Contents of a small, white paper sack

So I've started reading Lost in Cosmos. It seems to be having an effect on a lot of people though their blogs, so I'll give it a shot. After reading the first chapter I was sure I'd stop. It was too complex, far too many latinate words used so well, that a dictionary definition would only confuse the matter. It seemed above me. And it is, but I'll read it now and take from it what strikes me. The rest will come in its stride.

Well, I've stopped before the 40 pg. Semiotic section. I think I'll skim that. But the section before, especially the discussion about suicide struck me. It reminded me of Denise Levertov's "Matins":

The authentic, I said
breaking the handle of my hairbrush as I
brushed my hair in
rhythmic strokes: That’s it,
that’s joy, it’s always
a recognition, the known
appearing fully itself, and
more itself than one knew.

The awakening that Percy describes and the touching of Levertov's "authentic" seem to be related ideas somehow. Both are about seeing life in a new light and involve a radical change or experience on the part of the person.

It is also a choice, like Frost's "Birches":

...
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

This part of the section above I liked:
"I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better."

The idea that is it good to climb to great hights and enjoy it, but know that you will return again to being one more human on earth. But this too is a good thing for it allows you to connect with others and share love. This is something to be cheriched when on ground and yearned for when soaring.

I wonder if Frost is describing an intellectual acent versus horizontal relations, or if he is just recognizing the enevitable diapointment as a reminder of life.

This is going nowhere far too slowly.