“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” – Harriet Tubman

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst 

4 October 

You’re off to do the culture-vulture thing in Europe? Sounds wonderful! Let me, if I may, give you a bit of advice: I wish for you to notice those unobrusive benches in the museums you'll be visiting; sit down in front of all those Vinus di Milos you're going to see; hopefully that way they’ll work their magic on you as they are meant to. Let their symmetries, their colors, their textures seep into your pores.  

You could, of course, catch up on your emails in that museum but, to be honest, that sounds about as odious as skate-boarding in a church. Give up managing. Instead, surrender to the genius of the artist - let yourself be pliable to the emotional thrust oozing out of every pore of that work.  Do that and you will come back immeasureably enriched. 

In fact if you do it right you will never be the same again. You will know the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes: ‘A human mind once stretched will never again return to its original dimensions.’