In the words of a painter, the abstract expressionist Pat Adams—

That marveling rush of wonder at sheer multiplicity and differentiation of stuff when surfaces of heightened materiality, of encrusted and layered imprinting are generated to entangle our attention and delay cognition

—until it seems that perpetual fear is a propellant into the innocent, fearless, and vulnerable world of the senses.

I recognize the sense of being propelled into the world of the senses.

But fear is not the fuel.

Curiosity is there, attraction to beauty too, and a compulsion to create.

I'm not sure about innocence, but being vulnerable and fearless is the yin and yang of this world.

I am not disagreeing with Ruefle, just reporting a different experience.  My poetry does not have her beauty, or Keats' or Rilke's or Rimbaud's. My painting does not have Picasso's rush of wonder.  My prose is not as compelling as Montaigne, Emerson, or Trilling. 

Perhaps I lack sufficient fear.