Letters, Andor, and meditation passages
At this point, my prior letter has only appeared in an Arizona newspaper. I’m unsure what my next one will be about. I can’t really think of a fresh angle, and I don’t see any compelling news, so I might go back to the secular, animal-welfare case for cultivated-meat research. If you’d like some help getting started with your own letters, read this:
Welcome back to (Cell) Culture Talk, where I highlight some of the things I’ve been watching and reading lately.
TV — Andor. The first three episodes of the latest Star Wars series came out Wednesday. It begins a little slow, but heats up by the most recent episode. I couldn’t help but think the story to date would have been better as the opening fifteen minutes of a movie. Instead, it feels needlessly stretched out. I’ll definitely continue to watch, though.
Meditation passage — The Island from the Sutta Nipata. I like this one, but sometimes I think the act of memorization is what gives me relief from stress and anxiety, and perhaps I could be similarly distracted by memorizing anything. I do worry I’m using up all the short passages and am going to be stuck with nothing but long ones.
Meditation passage — If You Want to Draw Near to God by Abu Sa’id. Eknath Easwaran seems to have really liked the Sufis. Most of the Islamic passages he offers seem to be from them. This is a beautiful poem, though I’m confused by what Sa’id means when he writes, “to capture one heart through kindness is better / than setting a thousand free.”