Absorption, Time, Beauty.

Absorption is what occurs when you immerse yourself in something you love doing. The artist and the poet and the philosopher and the scientist become absorbed. The kind doctor becomes absorbed in her patient; the teacher becomes absorbed in his class presentation. The musician becomes absorbed in the fugue. When that happens, time stops and one lives in an ongoing present. One feels whole and at one with oneself. The little boy drawing with his pad on the floor, tongue sticking out from one side of his mouth, is a picture of absorption. He is not really paying attention. He is being absorbed. What is happiness? W. H. Auden answered the question quite simply: Happiness comes in absorption.

Mark Edmundson, The Hedgehog Review.

The wider context is an essay with thoughts on attention. Edmundson continues with the need for mental discipline, including training for "sitting still." I hear in his thoughts, though his words do not contain the explicit idea, echoes of eastern thought and the value of meditation.

And he makes an important distinction between absorption and becoming mesmerized, as in video games. Value judgements come in quickly on the heels of this distinction, the former implying some larger purpose.

All well worth thinking about in the context of personal preparation for the Theology of Beauty.