Pico Iyer on the Pleasure and Profundity of Silence

Since publishing his debut essay collection—Video Night in Kathmandu, featuring far-flung reportage from 10 Asian countries—in 1988, the prolific travel writer Pico Iyer has gone on to write more than a dozen books exploring themes ranging from displacement and identity to globalization and technology, as well as contribute to publications such as The New York Times, Time, and Condé Nast Traveler. Over the years, Iyer’s travels have taken him to some of the world’s most remote destinations—North Korea, Bhutan, and Iceland, to name a few—but it’s his hundred-plus visits to a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California, that form the heart of his latest book, Aflame: Learning From Silence. Connecting with his inner stillness during these various sojourns in solitude has left him wholly transformed, opening him up to discover the thrumming, ineffable joy of being truly awake to the world and wonderfully alive. 

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Iyer explores the purpose and joy of travel, and shares deeply moving reflections about what he finds most essential in life.

Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

Pico Iyer

[4:25] “Aflame”

[4:25] “Autumn Light”

[4:25] Philip Larkin

[4:25] “The Art of Poetry No. 30”

[7:18] Bashō

[7:18] Leonard Cohen

[10:21] New Camaldoli Hermitage

[10:21] Post Ranch Inn 

[16:25] “Postmodern Tourism: A Conversation with Pico Iyer”

[17:08] “The Eloquent Sounds of Silence”

[21:48] “The Joy of Quiet”

[31:42] “What Ping-Pong Taught Me About Life”

[33:14] “Walden”

[37:28] “The Open Road”

[41:37] “Video Night in Kathmandu”

[41:37] “The Lady and the Monk”

[41:37] “Lonely Places”

[41:37] The Global Soul

[44:40] “In the Realm of Jet Lag”

[52:35] “Culture: The Leading Hotels of the World”

[55:17] Potala Palace

[55:17] Naoshima, Japan

[55:17] Teshima, Japan

[55:17] Narita, Japan

[01:00:43] “The Half Known Life”

[01:10:10] “No Time”