![]() “I knew a wise guy who used to make fun of my painting, but he didn’t like the Abstract Expressionists either. “The fact is, that, of all God’s gifts to the sigh of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn…the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.” –John Ruskin (a bit self-congratulatory on my part!) “Colors must have a mystical capacity for spiritual expression, without being tied to objects.” –Johannes Itten “If you cover a surface in red where is the surface now? Under the red? Over it? The red itself?” –Bernard Cohen ![]() About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.” - Diana Vreeland It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’-they have no idea what I’m talking about. I can never get painters to mix it for me. “All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. In the end, no matter how tied something may be to the physical senses, I still can only appreciate things through reading. Or as Tom Sawyer put it more succinctly, in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and…Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”īut why is color my Play? I’m extremely un-visual, so perhaps part of my pleasure comes from tapping into an underused aspect of my existence-as I did with the sense of smell.Īnd the writing about it! Much of it is extremely dry, but some of it is beautiful and thought-provoking. ![]() There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them.” As George Orwell wrote in the brilliant book The Road to Wigan Pier, “But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody. Of course this sense of obligation is completely self-imposed. ![]() I also feel obligated to do my reading, so instead of picking up a novel I’m dying to read, say, I think “I really need to spend some time this afternoon reading about color.” I spend time doing research and taking notes, which is “fun” but is also a busman’s holiday. Oddly, it’s a treat that also feels like more work. I love reading about color, taking notes on color, looking at color. However, despite my fascination with the subject of color-or perhaps because of it-I haven’t been able to choose a signature color (though I think if I did, it would be purple). On our podcast Happier, in episode 71, Elizabeth and I suggested the try-this-at-home of “ Choose a signature color,” which sparked so much response that in episode 75, we did a deep dive into color. Now, why am I so intrigued with the subject of color? No idea. A new part of the world lights up for me, a previously ignored section of my beloved library becomes familiar, I have a new way to connect with people, and my bookshelves start to fill up (which is a mixed blessing). It’s a wonderful, mysterious feeling to become wildly interested in something new. Sometimes the subject is a big, obvious subject, like the subject of habits in Better Than Before, or sometimes it’s more obscure, like my long obsession with the question “Why do people destroy their own possessions?” which became the book Profane Waste. Sometimes it stays a private obsession-like my obsession with beautiful scents. Sometimes, this obsession leads to a book-like The Happiness Project or Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill. And nothing makes me happier than a new obsession! It’s energizing and exciting. Periodically, I get obsessed with subjects.
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