via a metafilter thread yesterday, i found a lovely quote from christopher about his struggles and inspiration
"I think about it and worry about it every day. And too often I find myself afraid that I may not succeed sufficiently. Not long ago, I was a little bit gloomy and fed up. I went up to Inverness [on the northern California coast], had an okay meal, stayed at a motel, and went to sleep, which didn't improve my mood.And then in the morning, I decided to drive to the northern end of Point Reyes--out where you sometimes see herds of Tule Elk.
I was getting to a place where the land falls away sharply on both sides of the road. It was misty, and I decided not to continue. I pulled off into a field, popped out of the car, and right next to the carwas a patch of long grass. I lay down in the grass, looking through the stems and blades of grass, out at Tomales Bay.
I was lying there looking at this, and the perfection of it gradually began to impress itself on me. There was a faint sense of light in each of the bits of grass. It wasn't a revelation in any literal sense, and yet as I was looking through these grass stems, myself almost part of the grass, suddenly the thought came to me, So this is what you're trying to do! What the grass does: it is effortlessly creating a beautiful and complex environment. And it isn't just capable of it, but it is doing it, everywhere, and every day, and so easily. I was comforted, because the grass found it so easy.
So there's nothing for me to worry about at all. Even if I fail in my lifetime, it is so obvious. Surely people will understand it sooner or later."
(from an interview by Katy Butler)
i found myself crying
and another reference to richard dawkins under his goal in life
"Among other things, I want to find a way of talking about God in scientific terms that even Richard Dawkins might understand.
I really have as my long-distance target the desire to create a basis from which humankind can build and rebuild a beautiful world."
