tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70916321864491304952024-03-12T22:41:01.418-06:00born slowlywhat ships are forDayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-5545515290601744292012-07-02T20:55:00.001-06:002012-07-02T20:55:24.613-06:00The trouble with risk-averseness as biasis that your last fifty thousand dollars are much, much more valuable than the next. In fact, your second fifteen thousand dollars is a lot less valuable than your first fifteen thousand dollars.<br />
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Seems like this would be the obvious way it evolved. . . and also, I think it's pretty reasonable a lot of the time now. Hmn.Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-77553471430201330142012-06-30T12:34:00.000-06:002012-06-30T12:38:00.111-06:00how we decideThis post contains graphic violence.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0618620117" target="_blank">This was a pretty good book</a>, though as always--especially with pop science books--it's important to read critically. The basic idea is, you have an intuitive brain, which calculates much faster and more thoroughly than your rational brain. You also have your rational brain, which you can understand, but which can't handle much info at once even at it's best. There are certain ways in which each will reliably error, and in general they work correctively on each other. It was satisfying to see that the current science lines up with my personal theorizing, and to see so much backup for the difficult premise I've been increasingly focused on--emotions are really imperative for even basic functionality. <span style="background-color: white;">I suspect that I'm going to be addicted to cognitive bias books for awhile yet--much of the material overlaps, but everyone presents it in a different way, and somehow the project of refining my own views on it remains fascinating. </span><br />
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One of the most riveting passages in How We Decide is in the chapter, "the moral mind," where Lehrer discusses the development of (intuitive) moral instincts. A scientist named Harry Harlow did a series of horrifying/fascinating experiments in the early 50s on bonding in monkeys. His original intent was to breed them, which had never been done successfully. To avoid disease, he kept the first generation of young in complete social isolation and cared only for their physical health--which remained good. But, as Lehrer writes,<br />
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<i>"the physical health of these young monkeys hid a devastating sickness: they had been wrecked by loneliness. . . they proved incapable of even the most basic social interactions. They would maniacally rock back and forth in their metal cages, sucking on their thumbs until they bled. When they encountered other monkeys, they would shriek in fear, run to the corners of their cages, and stare at the floor. If they felt threatened, they would lash out in vicious acts of violence. Sometimes these violent tendencies were turned inward. One monkey ripped out its fur in bloody clumps. Another gnawed off his own hand. Because of their early deprivation, these babies had to be isolated for the rest of their lives. . .</i><br />
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<i>The scientists had lined their cages with cloth diapers so that the monkeys didn't have to sleep on the cold concrete floor. The motherless babies quickly became obsessed with these cloth rags. They would wrap themselves in the fabric and cling to the diapers if anyone approached the cages. The soft fabric was their sole comfort. . . </i><br />
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<i>(Harlow) decided to raise the next generation of baby monkeys with two different pretend mothers. One was a wire mother, formed out of wire mesh, while the other was a mother made out of soft terry cloth. . . instead of hand-feeding some of the babies, he put their milk bottles in the hands of the wire mothers. His question was simple: what was more important, food or affection?</i><br />
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<i>In the end, it wasn't even close. No matter which mother held the milk, the babies always preferred the cloth mothers. The monkeys would run over to the wire mothers and quickly sate their hunger before immediately returning to the comforting folds of cloth. By the age of six months, the babies were spending more than eighteen hours a day with their soft parent. They were with the wire mothers only long enough to eat.</i><br />
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<i>The moral of Harlow's experiment is that primate babies are born with an intense need for attachment. They cuddled with the cloth mothers because they wanted to experience the warmth and tenderness of a real mother. Even more than food, these baby monkeys craved the feeling of affection. 'It's as if the animals are programmed to seek out love,' Harlow wrote. </i><br />
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<i>When this need for love wasn't met, the babies suffered from a tragic list of side effects. The brain was permanently damaged so that the monkeys with wire mothers didn't know how to deal with others, sympathize with strangers, or behave in a socially acceptable manner. Even the most basic moral decisions were impossible. As Harlow would later write, "If monkeys have taught us anything, it's that you've got to learn how to love before you learn how to live."</i><br />
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<i>Harlow would later test the limits of animal experimentation, remorselessly probing the devastating effects of social isolation. His cruelest experiment was putting baby monkeys in individual cages with nothing--not even a wire mother--for months at a time. The outcome was unspeakably sad. The isolated babies were like primate psychopaths, completely numb to all expressions of emotion. They started fights without provocation and they didn't stop fighting until one of the monkeys had been seriously injured. They were even vicious to their own children. One psychopathic monkey bit off the fingers of her child. Another killed her crying baby by crushing its head in her mouth. Most psychopathic mothers, however, just perpetuated the devastating cycle of cruelty. When their babies tried to cuddle, they would push them away. The confused infants would try again and again, but to no avail. Their mothers felt nothing." </i><br />
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I can understand why I haven't run into a detailed description of this study before. The information can easily be twisted/used for damaging mother blaming and victim shaming--the idea being that victims of abuse and neglect are permanently damaged, period. It thus deserves particularly respectful handling. <span style="background-color: white;">I also think that Lehrer is clearly over-reaching when he assigns a lack of emotion to the "psychopathic" monkeys, perhaps due to my own experience--it isn't that I don't want to connect with people, but I've spend most of my life not knowing how.</span><br />
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This was a really hopeful thing for me to read, simply because it's so validating. For as long as I can remember, I've felt that I was a bottomless pit of need. For my first 22 years, I believed that everyone had this--and that everyone else was simply better at handling it, or perhaps was better than me in general. <span style="background-color: white;">It isn't gone, but I have learned to calm it. And as I try to carry it--to carry it gracefully, which is hard, and still be a good friend, sister, roommate, student, and aunt--it helps to know that this is a completely normal hunger, and that not everyone was raised in empty cages.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-73163213511931695992012-06-22T14:18:00.001-06:002012-06-22T14:18:23.916-06:00getting things doneAwhile back I posted <a href="http://dayharper.blogspot.com/2012/04/plans-for-summer-some-combination-of.html" target="_blank">an extremely ambitious "stuff to do this summer" list</a>, which (as I realized before summer had really even started) would need to be prioritized. I then proceeded to spend A LOT of time wallowing. For a couple of weeks I barely did anything except be depressed. Since then, though, even though <span style="background-color: white;">I haven't been studying <i>enough</i> Greek, or writing <i>enough</i>, or getting <i>enough</i> done on the house, my life has been more or less functional. Since it feels good to conquer the crushing burden of being responsible for all of one's own time, I thought I would share the tool that most helps me: a weekly checklist. Or perhaps more accurately, a "weekly checklist."</span><div>
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Here's how it works. One day, when I'm wallowing in bed or perhaps killing zombies at some ungodly rate, I spring from my lethargy and try to make a realistic-ish accounting of what I'd most like to and be able to accomplish in the next week. The one I'm using right now (started yesterday) looks like this:</div>
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On five occasions, do each of these:</div>
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Do Tai-Chi </div>
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Meditate (10-30 minutes)</div>
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Floss</div>
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Journal </div>
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Get 5 fruit and veg in a day</div>
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Maintain friendships and/or practice kindness</div>
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On three occasions, do each of these:</div>
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Study ancient Greek (30-90 minutes)</div>
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Draw (30 minutes)</div>
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Study music (30 + minutes)</div>
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Study for GRE (30 + minutes)</div>
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Blog</div>
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Do other writing</div>
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Get other exercise</div>
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Work on house (60 + minutes)</div>
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Read to prepare for school</div>
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They're all listed out in a notebook. I put a star after each thing as I do it. If you'll notice, I have (5x6) + (3x9) goals, which means 57 total. I'm shooting for ten stars a day and a day off. The list doesn't include other basic things which better'd damn well get done regardless, like shopping, cooking, cleaning, watering the garden, etc. They are the things which I tend not to get done, or which, being done, make it so that other things naturally happen. <span style="background-color: white;">Here's the best thing: I don't usually make it through a whole week with a list, but it still mostly works. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Anyway, that's my secret bullet. Until I get bored and invent a new one, anyway.</span></div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-40679542976318177692012-06-21T15:52:00.002-06:002012-06-21T15:52:44.878-06:00creative DNAis one of the ideas from <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/254799.The_Creative_Habit" target="_blank">The Creative Habit</a> which I find particularly helpful. <br />
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The gist of it is something like this: insofar as you are a unique person, there are things which only you can create. There are also things which you will never create. In order to have the habit of creativity, you have to be in touch with your own scope of creative possibility. <span style="background-color: white;">Everything that hurts you, everything that drives you, everything you hunger for, everything you love--all of it is part of your creative DNA. Your work will inevitably be a reflection of these parts of you. If you tend to choreograph ballets with a strong dramatic storyline and well developed characters, it's usually best to push yourself out of that mold a little at a time--or to work within it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I love the way this helps me see my own repetitions as a way forward, rather than something that holds me back. Tharp writes about the way we know an artist by their repetitions--the common elements that carry through their different endeavors. Those repetitions are a source of power, style, and continuity. If there is something you're stuck on, it's probably deeply interconnected with with what you need to express. It may be something you need to work around for now, but someday, it may be the source of your best work.</span>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-14611769039989498672012-06-18T13:11:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:20:04.073-06:00sort of just hair, sort of not just hair. . .This morning, I found myself re-watching<a href="http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/06/18/advertising-and-gender-performance/"> this documentary</a> about gender in advertising. I've been having a lot of thoughts about my gender identity over the past few months, many of which have been brought on by my hair. Shaving my head has been very revealing.<br />
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Part of the revelation has been in other people's reactions. I'm glad my first experience introducing it to the world was on campus; people were incredibly kind and supportive about it, and after I'd shaved it I realized that several other people had done the same thing for the same reason. On the other hand, my mother basically told me it was ugly (and that I looked just like my brother) the minute she saw it, and asks me when I'm planning to grow it out at every chance. My first visit with the majority of my nieflings was entirely devoted to their being weirded out and upset by it. People in my neighborhood flinch and look away when I try to smile at them while I'm walking past. It upsets me, but I can hardly blame them; I had the same reaction, before I had a chance to get used to it. In a way, this tells me I'm doing something good for the world, since by giving people exposure I see that they do have a chance to get used to it.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Most of the time, I don't really care for how it looks--but I do love how it forces me to confront things I don't like about myself. I love knowing that even when I look especially fat and manly, I can just get on with my life--knowing how much, ultimately, appearance doesn't have to matter. </span><span style="background-color: white;">It isn't just the fact of not having any distraction from my fat body, though. When I first looked in the mirror after shaving it, I thought I looked like an ugly, half man/half woman, freak--the face of my brother when he was a teenager over a </span><span style="background-color: white;">disturbingly</span><span style="background-color: white;"> feminine body. This thought wouldn't have had much traction, though, if it weren't for the feeling that it was true deeper than the surface level. After all, my hair grows fast, and if I'd felt my appearance really didn't suit me, I could have said, "well, now I've shaven my head once. I know what it's like, and it was a worthwhile experiment. Time to grow my hair back out. . . I guess I can just wear a lot of hats between now and then."</span></div>
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Me with super-short hair isn't any more or less me than me with long hair. My face, even framed by short hair, is just as much my face (arguably moreso, since I had it first) as it is my brother's. If I were clearly and comfortably feminine, I would simply reject this appearance. Instead, it speaks to me of things which are dirty and not allowed, but which I want.</div>
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None of those things are male anatomy, but they are about masculinity. They are about power, assertiveness, and aggressiveness being a socially acceptable part of my identity. They are about getting recognition, respect, promotions, and fair pay for hard work. They are about being considered well groomed without excessive, expensive, and time consuming rituals about cosmetics, shaving, and hair care. They are about being able to traverse public spaces without submitting myself to judgments about my sexual attractiveness and availability. They are about being able to dress up and be considered appealing and well presented without using clothing which calls attention specifically to sexual attractiveness. They are about having access and recourse to the appropriate use of physical violence, both in defense and in play. They are about not hiding my intelligence for fear of making others feel insecure. They are about avoiding the manipulative and deceptive social games women sometimes feel compelled to play for the sake of their <a href="http://www.fem2pt0.com/2012/01/03/dakota-fanning-and-the-patriarchal-bargain/">patriarchal</a> <a href="http://gas.sagepub.com/content/2/3/274.abstract">bargain</a>.</div>
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Honestly, sometimes I don't know how anyone can stand being a woman. That doesn't mean I don't love making people feel better, or have days when all I want to do is hang out in my kitchen, wearing a pink dress and baking for someone appreciative. It just means I don't have any days when I'm OK with the completely un-necessary ways being female cuts off my choices. </div>
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And I've wrestled with this--alongside struggling to accept my fat body, which is a whole other can of worms--and come to a few conclusions. I think part of the reason I have this struggle is that gender norms are even more deep-down-encoded for me than they are for most people. It's harder for me to say, "well, I can have xyz feminine characteristics and uvw masculine characteristics and there's really no conflict there--people are just people." I was raised with an incredibly gendered religious model of what I ought to be, and it was soon clear that was never going to work. I was <i>never</i> going to be able to be that thing, and many of the characteristics I had which didn't fit were "masculine" characteristics. Without role models, I was particularly vulnerable to the representations in advertising--which were just as gendered, damaging, and impossible to fit, although this time the impossible expectations were more centered around my body.<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-14441928196342259012012-06-18T01:06:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:20:35.373-06:00happy---<div>
<span style="background-color: white;">The other day he called me out of the blue, the bastard, and apologized for not spending enough time with me when I was a kid. Sometimes, I think he is more innocent than I've ever been; he honestly has no clue. Once, he dragged me into the house in a rage, had me drop my pants for a spanking, and shattered a slat of wood against our (fortunately sturdy) piano bench. Then he held it in front of my face, and said, "this is what I want to do to you right now." </span><span style="background-color: white;">As shitty childhoods go, mine was thankfully light on direct brutality, and that moment had an impact. </span></div>
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Most of the time, I try not to think of the fact that <a href="http://difficultjane.blogspot.com/2011/04/raw.html">I have a father</a>. A little of this is because of his progressive dementia, which has been a factor in his behavior since god knows when. <span style="background-color: white;">More of it is because of the way he treated, and didn't treat, his children. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">On some level, I really want to forgive him. I want peace, and to feel gratitude about the things he did give me. There was experience with greenhouses and gardens, which I mostly hated at the time but love now; there were endless nights laying awake and listening to the soothing cadence of his voice, reading adventure stories from Lloyd Alexander and C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Sometimes, we would go out into the mountains and cook dinner over a fire, singing in harmony all the way there and back; I loved the way the cold air made me feel alive, and how it swallowed all the noise and made the world seem silent even when people were talking. My father</span><span style="background-color: white;"> wanted his children to work hard, play hard, and to love books far more than he ever had. I think perhaps he succeeded.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One night when I was fourteen, The World Was Coming To An End. My parents didn't understand, and I couldn't explain it to them, but my father--in a rare moment of understanding--took me to the mall. It wasn't that we could afford to buy anything, but malls had a lot of mystique for me. Malls were at the center of my attempts to observe and imitate normalcy, and they offered hopeful contrast to home--a dark and dilapidated place that came to us with carpets soaked in moldy dog urine and bedroom doors which locked from the outside. On that night, the mall was already closed. I had given up, but my father pulled into the church parking lot and gave me my first illicit driving lesson. No child of his would face the world without learning how to drive a stick.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">There was something about the way he would ask, over and over--did you like that? That story, that dinner, that anything? </span><span style="background-color: white;">Even his finest moments as a parent were colored by his bottomless pit of need. I am not sure if my father has ever really felt loved.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-15899804276783100972012-06-16T18:26:00.000-06:002012-06-18T13:27:27.820-06:00un-consumedFor all of my radical politics, there are few things I find more important and harder to live by than anti-consumerism, and this summer I've repeatedly found myself slipping. This isn't just important for ideological reasons--my life gets terrible when I start defining myself and seeking happiness by spending. Today's post is about physical objects, and what knowledge I've scraped together about how to deal with them. Some of it is what's right for me, but I'm hoping to develop a more widely applicable approach. . .<br />
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1. People are always more important than
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I learned this lesson by living with my oldest sister and her husband when I was about thirteen, and I really have to thank them for it. You wouldn't get yelled at for spilling, loosing, or breaking things. It was understood that you would try your best not to do it again. People--and not just their physical welfare, but their emotional state--were always more important than physical objects in that household, and it was a much happier way to live. </div>
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2. Things belong with the people who will
use them best.</div>
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This is an obvious efficiency maximiser. To best enact your values in the world, your resources (including your physical objects) should go wherever they will best enact your values. Sometimes, that means somebody else gets the treadmill you use once a week, because they'd use it every day. Sometimes it doesn't.</div>
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3. Have respect for embodied energy: things are someones' life.</div>
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All person-made objects represent people. The makers aren't going to get that time and effort back; it's been released into the world in the form of your object. While these embodiments are <i>less</i> important than living-breathing-people-in-front-of-you, they're still important and worthy of respect. Because of this, I try to primarily own objects which are sturdy, well crafted, and made by well compensated workers--and to make things last "a boringly long time."*</div>
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4. Accept that you need to own objects, and that they will require time and care from you.</div>
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<a href="http://dayharper.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-i-need.html">Whatever your needs are</a>, you will not be able to meet them without some physical objects. Almost certainly, you will need to own some physical objects. Like pets (but less so), possessions require attention and upkeep. Like certain combinations of pets, possessions require upkeep both individually and as collections. This is a bitter taste. Get used to it. </div>
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One of this biggest gaps remaining in my personal algorithm for dealing with physical objects is the question of how much time and care they should receive. Really good tools have improved my life dramatically. At the same time, I struggle not to be owned by my things. </div>
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5. Cultivate a sense of security. </div>
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I'm not 100% certain this is true, but for the time being I've found it helpful to postulate that being well supplied in general will carry you through famines, rather than making you soft. Feeling insecure is distracting and stressful, and it makes you less good at life.</div>
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Economic security is an impossibly distant wish for many--possibly most--people. Still, I find it helpful to know what I'm shooting for. Supposing I had a steady income adequate to sustainably meet my needs, I would try to cultivate a sense of security regarding objects by (a) being very aware of what my needs were, (b) owning a sufficient kit of durable, high quality stuff to meet my needs, and (c) keeping a cash reserve specifically budgeted for replacing said objects when they were lost, damaged, and broken. I would use my bountiful circumstances to develop skills which would help me do without, if necessary. I would also try to plan well for retirement, life changes,** and emergencies, and follow the financial habits which correlate with happiness. I shall try to post and/or link to those at some point soon. <br />
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Some people attempt to achieve greater economic security by storing objects, rather than cash they don't have. This makes a lot of sense--in our present economy, you can find absurdly inexpensive consumer goods on a random basis. By buying everything at its lowest price point and storing it for future use, you can have access to a lot of objects for very little cash. You must also budget time and energy to organize, store, and maintain these objects when they aren't in use--and spare time, storage space, and energy are also frequently as short supply, when you're poor. For some people, this strategy works very well, but it requires a lot of skill, planning, and investment of self into caring for things to work well. <br />
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A sense of security can fight the fear of being without, as well as the excessive attachment to objects that comes with fear.</div>
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6. Fight hard against hedonic adaptation, aka "necessity creep."</div>
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I think everyone is vaguely aware of this problem. Actually fighting it is another matter; this is the best I've come up with. Figure out what your needs are. Write them down. If you discover them changing over time, take some time to decide whether or not they're changing in a healthy way. When deciding whether to acquire something, think hard about how it will relate to your actual needs. If you frequently find yourself justifying purchases which you later find excessive, maybe sit down for a minute and write about how the item you plan to acquire will function in your life, and whether it really serves your needs as much as money in the bank or a donation to your favorite charity would.</div>
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I have problems with this because for the first 24 years of my life, I was so intent on avoiding hedonic adaptation that I failed to recognize my real needs, let alone fight to meet them. Arriving at a healthy willingness to recognize what is really necessary for me to flourish took more than a year of therapy. This habit turns the fight against necessity creep into a tightrope, on which I feel I'm constantly overbalancing one way or another.</div>
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7. Seek the elegance of just what is needed--seek less and better. </div>
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For me, ultimate luxury would involve not owning anything that I wouldn't be using within the year. The cost of owning and maintaining objects is high for me, because I get stuck on decisions that don't seem terribly hard for other people, because my health problems make it difficult for me to physically maintain things, and because I don't have the habits and/or mindsets of a skilled housekeeper. I find a lot of elegance in simplicity. When I dream of a perfect home, I see spaces which have everything in them which is needed, and absolutely nothing more. </div>
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Starting in the real world and trying to accomplish this, I try to focus on the ratio between stuff and usage. The goal is to get the greatest amount of use out of the smallest amount of stuff, without this project interfering with the rest of my life. Owning beautiful things helps optimize your stuff/use ratio. Taking pleasure in an object is a kind
of use; therefore, maximizing use means, if possible, owning only objects
which especially bring you pleasure.</div>
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8. Don't get sucked in.</div>
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Minimize your exposure to advertisements and window shopping; shop only for items that you have noticed a need for in your day-to-day experience. Do not go to places of commerce for pleasure or comfort. </div>
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Take care of your feelings. Try to notice and address what you feel. Focus your life on the things that will actually make you happy--relationships, experiences, satisfying and hopeful work, and connection to something larger than yourself. Seek pleasure and comfort in these things.</div>
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*where is that line from? such a good line. . .</div>
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** this might be obvious to everyone else, but the materially expedient way to meet your needs will change with your circumstances. Therefore, whenever you move to a new place, you're likely to need a certain amount of different stuff. . . etc.</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-50866524159746836792012-06-15T10:56:00.000-06:002012-06-18T13:28:40.037-06:00investigative, collaborative, creativeLast year, I took <a href="http://jist.emcpublishingllc.com/o-net-career-values-inventory-third-edition-1754.html">these tests</a> from the career center--a "career values inventory" and a "career interests inventory." One of them showed me that I'd be willing to work in a coal mine, as long as I was doing work that used my skills, with people I loved, and thought I was helping someone. The other showed me that I have an outstanding preference for work which is investigative and creative.<br />
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Knowing this is quite helpful. With the kind of undergrad degree I'm getting, the obvious thing would be to go straight for an advanced degree at the swankiest school that will pay my way. It is less obvious that I'd be happy living an intensely competitive and academic life. I've started trying to cultivate the skills to do the work that <i>will</i> make me happy. Since I'm pretty good at investigating things, that means becoming more creative and more collaborative. </div>
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I have a long way to go on both of these fronts. To become better at being collaborative, I've been trying to practice kindness. . . and particularly, to practice being open to the people around me. I know people are responsive to this sort of thing; they want to spend time with someone who isn't going to shut them down, who is pre-disposed to be enthusiastic about their good qualities and accepting of them as an over-all package. It is so hard. I try to smile when I see people, but somehow it doesn't get to my eyes. </div>
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I have a friend, L, who is exceptional at this. People flock to her; you mention her name and people will immediately and enthusiastically mention that she is AWESOME. They speak the truth; being around her just makes you feel good. She threw a birthday party around the beginning of the year, the preparations for which involved baking several batches of cookies in our dorm kitchen. It was like being transported to a farmhouse kitchen in some alternate reality, with the infinitely loving cookie-baking family that you never had. . . except that she was also nineteen and brilliant and adorable and not your sister. Needless to say, it was a popular attraction even before the cookies started to emerge. </div>
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Perhaps part of the problem is that I haven't worked out the ways in which I do and don't want to be judgmental. There's boundaries to be sorted out here. A lot of people do things that I find grossly unacceptable; what's the best way for me to deal with that fact? </div>
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The creativity thing is also hard. The Creative Habit has been very helpful, though I disagree with some of her premises. Yesterday, along with my usual journaling (and now also blogging) and "professional" writing time, I made myself draw for half an hour. It was incredibly difficult, even at the library with piles of drawing books before me, but I'm glad I did it. Last night, when I was settled in with one of my "girl with a sword" books, I ended up putting it down and starting to write my own. . . because it was just more fun. Hopefully, this is a quality that will slowly grow. It's ironic that I'd shut down this part of myself, thinking it self-indulgent, being hyper-critical of my own work, on the assumption that I would never be able to create anything of real value. I will probably never draw or paint or fiction-write anything spectacular, but being in the habit of making things--of overcoming the blank page with something interesting and new--can only better my work, whatever that work turns out to be.</div>
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<br /></div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-84081531089215896012012-06-14T14:39:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:23:05.887-06:00six pagesI tried to write the book I was planning to write this summer, and it became immediately clear it wasn't going to happen. I thought I was well enough, stable enough, having a sufficiently calm and neutral attitude towards the church.<br />
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Instead I'm writing what I can write--what I need to write. It's the sort of obscenely self-indulgent autobiography I'd been hoping to avoid. I am writing about recovery; about what happened--about getting help--about getting better. Recovery, the slow and painful crawl.<br />
<br />
I have six pages, and am picking up speed. It is not good. If anything good (writing wise) comes out of this, it will be after a serious refining fire. It's very strange--I find myself writing in this weirdly detached voice I recognize from other biographies of child abuse--a hole in the world, a child called it. This is what happened, we say. This is just the best I can remember it, the simplest accuracy I can muster. Except how the hell am I supposed to remember? I was young, and had nothing else with which to compare my life.<br />
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Maybe I will be better when this is done.<br />
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Though, to spoil that deliciously melodramatic note, I actually feel better now. Actively dealing with it is definitely better than not.<br />
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<br />Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-85183953400008332602012-06-13T20:51:00.000-06:002012-06-18T13:24:37.755-06:00I am lonely.This should not come as a surprise. <br />
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Here are the primary things I want (lack and desire--I'm not sure how much of each) from friends:<br />
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1. They understand most of what I am interested in thinking about without long additional explanations, because they know me well and/or have put thought into similar things.<br />
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2. They are interested in hearing much of what I have to say. </div>
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3. They are just the right sort of judgemental. I can trust that they will (for the most part) judge me
only by some criteria that I understand and care about, that are
related to my own core values even if I don't agree with them
completely--and I know that they have some handle on what my values and
aspirations are.</div>
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4. We treat each other well.</div>
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Leaving aside how much we care about each other and how well we treat each other, very few of my Utah friends fall into the first category. Many of my closest friends at school have the first two, but not the third. . . the right sort of judgemental is very difficult to pull off. I would give a lot to have half a dozen reasonably bright people around me for the rest of my life who are in all four categories. I think finding people like this--and being a good friend to them--is one of the most important skills I could learn. I wish I had better ideas on how to learn it.</div>
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This criteria set is not perfect; my friendship with J, for example, often runs better because she's not in category 1 for me--and she's willing to listen to my long additional explanations till the end of time, which does much to keep me sane. Also, she thinks differently than I, and has had many very different experiences, which just. . . helps. Also, it works because she's awesome. I should call her. Except my phone isn't working. Hmn.</div>
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I'm lonely, at which I should not be surprised. It helps to acknowledge this; like many things, having acknowledged it, I can stop furiously trying to ignore it.</div>
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I've know this all along, but living St. John's style--surrounded by interesting people, several of whom are one's friends, all of whom are brought together by a common project--is really the only way to go. This doesn't bring me any closer to knowing how to enact this outside of St. John's. <br />
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At the same time, I know that <a href="http://difficultjane.blogspot.com/2009/09/notes-on-eminent-women.html">people need times of isolation</a>. Knowing that however much I reach out to people is unlikely to be satisfying, I can work on reaching out while also trying to make this a useful time of isolation for me.</div>
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<br /></div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-56576712231195237952012-05-25T13:34:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:27:07.176-06:00Things I've done since getting home (less than 72 hours ago)<br />
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-Hiked Stewart Falls, which I'm sort of inordinately proud of; my body is not particularly up for it. It took a good four hours, which included many long breaks--one laying down in the trail--but was absolutely glorious. I've rarely been on a more gorgeous hike; Provo canyon in the spring is where it's at. Excellent company and food also helped. <br />
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-Checked out an overflowing basket of library books, finished reading two and started two others<br />
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-Listened to Bach's Magnificat, watched the musical episode of Buffy with a friend, and played chess over skype with another friend<br />
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-Purchased thrifty, mostly healthy groceries from locally owned stores<br />
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-Unpacked and cleaned, made budgets and to-do lists, tracked all of my spending, and got up to date with all necessary banking, sorted through accumulated mail, and reconciled with my house manager and labor-bartering housemate<br />
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-Checked Barnes&Nobles for a book I may buy but wanted to have a look at first<br />
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-Briefly visited my wonderful Provo-living sister and nieflings, arranged to go out for gelato with them tomorrow<br />
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-Took Baby Girl (the beloved '92 metro who served me well since I was 19) to a mechanic, decided it's time for her to go<br />
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-Got in touch with the roofing contractor (AGAIN), arranged a date and time to go over the contract, arranged a date for work to start: rain gutters, rain barrels, an attic fan, and flashing and leak repairs are now on their way. :)<br />
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-Decided what to get my friend Dan for a wedding present<br />
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-Purchased a high quality secondhand bike for 250$ less than I had budgeted, after having it customized: road bike frame, cruiser set up, one speed. If there's a bike that will get me around the flat parts of town and be easy for me to fix and maintain for myself, this is definitely it. Also found a volunteer bike mechanic whose interested in helping out the Provo Bicycle Committee.<br />
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-WD-40ed a rusted masterlock back into functionality so I can use it as a bike lock<br />
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-Went for a long walk at sunset<br />
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-Researched paint disposal/recycling, what to do about the damaged lead paint in my stairwell, and purchased paint.<br />
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-Purchased a couple of tools {this is what happens when you always loan out your painting stuff. :( } and set a minion to work giving my basement a fresh coat--finally sealing in the lead paint!<br />
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-Discovered another possible foundation repair needed :(<br />
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-Wrote the first two pages of the first draft of the book<br />
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-Started my garden for this year. I bought (solely based on what looked good and was cheap at my local nursery) and carried home on foot:<br />
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one sweet pepper<br />
one hot pepper<br />
one Juliet tomato<br />
six striped german tomatoes<br />
six I don't remember which variety tomatoes--maybe brandywine?<br />
one eggplant<br />
one butternut squash<br />
one yellow summer squash<br />
one zuchini<br />
two parsley plants<br />
one thyme plant<br />
one large canister of organic fertilizer<br />
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I also planted all the squashes, peppers, and herbs (leaving only the nightshades, for which I may need to build a new planter), weeded sections of the garden, picked up the trash that accumulates from people walking by from the strip mall, got a minion to mow the lawn, and pruned the plum tree I planted last year. The branches for three of its five varieties seem to be thriving. :) Also, Rupert--the rhubarb my sister got me as a housewarming present, which I thought dead--appears to be just barely hanging on, so I weeded, watered, fertilized, cleared away dead tissue, and am hoping for the best.<br />
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I feel productive. :)Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-69336616565172836232012-05-24T01:48:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:26:29.876-06:00Hunger GamesI've posted {the closest thing to a review of Hunger Games that I'm likely to write} as a comment on this pretty interesting Hunger Games review:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://znovels.blogspot.com/2012/05/hunger-games-trilogy.html">http://znovels.blogspot.com/2012/05/hunger-games-trilogy.html</a>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-65639981308709878682012-04-29T15:21:00.004-06:002012-06-18T13:28:02.119-06:00Plans for summer: some combination of the following1. Work on house.<br />
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2. Read and re-read some program whatnot, especially the Bible, Aristotle's Physics, and various histories. . . possibly also some Plato and Euripides, and maybe the Anead. We'll see.<br />
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3. Get a bike and see what my first taste of living car-free off campus is like.<br />
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4. Start writing a book about policy and practice in handling sexual and domestic violence within the Mormon church. This is something I've been researching for a long time; I'm hoping to get 75 or 100 pages of rough draft out.<br />
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5. Study Greek like a Mofo. . . a mofo who plans to support his or her family as a classicist, that is.<br />
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6. Draw. Also learn some calligraphy and start playing with homegrown comics.<br />
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7. Fake <a href="http://rilarts.org/">RILA</a>: doing the RILA readings, but also Rome-oriented food, movies, travel books, blogs, etc.<br />
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8. Spend time with Heidegger, and my other Utah peoples.<br />
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9. Love making food in my kitchen.<br />
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10. Keep getting my five fruit & veg and exercising every day.<br />
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11. Spend some serious time hiking, making music, and meditating in the wild.<br />
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12. Do some prep work for next year's social justice corps.<br />
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13. Go on a trip--maybe Seattle, Santa Fe, or the Grand Canyon. Or maybe some combination of the above.<br />
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14. Stay in touch with johnnies, play my piano, start practicing for the GRE, think about future summers, listen to the sophomore music compilation on repeat, read mass market urban fantasy novels about highly armed females, etc.<br />
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15. Keep chewing on these questions:<br />
-What ethical obligations does one have to follow rules an unjust system which one can not opt out of?<br />
-What is the relationship between fantasy, representation, and reality?<br />
-What is the best way to deal with possessions?<br />
-What are the best ways to deal with groups, appearances, and relationships?<br />
-What exactly are we doing at St. John's, and how can I make the most of it?<br />
<br />Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-85268884608170242012-04-22T15:33:00.000-06:002012-06-18T13:30:30.172-06:00new april things<div>
I continue to be amazed by my friends. Here are some: </div>
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G is quiet, brilliant, young, and playful, with many of the mannerisms of a kitten; he wears bright colors well, makes faces, cuts my hair, points out the thing in the reading you should have noticed hours ago, and cultivates a sardonic streak. He says he can't dance, but everywhere he does. Except at dances, I guess.</div>
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J is like a cross between a 40s film star and a punk rock antihero, possibly the coolest and certainly the most literary person I know. She is strong and funny and perfect, mistress of the gourmet picnic and the bon mot. We have sisterhood in our over-aged escape from minimum wage life.</div>
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Y takes contagious delight in the intellectual world and irresistible joy from argumentative play, with a particularly agile and demanding brain. He's unfailingly kind to humans at hand but equally ruthless to theoretical ones, a sympathetic but unruffled shoulder to cry on, and the best lab partner I've ever had. </div>
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They are all gentle, considerate, generous, independent, and reliable. I love them fiercely, and try hard not to breathe or wake up.</div>
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After working hard and re-starting five times, I turned in a rough draft for my freshman essay; it was OK, quite good for a first draft, and for a completed essay, OK. I haven't yet given an oral defense, which will probably happen next week.</div>
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My lab tutor, H, is also amazing. She's supportive of whatever weird experiments Y and I can design, gave me brilliant advice regarding my freshman paper, and has magical Aristotle superpowers. She tells me not to consider any grad school that would care if I've published as an undergrad, but also to go ahead and start practicing for the GRE. She tells me that she often sees people who work outside of classics as intellectually lonely--you work in philosophy and you're specialized, the person across the hall hasn't even read the same foundational works. </div>
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SJC Social Justice Corps is up and running, though I don't expect any large actions till next year. Transportation to DC would be really nice.</div>
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I'm getting a more cohesive philosophy for dealing with physical objects; this may be another blog post soon, I've written some about it. My room is gorgeous (without having bought anything new for it) and my filing is done.</div>
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My three favorite misogynists, presently, are Simone de Beauvoir, Euripides, and Aristotle. </div>
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I have learned, when I hurt, to wait it out. Taking care of yourself is a hard but useful thing to learn.</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-11899845871063240832012-02-06T12:53:00.008-07:002012-06-18T13:32:51.781-06:00mixed thoughtsI sort of miss last semester. It was hard, but since I was ignoring the outside world in order to get my life as a Johnnie up and running, it was also simpler in some respects.<br />
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I want my approach to life--to all these seemingly uncontrollable problems--to be something like this: I seek/cultivate/accept the courage to change the things I can, the patience to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. Except, I have the audacity to understand that there are an awful lot of things I can probably put a dent in, the entitlement to take care of myself like I believe everyone deserves to be taken care of, and a strong suspicion that the way to approach problems I can't change is not patience, but rather, the cultivation of a deep inner calm--a rooted sanctuary where the world can't reach me.<br />
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So I suppose the serenity prayer is well named, but there's something frustratingly evangelical which I associate too strongly with it to be able to accept the thing unmutilated.<br />
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Perhaps a creative place?<br />
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Maybe the problem with serenity is: what I'm looking for isn't a place to hide and be still--it's a base camp, a stable stance for action to arise from.<br />
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I shaved my head, and I'm developing a uniform--making several copies of my favorite dress, in beautiful different fabrics and colors. This should make both dealing with the physical objects in my life and presenting myself to the outside world much simpler.<br />
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I am happier than I have ever been in my life.Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-75283312693399187442012-01-01T11:35:00.013-07:002012-06-18T13:31:00.028-06:00what I need<div>
I can survive without these things, but if I ever live without them, it is in hope of the time that I have them again. . . or, imaginably, in hopes of enabling other people to have their need-lists fulfilled.</div>
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-A good bed<br />
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-Privacy</div>
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-Food which is healthy, food which is delicious, and at least some overlap</div>
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-Writing tools--paper/notebooks, pencils, pen, word processor and computer, working library</div>
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-Sunlight and stars and outside</div>
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-Enough quiet and enough music</div>
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-Beauty, lots and lots of it</div>
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-Friends</div>
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-Somewhere to exercise/move</div>
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-Somewhere to meditate</div>
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-Basic hygiene</div>
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-Play, like recreational cooking, roughhousing, stories, and games</div>
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-A sense of security and stability</div>
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-Work that I love, which is of use to someone--perhaps which is of use to my community?</div>
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-Freedom from stagnation</div>
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-Healthcare and pain management tools, including the freedom to avoid triggers sometimes</div>
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-Emotional release</div>
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-Conversation</div>
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-Clothes that support my functionality, physically, socially, and emotionally</div>
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-A quiet, comfortable place to work</div>
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-A healthy community, of which I am part</div>
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Happy new year. :)</div>
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*edit/addition: Touch.</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-30445858350662547632011-12-28T13:43:00.009-07:002012-06-18T13:33:49.764-06:00decisions to make before home-making<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">
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I told my friends that St. John's was starting to convince me that Utah isn't the place for me, and their response was, "we thought it was strange that you stayed so long." <br />
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<br />Mostly, <a href="http://www.amotherinisrael.com/channel-2-documentary-on-beit-shemesh-school-battle/">this</a> made me sad, because I see so much of the same situation in Utah but in a very scaled down way. The reporting took a very clear viewpoint--a seven/eight year old who is afraid to walk down the street represents a shameful situation in the town; her mother, wearing a pencil skirt with a slit in the back, well, "nobody could say she isn't being modest." Except, Slaya (an orthodox Jewish friend who doesn't veil) would say she isn't--and so would a lot of moderate Mormons, though they probably wouldn't mention it. The frustrating thing for me, here, is that no one in the clip is talking about the real issues. </div>
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<br />By the real issues, I mean: the behavior of individuals impacts the freedom of other individuals to live in the kind of community they want to live in. No one in this news clip is disagreeing with that premise--they disagree only on what the reasonable standard of behavior is to enforce upon individuals. On top of this, the narrator doesn't appeal to any sort of logic to describe why his standard is better than the ultra-orthodox one--it is presented as something that should be obvious to the viewer.<br /></div>
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The real questions--what standards of behavior in a community ought to be accepted, how those standards should be arrived at, and how they should be enforced, need discussing. And you don't get very far into those discussions before you run into other questions, like, "should we just let people group together into like-minded communities?"<br /></div>
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Why did I stay in Utah for so long? (From the news clip: Should we have stayed, and fought? Here I know my school will not be shut down. . .) Community is inevitable and inherently restrictive. Some kinds of diversity bring good things--certainly it makes St. John's more interesting. I would like to think that I'm doing some kind of good for my nieflings who correct strangers who swear in public parks, who are dreadfully concerned with whether the punch in "A Christmas Carol" is alcoholic, who are much of the time in need of attention but showered with it on the day they get baptized. </div>
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And I would like to think that we have something to learn from the fundamentalists; if nothing else, they should remind us that we, too, are enforcing a standard of behavior for the sake of our community, and that this standard ought not go unexamined. Is there anything deeply (fundamentally?) different between the fundamentalists, the moderates, and us (for this I'll say, both liberals and radicals), when it comes to our desire to enforce community behavior standards?</div>
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<br />Is it possible to find a balance wherein we agree that we are all in this together?</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-26167725841622679932011-12-04T10:40:00.003-07:002012-06-18T13:34:29.181-06:00one (Ogden Nash reading) for the nieflings<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwCX-AId4OiHLqmTUwcpL-UqqDEJdjGKgaoQa0ebQlykbnqQMZOdzOQrPzHRoLVhBJZ_2WuR7N9tM1Dm6w-xw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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I didn't manage to get the pictures where I could show them to you, but hopefully you can find them in your own copy at home?</div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzI1ojI6uHT2QEuSWsrJQBwAsQNrtHB4igUsiArNfUNf6GuXn_CK04pIT-bZdMDuEddr_Kmc47Q1tKzbtG20A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-42533615688926129782011-11-17T20:56:00.001-07:002011-11-17T20:57:50.603-07:00and now. . .<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Why is definition 5 of Book V: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Magnitudes are said to be in the same ratio, the first to the second and the third to the fourth, when, if any equimultiples whatever be taken of the first and third, and any equimultiples whatever of the second and fourth, the former equimultiples alike exceed, are alike equal to, or alike fall short of the latter equimultiples respectively taken in corresponding order.”</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">different from definition 20 of Book VII?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Numbers are proportional when the first is the same multiple, or the same part, or the same parts, of the second that the third is of the fourth.”</span></i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">VII.20 deals in number, and V.5 does not. Number creates (or perhaps is) a concise language with which to describe the basic concept of proportionality. As with any translation from one language to another, the new statement will imply more or less than the old one. To take these two definitions as equivalent implies that all magnitudes which can be in the same ratio can be expressed as numbers—or that magnitudes and numbers are equivalent in some way.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">This makes some sense. Any magnitude which we can bisect can be expressed as a multitude of units—as a number—so long as we are free to define our base unit as we choose. However, despite this, numbers, magnitudes, and the mathematical entities that have magnitudes are all different. Numbers, while less complicated than magnitudes to talk about, introduce the problem of incommensurability; it is possible for there to be two magnitudes which are not possible to measure in number using the same unit, no matter how small we make that unit. This problem can't arise if we aren't talking about how to describe the magnitudes in terms of units. More specifically, it can’t arise if we aren’t insisting that more than one magnitude ought to be measured using the same unit.<span> </span>The presence of incommensurability as a problem may be the most important distinction that this “translation” out of the language of magnitudes (the language of all ratios?) and into the language of number has brought. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Some of the apparent simplicity of definition VII.20 comes from its use of the terms “part” and “parts.” A “part” is basically the same whether we’re dealing with magnitudes or numbers. A magnitude or number is “part” of another magnitude or number, the less of the greater, when the smaller measures the greater; this is from V.1, V.2 (which clarifies measure), and VII.3. For one number to be “parts” of another, however, means that the lesser number does not measure the greater number(VII.4).<span> </span>Why aren’t these terms used in V.5?<span> </span>We don’t have a definition of “parts” that applies to magnitude.<span> </span>If we extended the definition of “parts” from numbers onto magnitudes, we could say that any magnitude that was shorter than a second magnitude but did not measure it was “parts” of the second magnitude.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">However, I think this equivalent definition is absent from Book V for a reason.<span> </span>Any group which <i>only</i> includes all numbers which are “the same multiple, or the same part, or the same parts” of some other number<i> can’t </i>include all possible ratios of magnitudes. <span> </span>This is, again, because some magnitudes which are in the same ratio are not commensurable with one another, and thus can’t be expressed at all within the same system (using the same sized base units) of number.<span> </span>Having no definition of “parts” which applies to magnitude highlights this difference, however subtlety.</span></p>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-58941237801960558802011-11-13T10:10:00.005-07:002011-11-13T10:22:35.143-07:00From "Literacy With an Attitude""As working-class children progress through school, their reading scores fall farther and farther below their actual grade level. We presume they don't have the basics, and we give them more phonics. They don't need more phonics.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> They need to be introduced into and made to feel welcome in a community where explicit language makes sense</span>, where it's necessary--a community where nonconformity is tolerated and even encouraged, where authority is exercised collaboratively, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">where students do not feel powerless</span>, where they have choices regarding the topics they will study and the materials they will use and where they are given freedom to work with others (preferably from backgrounds different from their own) and to move around the room. Such classrooms make negotiation possible and even necessary."<br /><br />-Patrick J. Finn<br /><br />(emphasis mine)Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-59196261927795542372011-10-30T21:59:00.002-06:002011-10-30T22:05:43.175-06:00some thoughts about political engagement1. You must expect complicity as your baseline. Instead of looking at the ways in which a person fails to be the perfect, superhuman activist, one should observe the ways they rise above complicity. It isn't wrong that people should look first to their own survival, even to their own thriving.<br /><br />2. When it comes to issues that aren't your primary focus, the goal is to find a compromise that isn't particularly reactionary that works for you. Maximizing your functionality as an activist and a human being matters. You are not a perfect superhuman activist either.Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-81095375489680655872011-10-23T19:54:00.005-06:002011-10-23T21:14:39.797-06:00trouble contemplationI don't think I've written much that was good since I came here.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Which is alright; it's not like I haven't been getting plenty else done. The breakneck speed isn't always good for me, though. I am living in a flood, and so far my best writing comes from long percolation. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In my nonexistent free time I'm reading<a href="http://www.cordeliafine.com/delusions_of_gender.html"> Delusions of Gender</a>. It convinces me of what I already knew but constantly doubted; this world really is stacked against women. </div><div><br /></div><div>And poor people, and brown people. And neurologically divergent people, and disabled people. And fat people. And people with unsupportive families. And, god knows, adult survivors of child abuse. </div><div><br /></div><div>The question is how to live gracefully in a world that's stacked against you--not in a moment when the column of tanks is about to mow you down, but all the years and months and days and moments before that. How do you stay hardworking and reasonable and uncompromisingly kind, and not take it laying down?</div><div><br /></div><div>How do you live?</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-56600011963885610622011-10-22T22:41:00.001-06:002012-06-18T13:34:56.880-06:00sometimeswhen I'm trying to sleep all I want to do is dance.<br />
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:)</div>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-78468280889510182402011-09-30T12:02:00.013-06:002011-12-31T09:44:24.943-07:00still in loveFriday afternoon means catching my breath before diving into the weekend's worth of work. It turns out to be a problem that I'm so bad at doing things half-way--but not a big problem.<br /><br />I am slowly conquering grammar.<br /><br />There are moments when I think--this is going to be ok. I can do this. Not just this, now, but this, life. We are diagramming sentences in Greek, just like when I was learning to teach English, and I remember how much I love that. A little thrill goes through me; I could actually use my CELTA when I get out of here. I'll have a bachelor's degree. I can go to China. I can have a life.<br /><br />This week has been hard. You can't leave the past behind you. Yesterday we opened a cow heart, slitting the vena cava to lay it flat, cutting through the rubbery lips of the right atrium and and into the rich dark muscle of the ventricle. It is easier than I thought, up the other side and down the septum, my scalpel forcing away a perfect cross section, just like the model but so much more real, bloodier and less color coded. I have declined gloves so that I can feel the differences between flesh and vein and fat; when I lift it up the blood goes to my elbows, the meat is thick and dripping, and the veins that hang off the top are bloodstained pink. When I close my eyes to sleep, the heart is in my chest but my hands are still trying to rip it open.<br /><br />So I go downstairs; my friends are talking about seminar. Georgias: better than Meno, we think? The security of military bases in Israel? What goats won't eat? How to get your taxes done? Correlations between dance ability and sexual performance? The big project Y did to clarify the logic Socrates uses about rhetoric and justice? This is a strange place full of strange people, and most of us didn't belong anywhere else. It is good to come home.Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7091632186449130495.post-46593022206852633432011-09-19T09:08:00.002-06:002011-09-19T09:11:00.394-06:00Reflections on Study On Automatism<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> 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mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><b>R</b>ecently I’ve adopted a new hypothesis about my own art, such as it is—my writing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For me, language feels like a vast interconnected web of meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each word is a node with many roots and branches.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When I see the word “fort,” I think of a military base, but in my mind the words “fortitude” and “forbearance” cluster nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not much further along the web, the French connotations of strength and loudness echo. These associations come from my experience with language; I imagine some are legitimately etymological, but many aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I often choose my words specifically for their significance in my web of meaning, and I am never exactly sure how much my web overlaps with anyone else’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My hypothesis is: perhaps when I am attached to my words, even though they are not as clear to others as they should be, I’m searching for a reader whose web of meaning and perhaps experience overlaps my own.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><b>P</b>erhaps this is why I am drawn to abstract impressionism and automatism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Alongside our verbal language, maybe the world we live in presents each of us with a visual vocabulary; perhaps we each have a web of meaning where we remember how blue is peaceful and diagonals signify mid-motion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Abstract paintings play with visual language closer to the center of the web than most other images in art.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have seen “green” and “round” many more times than I’ve seen “vegetable garden” or “face of a pale woman with dark hair.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As such, these simpler visual components are both more resonant and less precise.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is as if the painter is searching for a viewer whose web of meaning overlaps his own, but rather than satisfying himself with the people for whom “face of a pale woman with dark hair” means quite the same thing as it does to him*, he reaches for a more primal vocabulary.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><b>I</b> found Robert Motherwell’s <i>Study On Automatism</i> beautiful and interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is not large, and the pale green of the gallery walls set off its blue and ocher beautifully.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The composition features a strong diagonal from the bottom-left to the top-right of canvas. One of the most striking elements is the high contrast between the portions of the canvas covered in lighter colors and those covered in black.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To me the abstract shapes suggest old, geometrically torn paper against a black background, but there’s ambiguity about what is foreground and what is background, and about whether background and foreground are present at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like the classic image that can be seen as a young woman or as an old one, we may see ochre over black, or we may see black blocking off ochre—or we may see neither.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>On top of this ambiguity, there’s a terrific sense of depth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The black is clear and calm, and the shading of the ocher grants the image a sense of nuance; if this is paper, it has been crumpled a bit, and if it is against the black, we may be looking into a bottomless void.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The deep warmth of the ocher is balanced by the black, and by the coolness of the gray-blue that looks to be smeared around the lower left corner of the canvas.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style=""><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">B</b>lack scribbles across the lighter portions of the canvas, which are mostly shades of golden ocher, are reminiscent of a child’s drawings or first attempts to write.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is a delightful contrast between the playfulness of those scribbles and the obvious adult competence other aspects of the painting demonstrate. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As a whole the lines are too straight, the colors too pure, for this to have come from the hand of a child—and yet, certain elements of the painting seem to have been created with such freedom and carelessness that they might as well have been.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The gray-blue and white paint in the lower left quadrant once more mimic a child’s work, applied in simple strokes up and down with little precision and little depth that doesn’t come from the context.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Additionally, there are places where the black and ochre paint smear into one another and the “paper” edges fade into the black, breaking the strong lines and strong color distinctions that are so striking on first look.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><b>I </b>don’t know much about aesthetic theory, but I guess that balance, contrast, and strong associations—perhaps even in common with the artist—are what make this painting so pleasurable for me to experience.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"> </p>Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01792544618389217135noreply@blogger.com3