Teaching the seminar is pure joy. The key to happiness is total absorption in the task at hand. When I am in class I am attentive to everything, the ideas being discussed in relation to the overall "lessons" I want us to come away with, the body language and level of attentiveness of each of the 10 students, their own level of engagement. When the majority of them are also engaged, are here in class with me, when the seminar is clicking, the students feeding off of one another's level of engagement, I can sit back and enjoy it. It is effortless, even though I am working very, very hard, keeping track of the time elapsing in relation to the rhythm of the discussion, intervening or deliberately remaining quiet to allow for more space. And the students too seem to have an idea of the beginning, middle, and end of the class, its particular rhythm.

The joy is retroactive too, in that it takes its full effect a day or so later, when I reflect on it, as I am doing now, travelling back in time a day and idealizing what was probably an imperfect class in many respects. As Asbhery notes, happiness can be anticipatory or retrospective, yet is always related to some idea of a presence, even if it is two moments superimposed the one over the other.

***

A striking dream: I was climbing a steep hill; on my left was a formation of rock that resembled a cemetery: tombstones irregularly pointing up at the sky. Yet is was a natural formation, as I discovered as I drew nearer. The ambiguity (human or natural?) contributed to the effect of striking beauty. I felt that I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. This feeling was a sensation of physical elation such that I had never felt. At the top of the hill were some Roman ruins carved out of similar stone. I wondered whether they had been carved out of rock or whether the rock had been hauled to the top of the hill by slave laborers. I thought of the Egptians pyramids. A well preserved Roman-style building, looking much like one of those pseudo-classical banks, had the word VICTORIA carved above its columns. I associated the building with Rome's victory over Carthage in the Punic wars.