this one is for Aaron, whose college is shut down due to contagion.

How near Thou art in the day of sickness. Thou Thyself visitest the sick; Thou Thyself bendest over the sufferer's bed. His heart speaks to Thee. In the throes of sorrow and suffering Thou bringest peace and unexpected consolation. Thou art the comforter. Thou art the love which watches over and heals us. To Thee we sing the song: Alleluia!

It's part of an akathist (in the Orthodox church, a shorter liturgy than the one used on Sunday mornings) that was written by a guy named Gregory Petrov in 1940, shortly before his death in a prison camp. Seems kind of crazy (in the absolutely best way possible) that he would claim the presence of God so strongly near the many ill he saw on a daily basis. . . .

Today I formulated to myself what I want to do with the rest of my life. It's a big project, and there are many ways in which it could find expression. And it's obvious -- it's been in my work's basic impulse from the beginning, I just never thought of it. I never stopped to make a manifesto from it.

(When Daniel heard that I had a manifesto, he immediately brought up the unibomber. What a great start to our afternoon discussion, right?? But no, it's not that kind of manifesto.)

I've been having a lot of discussions lately about the way technology is changing not just our day-to-day lives but the way our very brains function. Essentially, we're losing our ability to focus, brain-experts say. Other friends of mine are convinced that in 20, 30, 100 years no one will unplug from the internet, ever. We'll have little implants in our brains.

And I'm one of the only people so far who, no matter what -- no matter how futilely -- argues against that possibility. No! my insides say. That would be terrible!

So what's my manifesto? I want to formulate work which demands people pay attention to something rigorously observed outside of technology. I want to create work compelling enough to draw people into the real world -- i.e. flowers and trees and other people and gardens and working with your hands. I want to make people pay attention to what's going on in their walk from their house to their car, maybe just one day after they see something I made.

Simple, right? All the roots of that are already in what I'm doing. But in verbalizing that, I feel such a sense of freedom. . . It's the thing that ties together all the different things I do. I can blog and be pulling people into the world. I can be writing a novel and be doing that. I can paint and do that, make prints and do that, feed people and do that, have an amaryllis in my apartment and do that.

And you know what Daniel said to me when I told him that? He said, "You should teach!" Well yes, Daniel, thank you for remembering that I've always wanted to teach. . . . but in any case, the fact that he immediately saw that same thing as the central pillar of what he does as a professor and thought that desire could fit me for a teaching career -- that's so great! It makes me extremely happy.

In five or six years or whatever, I can go in to job interviews and when they ask me about my philosophy of teaching. . . well, that's it! I'm there to help students see something they've never seen before, change their vision and equip them with something vital that the rest of society needs. . . .

I know, chalk it up to being young, but I'm really passionate about that.