30,000′, Boston to Albuquerque
Copyright 2013 David J. Bookbinder

Growing up, I was a kid scientist, apprehending my part of the cosmos through experiments first with magnets and electricity, soon thereafter with chemistry,  and by high school with electronics and model rockets. I identified math and science as my strengths, and my family and I both assumed I would grow up to be some kind of engineer; I hoped to work for NASA.

By the time I reached college, it became clear to me that I had grown up lopsided, my logical left brain dominating. The catalyst for realizing this was the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake, which I read in a freshman English class. “Those who restrain desire,” Blake wrote, “do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling. And being restrain’d it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.”

I had, I understood, been living the shadow of desire. I set about to change all that, and to the extent I have balanced left brain and right, art and science, I credit Blake with getting me started.

Has some kind of art — visual, performance, expressive — had a significant influence on you? Let us know!

More anon,
– David
David J. Bookbinder, LMHC

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