Sailing with Rumi

or, Never Thought I’d be a Boat

In This Essay

The Essential Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Coleman Barks with John Moyne, eds. and trans.)

Though I cannot explain it — and if I could, I don’t think I would explain it — I have always been attracted to the mystical. Perhaps I am no different than others, but I believed that there was something beyond this world when I was a child.

But it wasn’t just a belief in God. It was a belief that the world and our experience of it was completely unreal while being thoroughly more real than we can imagine.

What makes me different is that I have carried that belief into my adulthood.

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Dwelling on and Dwelling in the Spirit of Play

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
– Aristotle

A few days ago, one of my friends set her Facebook status to, “But bear in mind that a person’s worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”

This simple act amused me. And moved me to think. I had had cause — not just cause but causes — to think about my values before she had put up that status. I realized that my life has been out of alignment. Specifically, I have not been giving enough attention to one trait I deeply value: playfulness.

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