Embrace Your Obsessions: Susan Orlean on the Antidote to the Meaninglessness of Life

Every great book, whatever its subject or genre or style, is about one thing only: the eternal question of what gives meaning to our tiny, transient lives. And every answer given, however faintly whispered, points to one thing only: the quality of attention we pay to those lives. If attention is the lever of love, the particular — the sacred specificity of something small and singular, something easy to overlook — is its fulcrum. “Love quells fear,” Octavia Butler wrote in contemplating creativity, “and a sweet and powerful positive obsession blunts pain, diverts rage, and engages each of us in… read article