“Years ago, a friend of mine was visiting from Rome and I said I was interested in going into one of those sensory deprivation chambers, and he just pounded his fist on the table and said, ‘The senses must not be deprived!’ He was like, ‘Why in the world would you want to pay money to have your senses deprived?’
The rest of the interview can be found on Indy Week. Image credit: impconcerts.com
All of these things (food, pleasure, creativity) are about the delight of the senses. My friend Elizabeth Minchilli, whom I met during the Eat Pray Love years, runs these food tours through various parts of Italy. She has a deep, abiding, passionate Italian-based delight in making sure that your senses should be stimulated at all times, whether it’s through music, storytelling, food, or learning a new language. Why bother to have these senses if you’re not going to use them? In America, we still come from a puritanical culture that is very suspicious of the senses, and that they have to be controlled or else they can lead to sin.
The Italians just sort of have a richer, old-world idea about that—that actually the senses can be trusted, nourished, and delighted, and that’s what constitutes a good life.”