YEAR OF ZEN: SPRING: DAY 64

Q: Learning from a person, or experience, is different than studying and learning from a book. Living dialogue is essential. Have you experienced this?

A: The example that comes immediately to mind is my experience as a graduate student in the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program. As part of our study we worked directly with a number of environmental writers. These are people I had known from the page, but it was always a very different experience working with them in person. Some only deepened the high esteem I held for them while others were nothing short of massive disappointments.