective antidote to the normalization of evil]( then revisit Fromm on [the art of living]( [the art of loving]( and [how to transcend the common laziness of optimism and pessimism](. 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