Author: Abigail

Michel De Montaigne

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‘I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics; that is my physics.’

Free books can be the best books. This morning my train station stop provided “Michel De Montaigne | The Essays: A collection”. I knew his name once, in undergrad, most likely in a creative writing course or possibly a history course.

Now I’ll move beyond knowing nothing but his name!

Naturally I skipped to his section titled “To philosophize is to learn how to die”. My attraction to philosophy is undying, pun intended, so there I was, my melancholy self attracted to another melancholy self.

“Cicero says that philosophizing is nothing other than getting ready to die. That is because study and contemplation draw our souls somewhat outside ourselves, keeping them occupied away from the body, a state which both resembles death and which forms a kind of apprenticeship for it; or perhaps it is because all the wisdom and argument in the world eventually come down to one conclusion; which is to teach us not to be afraid of dying.”

I can’t say I agree with his conclusion, but his initial thoughts are brand new to my mind. Abstract thought is a form of death. Tell that to your professors! I love it. I really love it. There is truth to this thought. I’ve viewed abstract thought for a while as quite problematic. Aren’t there other kinds of truth? A friend of mine, a philosophy professor, tells me that rationality is only one way of knowing the world. I appreciate that thought. It helps right the ship of my own thoughts which tends to lean heavily towards abstract thought, analysis, “charting”, basically the form in which modern western man thinks. Data, graphs, that which can be empirically verified, ultimately that which is simple, reducible, because that’s all our minds can handle.

If/when I read more of Montaigne, I will post it here.

I found a thought on politics, which I’ll record, since that’s taken much of my thought recently: “The most desirable laws are those which are fewest, simplest and most general.” Perhaps why I’ll be voting for Gary Johnson? But that’s a post for another day.

The Presidential Debate

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The first presidential debate is Monday and I am convinced it will not feel presidential. The primary reason for this is that one half of the debate is, as Colin Powell says, “a national disgrace and an international pariah.” I think of him as a child – unruly, self-obsessed, definitively lacks knowledge, glories in chaos and problem-causing, can not construct sentences well, appears to still be learning English, feels no need to tell the truth (or publicize his tax returns), and does not appear to value thought itself. He needs a mommy and daddy. Children should stay home and not enter politics.

But on the topic of debate, it is stunning to notice the time difference. In 1858, the opening speaker in the Lincoln-Douglas debate got 60 minutes. In 2016, the opening speaker will get 2 minutes. TWO. Or, if you will, 120 seconds. (I should go on to say that in the 1858 debate, the second speaker got 90 minutes!) That is a massive cultural difference. What exactly can you fit in two minutes? Nothing of great complexity. Our current system and culture reinforce the kind of thinking that the *man-child embodies for the world to see.

Speaking of the man-child, it’s hard to imagine him debating in a civil manner. The article I read – which this post is largely based on – says the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention agreed “to argue without asperity, and to endeavor to convince the judgment without hurting the feelings of each other.” Hurting each other’s feelings? Asperity? (I had to look that one up: harshness of tone or manner.) From watching political debate on TV, I thought that was the goal. They do what I wouldn’t let 10-year olds do, i.e. interrupt each other, attack personally, and largely ruin the original intent of the event.

But perhaps debate isn’t worth much? Being a good debater, does not make you a good president, and the reverse. But the author of this article views debate with the highest possible regard: “Debating, like voting, is a way for people to disagree without hitting one another or going to war: it’s the key to every institution that makes civic life possible, from courts to legislatures. Without debate, there can be no self-government.“

This article said many other good things. You should read it. But it goes on too long and doesn’t answer its main question: how should candidates—and voters—argue about politics? I was dearly looking forward to an answer to that question. Perhaps I’ll learn on Monday? I can only hope.

*The Republican candidate is so repugnant to me that I prefer to leave his name unwritten. Henceforth, he will be the man-child.

Puritans and Prigs

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I can take no credit for the catchiness of that title. It’s the name of a chapter in “The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought“. It’s written by  Marilynne Robinson published in 1998, and I enjoyed it immensely, at least this chapter (as that’s all I’ve read). This is no post on the things I’ve learned but instead a list of words this author employed that I had to look up. She has quite a vocabulary! (Although I can’t say I’m always a fan of the at least semi-academic style of writing she uses. Any writing that feels academic feels that way because it’s poorly written. And I promise I don’t have strong opinions.)

  1. hypertrophy – 1) abnormal enlargement of a part or organ; excessive growth. 2) excessive growth or accumulation of any kind.
  2. ersatz – (of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else; not real or genuine.
  3. inveigle – persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery.
  4. palmy – 1) (especially of a previous period of time) flourishing or successful. 2) covered with palms.
  5. lapidary – (of language) engraved on or suitable for engraving on stone and therefore elegant and concise.
  6. solipsism – the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
  7. steppe – a large area of flat unforested grassland in southeastern Europe or Siberia.
  8. anomie – lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.
  9. frisson – a sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear; a thrill.

I can’t imagine how long this list would be if I actually read her whole book, as opposed to one chapter. I hope to read more about her/by her – she felt delightfully curmudgeonly.

The Unexamined Life

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If you Google “blog” the first result (other than ads and Wordress) is “Seth’s Blog”. Impressive. The most successful blog in the world currently. Who is “Seth”? I looked around. It was hard to tell. I went to one of his other sites and it read “author, marketer, speaker, etc” – he speaks on “everything” – but in reading all this I realized one thing: he is a philosopher. A modern-day philosopher. We don’t have much bearing in modern society, in the sense of, we don’t really know why we’re alive or what to do with our time. I got this idea more clearly as I walked San Francisco this week, thousands of tourists brushing me by. What in the world do you do with your time? If society has already removed enough illnesses that you’re going to get past age two, and then well past age ten, and it has also created such a peaceful world that the immediate pressure of war does not give you an identity and a cause, and the urgency of finding food and protection is gone since we have done such a damn good job at, well, everything (compared to previous civilizations), then we are left with one big glaring and simultaneously unbelievable question: why am I alive? Surely it’s the question we should have always been asking, but if you’re busy just staying alive with no time to think, this is inevitable. Would Socrates be proud of us, the author of the phrase “the unexamined life is not worth living”?

Seth, in his own modern way, answers this. I say “modern” to point out the fact that he doesn’t really answer this. Instead, he addresses tactics, you know, he talks about living day to day, makes 10,000 assumptions, and doesn’t go into such messy territory as, uhm, religion. I suppose now that God is dead, and you can meet just about every need however you want, and all you really have to do is make enough money to stay alive the requisite amount of time, a transcendent emptiness descends.

I should clarify that I speak out of the Christian worldview. I have been doused in the idea that this world is not all there is, and I have been secondarily doused in the idea that most people think this world is all there is. The gap between physicalists and dualists/spiritualists is large. I don’t feel a pressure to make this world perfect. In fact, I operate under the premise that it can not be. It is the afterlife that I have sure belief in. Which makes absolutely no sense from a perspective. The “afterlife” is the thing for which I have the least proof (none to be exact) and yet I am banking on it more than anything. And second, the faith that teaches me this thought (Christianity) at one time had no knowledge of this thought. Weird, isn’t it? The Jewish worldview (from which sprang the Christian worldview) had no believe in life after death. Then along came Jesus, Paul, the pharisees, and I believe Greek thinking, and that changed.

So enough of that history lesson (mostly because my knowledge has now been depleted, not because it is no longer interesting or relevant). We are, as they say, technologically rich but spiritually poor. We do what we do very well, but no one really knows if it’s worth doing. That’s certainly getting the cart before the horse. Albert Camus once said the primary question of philosophy is whether to commit suicide. While I feel at this point the need to apologize for introducing such darkness into these thoughts, I am also absolutely compelled to say: he’s right.

Kids have to think life is about looking better (better clothes, better looking boyfriends, better iPhones, etc), feeling better (happiness, great sex, validation), and pleasure in general. This is so good (up to a point), and from my Christian worldview, so unbelievably empty. I guess I too can go running around looking for more Pokemans. But this “smallness of your world” which is created by thinking that “the value of my life is determined by whatever I want it to be determined by” has got to raise its ugly face over time. I can’t be the only one to see it. In my own life, when I pleasure-seek too much, the pleasure turns on itself, the whole thing becomes counterproductive and sick, and I go “oh, yeah, I’ve done this before, I know exactly what’s going on, there actually is more to the world than what meets the eye”, and I am comforted. (It’s one of my favorite truths about the universe which can be summed up in one of my favorite metaphors: donuts. While two donuts is better than one, and three is likely better than two, four will not better than three, and five will be worse than zero. Could depend on your usual intake of donuts…)

Donut philosophy aside, I am sad for those with no richness in their life, and there will be no richness if you truly, deeply believe that all value in your life sources itself directly in you and probably also in your friends and society. Has not humanity failed itself enough to prove what a dead end this is? A very genuine friend of mine, a coworker, told me once – in the midst of his sincerity and somewhat Eeoyre-looking facial expression – that most people were depressed, most of the time. I’ve undergone enough pain in recent years to believe this, but always there was something very real, larger, and more valuable than I at play: a transcendent truth. When you remove the transcendent, what do you have? It only looks like emptiness to me.

San Francisco

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I walked the city tonight. About 3 miles of it. Sun setting, fog spreading, tourists and children and accents of all types chaotically pleasure-seeking, as was I. Other than New York City, this is the most densely populated large city in the U.S., and tourists only deepen that density.

What’s odd about San Francisco is it is home to both nature and technology. Steve Jobs has loudly proclaimed that no tech company can start outside Silicon Valley, or some such bold and likely untrue claim. And I’m here for the tech – attended a Computer Science workshop today. Nerdville. Yesterday I attended an Advanced JavaScript Fundamentals all-day workshop at The Microsoft Reactor. A cool place, more nerds, tech, code, all things artificial and severely human. Code and its power are a direct product of our hands. It is almost a measure of our minds. But back to nature. You could say nature is everywhere, and I couldn’t disagree, but when I say San Francisco is a home to nature I mean it is a home to some of the most stunning views on earth. San Francisco is a collision of mountains and ocean, bays, inlets, and brazenly large and vivid flora.

It’s people are no less brazen and vivid. I’m from Chicago so I can compare: I don’t remember seeing this many, uhm, shall we say “characters”? Sadly, I also don’t remember seeing this many homeless.

The hotels are opulent and loud, the fog makes you believe you’re in another world, a city in the clouds, but the broken-souled teens on the street, the drugs and public masturbation ruin ideas of perfection and purity. If you look in the right places – like the second-story corner Italian restaurant resting above a steeply sloping-away hill, filled with wine glasses and beautiful people, the pacific sun casting an evening hue through the glass-enclosed room – it’s magic. Maybe the world, or at least this corner of the world, is perfect.

My Uber driver tonight played upbeat, relaxing new-age music during the climb up Jones street – a street so steep that it’s actually a bit scary. Last night my Uber driver took the same street but played sexually explicit music. I rolled down my window to try to drown out the words I didn’t want to hear. He flew through the city. I kind of wonder what his ticket history looks like.

And at the sushi restaurant I ate at, a beautiful young Asian waiter paid me more attention than what was needed. His body language spoke mild intoxication – I imagine he couldn’t tell my age – and his last few sentences didn’t make sense. As I was leaving he wanted to know where I was from. Chicago. It appears I can at least I can attract someone. Actually, the entire staff paid me lots of attention – maybe they don’t get a lot customers?

Technology and nature. Hippies and businessmen. Homeless and the stratospherically rich. I have to say it feels kind of, well, lost. But also free. I know this culture bucks restraint, but so often what ends up replacing too much restraint is too much freedom, the next-door neighbor to emptiness. I don’t see a coherent culture, or really a place of hope. I do however see grandeur to the heights, both technologically and in the foggy beauty of the bays, inlets, bridges, mountains, and ever-expanding ocean.

 

3 Men

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It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
– Arnold Toynbee

If that is the case, then I request of the universe: three men.

Maybe now I’ll get one?

I recognize that is not the significance of this quote, but how could I resist?

When A Receipt Defines Your Life

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Mascara. Bacon. A single rose.

That’s what my last receipt read. Mascara, ‘cause I’m a woman. It’s that simple. Bacon, ‘cause I like to have a good time. Eating is not just about nutrition. It’s about entertainment. And a single red rose. There’s no one to give roses to me, so I give them to myself. Every weekend. It’s one way I fight off the depression. Every weekend, when I buy groceries, I buy flowers or a single rose. It goes on my dining room table and makes me feel better. A wee bit. It’s totally worth it.

There’s my receipt. Accidentally painting a vignette of my existence. Sometimes you’d be surprised what you learn about yourself while doing your finances.

That vignette totaled $16.97.

Pain and Friends

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I got this quote from an older gentleman, and at one level, it seems like a cheap quote. But the beating heart of it is so good.

“A trouble shared is but half a care, a joy shared is a joy doubled.”

As I’ve navigated pain, this gentlemen, and his wife (both in pain), have loved me. So his words and ideas mean a lot! Even the cheap quotes, soaked in truth.