For learning you gain daily;
for the Way you lose daily.
Losing and losing,
thus you reach noncontrivance;
be uncontrived, and nothing is not done.
Taking the world is always done
by not making anything out of it.
For when something is made of it,
that is not enough to take the world.

– Thomas Cleary

 

Those who seek learning gain every day
those who seek the Way lose every day
they lose and they lose
until they find nothing to do
nothing to do means nothing not done
those who rule the world aren’t busy
those who are busy
can’t rule the world

– Red Pine

 

To pursue learning, learn more day by day;
To pursue the Way, unlearn it day by day:
Unlearn and then unlearn again
Until there is nothing to pursue:
No end pursued, no end ungained.

Whoever means to win this world below
Never undertakes that task;
Whoever does make that his task
Is not fit to win this world below.

– Moss Roberts


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#220: The working poor and a so-so murder show Human Voices Wake Us

An episode from 3/9/26: Tonight, I read from Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2001 book Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. After that, I talk about the recent TV show The Killing, as a way in to talking about our obsession and desire for criticism, objectivity, and certainty. Isn’t privacy and the subjective more fruitful? Both parts of this episode are related to essays in my book Notes from the Grid.What is your equivalent of these passages? Email me or send an audio file to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com, and I may use it in an upcoming episode.The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
  1. #220: The working poor and a so-so murder show
  2. #219: When a paragraph changes your life
  3. #218: Poetry to Live By
  4. #217: Voices from 1900-1914
  5. #216: Poets, Prophets, Seeresses & Goddesses from Time & the River
  6. #215: 8 Favorite Poems from "Time and the River"
  7. #214: Two of the Best Poems You've Never Heard of (by William Cullen Bryant)
  8. #213: Van Gogh's Early Years
  9. #212: The Most Popular Story in Ancient India
  10. #211: Who Was William Cullen Bryant?

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