Quote of the Day (William James, on “December’s Darkness”)

“Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere about you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil moods over one's way of looking at the Kosmos.”—Philosopher William James (1842-1910), in a letter to friend Thomas Ward, 1868

I took the image accompanying this post last weekend, in the early evening, while standing outside The Shops at Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

Say what you want about the commercialization of Christmas, but the mass of light associated with it—even in a cathedral of commerce like Time Warner Center—imparts the sense of “a new gospel of cheer” that James—plagued, more than a few times himself, by “old December’s darkness”—praised to his downcast friend Ward.

In a season of grief and loss for me, I can’t say that I’m ready at this point for “a new gospel of cheer,” but a great mass of light points a way out of the darkness.