Today’s Excerpt:

“Temporary blissful centerings”
Wayne Booth, a professor of rhetoric at University of Chicago, called these moments “temporary blissful centerings,” and at the end of his life he made a list of the times he had experienced such moments. Here are a few of the things he wrote.

• “Cuddling a newborn child or grandchild”
• “Playing games — with children, with friends, with anybody who is fully engaged with the game”
• “Listening to powerful music”
  “Playing music, the supreme bliss”
• “Reading any novel or poem slowly, deliciously, totally absorbed”
• “Looking at a flower, or a shimmering lake, or a magnified photo of an insect, or a rainbow flash from a prism, feeling a flood of gratitude”
• “Lighting a well-laid fire … staring at the flames as they mount”

Discuss:

• If you were to make a list of “blissful centerings,” what would you include?