Jeanette Winterson’s exquisite notion of “the paradox of active surrender” is often what art gives us:
When you love something like reading – or drawing or music or nature – it surrounds you with a sense of connection to something great. If you are lucky enough to know this, then your search for meaning involves whatever that Something is. It’s an alchemical blend of affinity and focus that takes us to a place within that feels as close as we ever get to ‘home.’ It’s like pulling into our own train station after a long trip – joy, relief, a pleasant exhaustion.
If a writer or artist creates a place of truth and spirit and generosity, then I may be able to enter and ride this person’s train back to my own station. It’s the same with beautiful music and art. Beauty is meaning.
Quoted in Maria Popover’s Brain Pickings, March 11, 2020
