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On Reading Emerson

I have been getting work done on my dissertation - yesterday I revised my draft of chapter 3, and I think I will be able to get it out by the end of the weekend to my supervisor. Aside from this, I’ve also gone back to doing some of my own reading (as opposed to the reading I do for my work). Earlier this week, I decided to go back to Emerson - I have a large volume of “essential” essays and poems he wrote that I’ve never finished. And, as I’ve consistently found, Emerson is wonderful to read when I’m feeling down, disconnected, or listless, because he always re-inspires me.

As I’ve been reading, I’ve been keeping an eye to picking out a clearer understanding of Emerson’s thought. As I’m sure I’ve written here before, reading Emerson is different than reading most other philosophy. There are clear differences on the surface - Emerson is much more poetic, much more taken to metaphor and rhetorical flair than most philosophers. Reading him like one might read most philosophers can leave things seemingly incomplete or baseless - the “points” he makes are not argued according to some deductive fashion. Instead, Emerson’s writing pulls on the heart. For me, he seems mostly to write by attempting to remind people of things they already know through their own experience. His writing is incomplete in itself because it points back - out into the world, into the reader’s own life. One cannot read Emerson without living - though most any life will do. Emerson seems often to point back at the power of authenticity - of a life lived in accord with a quiet inner light or clarity that is rich with both purpose and wisdom. I think that his prose and his arguments are impenetrable insofar as one is alienated from the things Emerson attempts to point at in our own lives - when we pretend we don’t understand, expecting to be led through some deductive argument to a conclusion that we need contribute nothing to. Despite it’s rhetorical flair, Emerson’s writing is austere and stoic, simply because it refuses to provide all that might be needed in itself. It respects the reader by expecting of him or her a certain self reliance. It points without holding hands, and at its best, it absolutely refuses to lead.

Of course, Emerson also writes sometimes as if the personal was transpersonal - that his insights are themselves universal - times where he does less pointing back at the reader, and more speculating and attempting to lay out a system of knowledge (if anything so threadbare can be a system). This writing I am somewhat less sympathetic to - this is where I think some of the worries of philosphers are legitimate - that his writing contains some empty reassurances and frail arguments to support those reassurances. Though all this means is that he too is possessed of a philosopher’s vanity, though not nearly so much as others.

His “Self Reliance” is of a piece with all of this. In some ways, it is one of the more difficult pieces I’ve read - difficult because of a certain coldness and harshness it reccommends - almost a selfishness. There is something of contemporary Republican “virtues” built up in that essay, but really, I think that those virtues and that reading are both a distortion of what Emerson is saying.  In the end, Emerson seems to be expressing a profound love and respect for the inner light he finds in himself and believes is available in each one of us - our own soverignty in our lives coupled with a refusal of that role in the life of any other. There is an attention to some divine spark within, the voice of god immanent and commanding, but never issuing forth from the lips of another.

Part of that self reliance is an independance from the opinions of others. It is a willingness to chart one’s own course despite all the clucking of tongues and reproachful gazesthat might attend to ones own course of action. There is primarily an attention here to the resilliance one must show in resiting forms of disapprobation, but there is another element, I think - the resistance to the seduction of praise. This is not, I think, a kind of individualist libertarian manifesto - to do what one wants and let the rest of the world fend for itself. Instead, I think it is a plea to be who one is in the world, and not to rely on ones reflection in the gazes of others to determine one’s course of action and identity in the world, because so many will use that power - the power of the mirror - to subject others to their own will. To act from within, from authenticity, does not mean selfishness - but a generosity that extends from love rather than the desire that the world reflect through its gaze the image of a generous man back at you, for you to identify yourself with.

I’ll probably have more to say about Emerson as my reading continues. For now, I will set this aside and get back to my dissertation, with the words of that long dead friend of mine echoing in my soul.

2010 02 06 Philosophy
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What about Philosophy of Education?

I am finished with a rather intense 10 days, where I had 3 workshops (one that was 1 day, one that was 2 days, and one that was 3 days). Alongside this, I had my usual workload of TAing and working at the teaching center, and trying to write my dissertation (my “end of January” deadline is gone for chapter 3 - I’m hoping by the end of this next weekend that I’ve sent out what I’ve got.) Today is my first day off in a while. While I was planning to work all day on my dissertation when I was planning things more than a week ago, I think I really need today to recover a bit of my metal and emotional strength.

I have been too tired to have much in the way of particular insights over these past workshops. I think that, of the ones I facilitated (all but the one day workshop) I did a fair job, though no more than that. I think that the participants gained something from the workshop, and that things that I did probably helped to make that happen. These workshops, however, are becoming a bit more routine for me now. I’ve done enough of them (I think these last two put me up to 10) that there is nothing altogether new or surprising when I do one. I had a few insights about development of the workshop itself in the one this past weekend, but nothing major.

One thing I did think a bit about on the way home yesterday was the Philosophy of Eduication as a professional “track” for me to try to get aboard. As of now, this is only an idea that is fuzzy in my mind, but if I did some work in Phil of Ed, I could have a fairly logical transition out of academic philosophy and into education - possibly trying to do some work in a faculty of education for a while (so, still academia), work in educational development (which is also connected to what I do now in the teaching center), with possibilties to establish myself and get into other areas of education (government or administration, professional development, etc). Something like that would certainly give me options, and it would also be an opportunity to work on something I care deeply about (educating), while keeping me connected to something else I care deeply about (philosophy) without neccessarily being beholden to the kinds of professionalizing pressures that drive me away from academic philosophy.

Of course, this would add a whole other “track” to my reading list, though from what I can tell, there isn’t a whole lot of reading I would need to do to attain a passable degree of literacy in the area - a handful of core works. It also seems to have a desirable interdisciplinary aspect to it, psychology certainly overlaps at the very least, as well as things like politics. It’s something I’m going to spend some time investigating for a bit. This may well be the next move for me - though I won’t get my hopes too high until I’ve done some more investigation beyond “what about phil of ed?”

2010 02 01 Philosophy Comments (0) Permalink

Halfway Through Hell Week

I am tired, and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do. I’m not going to be finishing my chapter 3 by the end of the month, because I have to work every day until the end of the month. On the plus side, I’m fairly close to being finished. I have one very bad draft, but it is technically complete (but not ready to send). I think 2 or 3 more solid sessions should end with something ready to send to my committee. Now I hope to have things done after the first week of February, and start on chapter 4 on the second week of February. I’m not sure if I’m still going to finish on schedule or not - but I really just want to be done with this.

It’s tempting to feel sometimes like this is a big waste of time. I have no pretensions of getting a reesearch job in academia, and even a teaching job that is steady and live-able seems remote. There is very little else that a PhD in philosophy will get you, in terms of opening doors and opportunities. Indeed, a PhD, especially in a field like philosophy is often detrimental for getting a job outside of academia, because a PhD often signals “no employable skills” to employers. But sitting here, under the pressure of deadlines and work to do, I have thought what I would rather be doing. The thought that came to my mind first was reading - in particular I feel like reading a book about American History - a “mainstream” book on the founding fathers, and then Zinn’s “A People’s History” as a point of contrast. This desire, to read, to learn, and to take enjoyment in this isn’t something that I would have had 8 years ago. Practically speaking, I never read anything unless it was gaming (D&D) related or I had to read it. Indeed, when I started going back to university, this was true of me for quite a while - it was really the Critique of Pure Reason that was a sort of “crossover” where I started reading on my own (it was technically assigned, but it was an assignment I didn’t have to do). I did a bit of “additional” reading here and there - I read all of the World as Will and Representation instead of the assigned excerpts in one class, and some additional Nietzsche here and there.

It was really after moving out here that I grew in curiosity, getting a bit fed up with what I was reading (all analytic or post-analytic philosophy) and I started going back to stuff in the History of Philosophy, and then into Literature, and reading serious stuff became something I enjoyed doing for its own sake. Coming back to school, doing this degree has awakened (or reawakened) a curiosity which Is one of the great joys in my life. It woke me up to the life of the mind in new ways - both through reading stuff within academia, and then eventually resisting academia by reading with my own agenda.

My hopes for the dissertation are not simply that it will finish my degree here. I hope also to use this experience to learn about myself both as a writer and a researcher, so that I can write on my own after this. It is a test of endurance, and of my will to stick with this project and really put myself into it (I quite notoriously handed in some garbage for my “thesis” in art school, in part because I was so digusted by the experience, and in no small part because I was a lazy kid). The process may not make me into an academic, but I hope that it makes me into a scholar. I don’t know what use that will have for me in the future, but it seems like something ripe with potential.

2010 01 27 Venting Comments (0) Permalink

Keeping On

My dissertation writing has been coming along at a pretty good clip. I have about 80-90% of a full rough draft of chapter 3, which I’ll probably need to rewrite at least 2-3 times before I’m ready to send it to my committee members. It is within the realm of possibility that this is something I could do before the end of the month. My really firm goal is to be on to writing chapter 4 by the second week of February, which means having gathered research that I need to do before then (probably piling things together during the first week of February). If I can devote February to finishing chapter 4, I’ll be in a good way for finishing up my draft version of the dissertation by the summer - though mid to late summer seems likely. That leaves me with a month or two to do revisions, and then the final 2 months of 2010 to schedule and defend. If all goes well, I’ll be done with it by December 2010, and hopefully won’t have too much in terms of revisions to do (passing without revisions is, as I understand it, pretty rare).

I feel pretty good, though nervous about the project. Oddly enough for me, I’ve been sticking pretty close to my outline for my dissertation as I’ve been writing, though I’ll really need to go back in and fill in a bit for the later chapters (which I say almost nothing about in the original outline, as contrasted with chapters 2 and 3. 4 I have some stuff, but less, 5 very little, and 6 almost nothing). Having that outline has really helped me though, and I’m also finding that in a project like this, my propensity for global thinking is really a strength. The project has three major elements - two distinct kinds of defense for free will, and then an account of identity - and thus far they are fitting together in a nice tight way (I say as I’ve only developed 2 of the 3 pieces at all). I still think I’m going to have to give some deeper and more “analytic” arguments for some of this stuff, and I should also plunge into reading a bit more existentialism for the later chapters - those are also the chapters where I’m likely to get into trouble with my committee.

I’m currently taking a little break from writing - I’m at a bit of a wall - one where I usually stop wirting and start a new draft (I always seem to get a bit stuck at the 80-90% mark, and it takes a rewrite for me to finish). I’m going to try and get a bit more out, so the rewrite is easier and more polished (since it will be a rewrite, rather than a rewrite with 20% new stuff that will also need to be rewritten. I’m really just checking in here, trying to psych myself up.

2010 01 18 Academia Comments (0) Permalink

Let Loose the Gates

The drop-off in my posting here can only mean that I’m back into the spirit of working on my dissertation. I’ve actually gotten a fair bit done - I’m probably about three or four revisions away from a full draft of chapter 3, and probably about eight or ten away from the next one I’m sending out. I’ve also been going back and incorporating changes in chapter 2, which is actually helping me in writing chapter 3 - writing chapter 3 helps to clarify what is most important in chapter 2, and vice versa. I think part of my “block” in writing before this has been that I actively resisted going back and working on 2 again before getting to 3, and so I couldn’t start. What got me moving was actually writing as an introduction to chapter 3 a summary of what I did (or intended to do) in chapter 2. Some if it I have to go back and bring out more clearly so that I’ve actually done what I claimed to do (and indeed, what I need to do to build chapter 3). I’ve got a bit of reading I’m going to need to do again - though I’m going to avoid reading books and try and stick to articles, which are much faster. If I find I need more, I’ll go back and read the book along the way and work that material in through revisions. I’d really like to send this out before the 22nd, though I don’t know if that is really possible. I’ve got a busy couple of weeks ahead of me, but it would again be a spiritual victory (or at least, the mitigation of a spiritual defeat) to get this out well before the end of January, since the original plan was to have it out before the end of December.

The pace, though, is pretty good given that (unlike chapter 2) these are arguments I’ve not written out before.  The slowest thing, as always, is going back into the literature to make sure I’m explicitly talking to a few people, rather than talking to a general position. It’s probably a really good thing that I do that anyway - responding to articles and arguments from other philosophers prevents me from attacking straw men, etc. I don’t really enjoy reading this stuff much anymore, though. Most philosophy at this level is a frustrating exercise in hair-splitting, and I feel most keenly the fact that my immediate experience of philosophy isn’t verbal, and its a struggle to present the ideas that I experience more like “things” than like sentences.

I’ve also been wanting to draw more recently - I’ve not indulged (much) in the past couple of weeks, mostly because I’ve put most of my energy into writing my dissertation when I have energy at all. But I would like to just that part of my brain more frequently again, and retrain my eye and my hand to do the kinds of things I used to be able to do with pen and pencil. In a perfect world, I’d move on to painting with oils as well, though I don’t know if and when that will ever be possible (I did a bit with oils in my art school days - it is time consuming, difficult, and requires space with ventelation.)  Perhaps watercolors will be a nice shorter term goal, though. I got myself a nice new sketchbook which I’m going to try to use with a bit more discipline - not so much for doodling, but for creating in - things that I work to finish, and perhaps art that takes more than one sitting to complete (I’ve done very few drawings or paitings in my life that spanned multiple creative sessions. Those that were I did for school). I’m feeling a bit of the old claw of my experience in art school loosen, perhaps freeing up my creative spirit once again.

I used to draw all of the time - I loved it, I would escape into it. The need to professionalize destroyed my desire to draw and my creative impulse. I think that my struggles in philosophy have helped me to face the negative impact of professionalization though. I love philosophy despite the need to professionalize - and in some sense I have rejected the need for professionalization and have committed myself to engaging with philosophy in a way that feeds my soul. I think that becoming the kind of person that can do that has helped me to start at least thinking about drawing again without the feeling of listlessness that would hit me in the past. I’m still intimidated, because neither my eye nor my hand are what they used to be. My hand was actually never that great to begin with - I usually drew with short sketchy lines - I had no confidence in the ability to just draw a line as I wanted to in a single stroke. My eye got quite good though - I became very sensitive to differences in light especially, though my attention to spatial relationships was also quite good. To go back to drawing again isn’t quite starting over, but it’s not far from it.

Still, the drawing, writing, literature and music  that I’ve been immersing myself in over the past few months has been really rewarding, and in some strange sense also a healing experience. (Healing from what, I’m not sure).

2010 01 11 Academia
Art
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Sophocles - Ajax

I’ve had a fairly productive day today - worked for about 2 hours on my dissertation (mostly reading), listened to the Goldberg Variations for the first time, did a bit of sketching, and read Sophocles’ Ajax, with an eye to reading the complete plays of Sophocles, which is a nice beginning to my New Year’s resolution, and helps also to get me some further background in Ancient Greek culture and thought.

Sophocles lived from 496 B.C. - 406 B.C, meaning that his life overlapped heavily with Socrates (469 B.C. - 399 B.C) and somewhat with Plato (428 B.C. - 348 B.C.), meaning that Sophocles’ Greece was also Plato’s Greece to some extent (though Plato saw more of the decline of the Athenian golden age, whereas Sophocles died two years before the fall of Athens to Sparta), and which meant that Sophocles was a direct contemporary of Pericles (495 B.C. - 429 B.C.). I mention all of this mostly to help make the time stand out a bit more vividly for myself - to get a sense of “place” from the intersection of these lives and the events that they were caught up in (this seems to press even more for me to read Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian war).

The play Ajax is set at the end of the Trojan war, after the fall of Achilles in Troy, but before Odyseuss leaves for his fateful journey. Ajax is angry at Odysseus for winning Achilles’ armor, and decides to kill Odysseus as well as the Greek Kings, but they are protected by Athena, who strikes Ajax with madness so that he slaughters a bunch of livestock instead (while believing them to be his enemies). The madness departs, Ajax realizes that he’s made a fool of himself, and resolves to kill himself. After some attempts to dissuade him, Ajax gets away, kills himself, and the remainder of the play is an argument between his brother who wants to bury him, and the kings of the Greeks (Agamemnon and Menelaus) who forbid him to be buried - the impasse is eventually settled by Odysseus who persuades Agamemnon to allow the burial.

What is interesting for me about this play are the values that underlie many of the issues that arise in the play. The first, of course, is the tragedy itself - that Ajax, a great and terrible warrior, with numerous heroic acts under his belt during the Trojan war - could be “undone” by the act of accidentally slaughtering animals instead of his enemies. I’m not sure that I entirely understand this - on the face of it, this could simply be something like a “loss of face” - Ajax is simply embarassed beyond compare by the fact that he did something foolish. This is not necessarily as superficial as it seems. One might consider the possibility that “who one is” in the culture of the ancient Greeks (a “shame culture”) is partially constituted by one’s public reputation, so that an act like this is actually a kind of self-destructive act, because it destroys his public face and thus transforms his life from one eminently worthy in the eyes of the Greeks (great warrior), to one eminently unworthy (fool). This sort of problem emerges in part because the view that others have of oneself is in some sense ontologically important - if one is seen as a fool, then in some sense one is a fool. (This might be contrasted with a guilt culture, such as the Judeo-Christian, that detaches these kinds of ontological issues from “mere apperance”.) On this view, the issue of embarassment is much less superficial precisely because it is through reputation that one gets to be who one is.

The issue of the “gaze of the other” (which I know comes to be a term of art in existentialist writers, but which I’ve not personally encountered much of myself) is itself quite fascinating. In particular, the kinds of solutions that are available to help rectify the problem - Ajax’s solution is suicide, though I suppose that other solutions existed in that culture, especially in the face of lies and slanders (I imagine this would be settled by violence - the slandered person asserting their right to fight someone who made allegations against them). This casts some interesting light on Nietzsche’s discussion of “Warrior virtues” as well - given that warriors were “good” in a sense because they could force others to acknowledge their goodness - warriors enforced their values. One thing Nietzsche doesn’t discuss, though, is how important that “enforcement” was - that the nobles were not self reliant in the way that Nietzsche might credit them for being, because their nobility still only exists in the cowering and flinching of the slave. The slaves’ gaze might be trapped and brutalized, but the warrior is bound to it, bound to need and master it, in order to maintain the reality of his virtues. Nietzsche sometimes applauds the “forgetfulness” of the warrior as opposed to the slave, but that “forgetfulness” is not reflective of some higher ontological status. The Warrior can be forgetful because his fearsome image is always reflected back at him through the behavior of those who he oppresses. The slave’s consciousness-of-self and constant memory is, in some sense, taking a measure of independence that the master does not have.

Back to Ajax, however - Ajax clearly does not have this independence. He must die by his own hand, but why? How does this solve the problem? It certainly doesn’t erase the deed from reality. It is not exactly credible to believe that it erases the deed from the minds of others, or from the told history of those days. One thing it does do, perhaps, is save Ajax from having to endure those reproaching and mocking gazes (pointing, again, perhaps to the tyranny that the warrior is enslaved by - the tyranny of reputation). In another sense, it may also be an opportunity for Ajax to repudiate his own deed by his self-slaughter, and in some sense redeem himself. His redemption, I suppose, is through the fact that he would sooner die than live on a life marred by such a betrayal of his own values and his own person. He acknowledges his spiritual death by making it into a physical death, by refusing to live on as a mere joke of his former self.

This actually suggests to me an interesting comparison with the death of Socrates, in particular during the discussion of escape in the Crito. Socrates’ reasons for not escaping are actually in some sense similar to the ones I’ve suggested for Ajax - Socrates’ life has been lived according to certain principles which he values more than his continued (biological) life, and to do anything that might compromise those principles would be a kind of death or falsification of the life he lived, and the principles he espoused. Socrates’ defense during the Apology might also be understood in this light. If this is right, then Plato’s dramatic depiction of Socrates’ trial and death has some strong precedent in Greek life. What is different, however, is a shift in what it would mean to live such a life (and die such a death). Socrates is definitely not concerned about his ongoing reputation with others - his primary concern does not seem to be the gaze of the other, which he regards with a certain degree of amusement, if not occasionally disdain. In the Crito, Socrates’ argument is not directed against Crito, or his family and friends in abstract, but rather against the Laws of Athens - which for him seem to be a sort of transcendent principle. His discussion in the Phaedo, too, is concerned with his own life in the light of reason, not in concerns about appearance. On this reading, the death of Socrates is a repudiation of the sorts of values that motivate the death of Ajax. Ajax’s concerns are worldly and of the “apparent world”, whereas Socrates’ concern is transcendent and with an eye to “truth” rather than some embedded and contingent point of view. This certainly seems like a shift toward “guilt culture.”

There is certainly more to reflect on in Ajax - the fact that the “tragedy” happens through divine intervention, and what that fact (and the fact that it doesn’t seem to be a mitigating circumstance) reflects about Greek (or at least Sophocles’) ideas of personhood. But I think this has given me enough to begin with. It’s certainly gotten me thinking creatively - I wish I knew more about Greek history and culture to engage in more literate and informed reading, thoug I suppose doing this is how I will get to that point.

2010 01 02 Art
Literature
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Retrospective and Resolutions

This past year, I did pretty well with my resolutions. I kept to my expanded “great books” resolution - reading 6 unarguably classic literary books - the Histories, The Brothers Karamazov, Lives 1, Sense and Sensibility, Bullfinches’ Mythology, and A Christmas Carol. I’m not sure that I got a seventh “classic” in, but given that I read the complete writings of Plato (which is certainly a classic, though not non-philosophy), as well as some Classic genre literature (Ghost stories of an Antiquary & More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary) I’m good to call it even on the Literature. I also read 1 History book (Ideas: A History), and on top of all this, there was also some additional literary and non-dissertation related philosophy reading. I think that the best book I read this year was probably the Brothers Karamazov, but almost all of them were quite good (I did find Sense and Sensibility to be a bit dull). I am really glad I started doing this a few years ago, because I think reading all of this stuff, especially the stuff outside of philosophy has really helped me to grow as both a philosopher and as a human being.

Meditation has also been a success story this year - I meditate almost every day now, typically for about 1/2 hour, though sometimes longer, and sometimes much less (5 minutes on days where I have to leave by 6 AM, which only happens a few times in a year). I’ve probably missed less than 30 days of meditation all year, and most of those more toward the beginning of the year. I’m happy about this one because it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for many years - to become someone who regularly meditates - and I’ve finally gone down that road.  I think that meditating has helped me in many ways. I think it’s helped level my moods, as well as give me a greater sense of well being in general.

Exercise and health has been somewhat less successful. I had a pretty regular exercise routine from the end of December until about mid-April, and at that time, my back started hurting me. I took a rest to let it heal, then went back, and my back pain again very quickly flared up. After that, I decided to rest for much longer, and the “rest” eventually just led to me no longer doing regular exercise. On the other hand, I think my diet has improved. I think I often eat smaller meals, and going “quasi-vegetarian” (no meat of mammals) has actually had the side effect of cutting out a lot of fast food I used to eat. My diet could certainly still improve, as could my regular exercise habit, but this area, while not all I had hoped, had some small measure of improvement.

My last resolution was to work on my will - to have more follow-through on doing the things I want to do, and living according to my values. This one was also pretty successful in tons of small ways (cutting out mammals from my diet being ne example of this). I’ve become less of a “slacker” - I did waste some time in front of video games, but nothing excessive. I got my prospectus done, my dissertation is on its way (though a bit behind schedule now), did a lot at work,  etc. So this one was pretty successful as well.

For next year, I’ve got a few resolutions, many of which are fairly specific.

The first will be to continue my great books resolution, with 7 “classic” texts, and 1 history book.  I actually hope to continue to exceed this number, and perhaps be a bit “looser” with what I consider a classic text (so the classic Ghost stories would count unequivocally). I’m also going to aim to read more philosophy that has nothing to do with my dissertation - I’d like to read more classic Greek philosophy, as well as phenomenology and existentialism. Those won’t really “count against” the 7 classics, though. The history book will likely be a Greek history book. That seems to be a good place to start my historical investigation (and indeed, that “start” has already begun over the last year). I think that my readings will include some classic Greek Tragedy - Sophocles, perhaps, as well as some Greek Myth (Hesiod, probably). Other than that, only time will tell what I decide to read. Maybe Go back to Shakespeare - though I won’t count individual plays out of my “complete works” as individual readings. We’ll see.

The second will be to continue my meditation practice - but not just continue it, but deepen it. My meditation is at times fairly superficial - really just sitting and watching my mind chatter. Other times, it is deeper and more focused, less distracted. I’m really aiming this year to make my meditation more frequently like the latter kind - that’s already starting to happen, but I’d like to continue it.

My third resolution will be to work for at least 1/2 hour every day on my dissertation until it is done. 1/2 hour is not a whole lot of time - though it will importantly be “at least” 1/2 hour. That means I have to spend 1/2 hour trying to work on my dissertation, and only after that much time can I say “alright, I can’t do anymore today.”  Ideally, many days I’ll spend much longer than 1/2 hour on it, because I will be productive and I won’t stop after 1/2 hour of work. I anticipate that this one will be difficult, but I think it would be really good if I finished up my dissertation sooner rather than later. I am anxious to graduate and move on.

My Fourth resolution will be to spend a bit of time each month devoted to some cause I believe in. Right now, the form that takes will be spending some time every month writing letters for Amnesty International,which is a cause I already support, but in this way I could do something a bit more directly.

My fifth resolution is the somewhat more nebulous one to be healthier still. I think one specific form that this will take will be my trying to plan meals more frequently, and eat less food that is processed/full of preservatives, etc. Exercise is also a goal, but I’m a bit reluctant here, just because my resolutions are taking up a lot of my daily time right now.

Then my sixth and more nebulous resolution will be to spend time and energy nurturing my own creative side this year - through writing, perhaps drawing, perhaps even music.  I’ve thought on and off about how much I would like to learn to play the piano. This is something I’ve been putting off until I’m finished with my dissertation, but perhaps I won’t delay all that long - perhaps, in the summer, if I still feel the impulse to play, I’ll try and get a keyboard and find lessons somewhere. But I think I’d also like to focus on writing as a creative outlet. I’m not sure how, or when, or any of that, but being more creative is definitely going to be a goal for me.

I think that’s probably good for now, though I may add something in the next week or so.

2009 12 31 Introspection
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The Seven Storey Mindscape

I’ve had an interesting time over these last few days, in which I watched “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” - a sort of biographical documentary about the comic book writer, and reading “The Seven Storey Mountain” by Thomas Merton, the Catholic Trappist monk. Both of these works are about the spiritual lives of these two men, and despite the very drastic differences, there were also some odd continuities.

Perhaps the most striking similarity between the two is that they both hold a very sharp contrast between the person’s will and their “true will” (or, in the monk’s terms, the will of God). The worldly will is characterized by a sort of distraction that comes through the world, especially the modern world. Merton’s worries have to do with the various sources of sin in the world, a kind of self absorbtion and hedonism. Moore’s worries are a bit more existential, but the target is still the commercial, work-a-day world of modernity. The demons that occupy either are at least superficially different - for Merton, things like sex and sensuality are simply and clearlt the demonic, whereas for Moore, things seem to become problematic only through the sort of relationship one has with them - if they (or our desire for them) comes to rule us, that is problematic.

Against the modern world, each man holds up a spiritual standard, which while different, also have some pointed similarities - in particular that each involves somehow subduing the ego by surredering it to a more “divine” voice. For Merton, that divine voice is the voice of God, transmitted faithfully and reliably only through the Catholic church (though I understand he becomes a bit more liberal and open over time). One overcomes the ego as a monk by utterly subduing the will to another who is deemed trustworthy through the auspices of the Catholic Church. The point, however, is not that one obeys another, but that one simply does not obey oneself - that the distractions of desire are utterly subdued by relinquishing the power to do anything about them. Moore actually has something of the same concern - a concern for what might be thaught of as inauthentic desires or even beliefs about the world. For Moore, we are hypnotized by “magicians” - artists and advertisers - who weave a reality around us that makes us servile and obedient, and we must overcome that worldly subjection in ourselves and others by finding and learning to listen to our “true will” - whose voice can come to ring clear through the creation of our own authentic art (which he takes to be synonymous with magic). In both cases, there is a purgation of false and misleading desires and an attempt to hand over one’s will to the divine. In both men, there is also a sense in which that divine will is our own true will - both seem to hold the same belief that the divine is the “ground of being” or the sort of immanent existential foundation for the universe, and that the world has warped this somehow.

It would be dishonest, however, to downplay the differences. Moore seems to think that this reconnection with the divine can be done alone, that in each of us is this “true will” which can be used to clear away the false. I imagine something like “truthfulness” in Nietzsche’s sense would be required here, a kind of unblinking honesty and a nose for one’s own hypocrisy. Merton, however, think that this is clearly impossible - that the “divine will” must come in the form of grace which comes from without, and which out own work is utterly incapible of doing anything to bring about. But perhaps even this difference is somewhat superficial. Moore, after all, recognizes gods that arise out of the godhead that act as intermediaries between human beings and the divine, though he is ambiguous about the existence of these things (that, though because I think he believes their existence is itself ambiguous). Merton of course doesn’t recognize gods, but there are certainly saints and angels (and demons) which play essentially the same role - both views, I imagine hearken back to Plotinus. And Merton, for all his viewpoint that God is somehow seperate and distinct may be speaking only from one point of view - identifying himself, as it were, with the “worldly” ego that needs to be mortified and controlled, whereas Moore identifies himself with the entire complex of “divine spark” and worldly being - but agreeing in some sense that the worldly needs to be controled. It is certain, however, that the two men would sharply disagree on what it means for the worldly to be controlled.

The contrast and similarity is all very interesting. Even now, I can imagine a debate wbetween the two of them, which would probably be spirited because of these similarities as much as because of the difference - because it’s obvious that the two men would certanly have something to say to each other, if they could be made to listen. Each, I imagine, would have pointed criticisms about the source of the “voice of the divine” in the other - Merton would object that the “voice of the divine” was just selfishness dressed up in godly dress (though Merton might say devils). Moore would probably say something about being seduced by a kind of consensus reality, and walking away from ones responsibility for ones own life. But I wonder if that, too, is details, and what is meant by the claim that there are”many ways up the mountain” - a claim that Moore would probably accept more than Merton (at least this younger Merton) would.

2009 12 28 Art
Literature
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The Golden Mean

Today, I spent a few hours reading the Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon, historical fiction about Aristotle and in particular about his time as the tutor of Alexander the great. It was an enjoyable book, though (in my opinion) somewhat flawed. Both the element that was the most interesting to me, as well as the most flawed was the portrait of Aristotle as a philosopher, afflicted with an “illness” (which seems to be bipolar disorder). What was most interesting about it was the sort of incongruity between the life of Aristotle as a philosopher, and as a human being - there is this tension between his engagement with philosophical ideas, and his going about and living his life. However, there was also something deeply unconvincing about this - though the two kinds of lives were certainly intermingled, there was something like a lack of thoughtfulness on Aristotle’s part in the events of his own life, a superficiality to the curiosity that was written into him. Philosophy seemed to play the role of a distraction for Aristotle, to expend his mental energy upon, and I cannot believe it. I cannot believe Aristotle, or any great philosopher, doesn’t have their philosophical questions under their skin at all times, a massive star whose gravitational pull determines the flow of the philosopher’s life, and which cannot vanish and reappear from moment to moment.

Aristotle’s “obsession” with philosophy does play out in the novel, though mostly through “philosophical” investigations occuring at inappropriate times, or in inappropriate ways. But here it expresses itself as a symptom with no underlying disease - the bipolar disorder feels remotely and unconvincingly attached to this kind of behavior. There was an interesting and well captured sense of alienation, however - a sort of remoteness, only sometimes distressing, from the other people in his life. However, there were also strengths - again, the way Aristotle (as well as Alexander) were humanized in this story in a way that doesn’t take their massive historical presence as the only facts of their human life. Aristotle and Alexander are both lonely people, for different reasons and having vasly different characters, united, perhaps, by their shared plight. There were some real moments of illumination, artful portraits of complex characters.

For all my criticisms, I enjoyed reading this novel, and I appreciated the research that went into portraying some sense of the life and times in which these two lived.

2009 12 26 Art
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A Christmas Carol

The whole world outside is the color of steel. The sky is blanketed in cloud, gray-white pushing down into the mountains, coming to rest upon a spiked row of evergreens. It is not yet five o’clock, and the streetlights and Christmas lights are on already on this, the darkest day of the year. I decided to mark this Solstice by reading Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the magic amidst the gloom seemed well fitting for a day such as this.

I’ve been a fan of A Christmas Carol for a long time now, though I’ve mostly just watched the various film adaptations (Alastair Sim is still the best). I’ve been thinking about it recently, however, in terms of the whole idea of “the Christmas spirit” - the thing Scrooge lacks up until the end, and how oddly “pagan” the whole story seems if one reflects on it. For a moralizing tale such as it is, set on and about Christmas, there are no especially strong christian elements in the story, except perhaps in the far backdrop (the mention of people going to church on Christmas morning, for example). There are, however, ghosts, spirit helpers, and a focus instead on the values of “universal brotherhood” and doing good to others, the gem of great value that is human kindness, the importance of warmth, and of family. A lot of these values seem to fit well with the “cleaner” parts of the Roman Saturnalia, which celebrates a golden age of peace where there were no class distinctions, and which was often celebrated by the noble patricians “serving” their servants.

Perhaps more exceptionally, however, is the way the whole novel itself fits, somewhat, into the theme of the season that seems common to both pagan and Christian celebrations, and that is the idea of the rebirth of light out of darkness. In the novel, Dickens comments repeatedly on the “coldness” of Scrooge, his dislike ofboth physical as well as metaphoric warmth. His focus is exclusively on wealth, the material, the physical, and he is cold, isolated, keeps to the darkness, and keeps people away from him. There is something downright wintery about his character - he is a kind of deep human darkness of selfishness and cynicism.

However, into the darkness and winter of Scrooge’s character, there is a light - a light of hope and of a potential reawakening to the warmth of humanity. We get this, of course, through the Ghost of Marley and the three spirits. Interestingly, in the novel, one point that seems largely left out of most of the adaptations is the actual “spiritual” situation of Marley and the ghosts outside the window. That their chains represent their “sins” - especially greed - is of course obvious. However, their punishment is to go about the world unable to help anyone - their torment is not being able to share in the warmth of human kindness by being a source of good in the world. This is the light that must be rekindled in Scrooge, which of course happens over the course of the night through the help of the three spirits of Christmas. And then we have, in the depth of the winter of human character, a rebirth of light and of hope. The Christmas spirit that Scrooge lacks is related to that light, which is itself some spark of human kindness.

This celebrated Christmas spirit gets bandied about in holiday stories and pop culture far past the point of cliche. Brotherhood this, magic that, and we go about our gift purchasing and our stress. But I think that there is, perhaps, something to it - that we have set aside this time of year for hope, for human potential, for bringing light out of darkness, inspired by the cyclical script of nature’s story. And I think there really is something magical about it, something miraculous - not in the sense of defying nature, but in the sense of some deep metaphysical “revelation” hiding about us in plan sight, so commonplace that we pass by it without notice most of the time. And I think old Dickens caught a bit of that in his story, which is touching when read and considered with fresh eyes.

Merry Solstice!

2009 12 21 Art
Introspection
Literature
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