Blogging is light because of lack of time and sleep. Papers and projects are coming due, and life is hectic as expected. A few things:
At some point in the semester I made a grocery list of booze to buy on my next run to the liquor store in the back of my Latin notebook. So everytime I start to flip through it to find my place, I see a list of various alcoholic beverages. That doesn't help to dissuade my new-found urge to drink myself into a stupor everytime I sit down to do my homework.
Speaking of drinking, I failed in my self-imposed duty to post everytime I got drunk. After this semester's date party several days ago, I was completely trashed, but nary a word was typed. They say that betraying yourself is the worst betrayal of all, and I'm starting to agree. I felt horrible the next day. Or was that the hangover?
I should be getting acquainted with hangovers over the summer. I'll be working in Hillsdale like last summer, but unlike last summer I'll also be living here, and I'll be sharing a house with a few guys who aren't against tipping back the bottle every now and then. Add this to friends back home with whom I want to hang out, and a possible (probable) visit to KC, and the summer is shaping up to be pretty damn sweet.
Giving a group of college kids a Canon XL1 and a semester to make a ten-minute movie is bound to have fascinating results. Maybe the technical skill won't be there, but the youthfulness and willingness to try new things would make one imagine that the movie would at least be interesting. But you also have to allow for the possibility that they wouldn't actually get anything done due to apathy, incompetence, and plain old time constraints. That being said, look for the first offering from Last Minute Films Limited (LMF Ltd.) some time in the near future. Hopefully...
Of course, that same apathy and incompetence would probably be found in other aspects of the students' work. Which is why I must stop here. I have a paper due two days ago that I need to finish.
Very Strange
I have an odd feeling that my drunk posts are far more comprehensible than my sober posts. Case in point: this post is being made whist I am completely blasted. Last night's post was written without the involvement of a single drop of alcohol.
So here I am, drunk. I have no particular insights to share, nor any funny anecdotes to send out to the world. Well, actually, I suppose it is worth mentioning that the girl whom I met briefly at a party is now actually my girlfriend. Strange how these things work out.
I've also been listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Simon & Garfunkel obssesively for the past 12 hours. There isn't much to say beyond that.
More to post when I'm... sober???
So here I am, drunk. I have no particular insights to share, nor any funny anecdotes to send out to the world. Well, actually, I suppose it is worth mentioning that the girl whom I met briefly at a party is now actually my girlfriend. Strange how these things work out.
I've also been listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Simon & Garfunkel obssesively for the past 12 hours. There isn't much to say beyond that.
More to post when I'm... sober???
Context
I just finished writing this instead of doing my Latin homework. It meanders, and has no particular point. But I had fun writing it. So without further ado, here is Context or, Language, Reading, and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants:
I've attended a couple of lectures on philosophy, linguistic theory, and literary criticism over the past couple of days. I have very little experience in any of these areas, but I was glad to see a few conclusions that I had reached on my own validated by people who know exponentially more than I do in such fields.
For example, thoughts do not take on words as a way to be expressed in the world. Rather, words are the thoughts. Without the words, there would be no thoughts. If something cannot be expressed in words properly. Primordial thought, in which we leave the words behind and return to the basic ideas which the words represent, does not exist. Or perhaps does, but it is only as instinct, which cannot in any way differentiate us from animals.
Or the idea that the secrecy if an individual's thoughts, of the individual's self are required for a functioning society. If everyone knew what everyone else was thinking, society could not exist. This of course leads neatly into the whole idea of writing in general. Because writing is expressing one's self in words, and because words are thought, the only truly complete piece of writing is an entire transcript of every thought that one has ever had. But since this cannot be done, and even if it could be done it could most likely never be read and comprehended by anyone in a lifetime, there is a certain amount of (mis)interpretation that must occur when one reads another's writing. So can we ever know what the author actually intended?
Well, we can get a good idea. But there really isn't any way to know completely what the author was thinking. This is not only because the mind of the author is necessarily secret from the minds of the readers, except in the specific words that have been written (and even those may have different meanings for writer and reader), but also because the social and cultural context in which a text is read will be different after the text is published. So the things which the author intended to be understood a certain way based on the culture in which he or she was brought up may not be understood that way at a later date. Obviously any text that cannot be understood outside of its historical and cultural context is bad, and probably not worth reading even in its proper context.
So we may try to read texts in the context in which they were written, and some value may be gained from this. The intent of the author is a starting point for reading a text. But this reading is neither the only way in which one should read a text, nor is it necessarily better than any others. Reading a text from the vantage point of the current social and cultural situation may not be the way the author intended it to be read, but because the culture in which we now live was influenced by the text itself, this reading is by no means without merit. A text must be read from the vantage of the culture which it has wrought, as well as the culture which wrought it.
Anyway, these are all things I had thought before, though sometimes more crudely than I've written here. And starting this week, I had them confirmed, or at least re-stated, by philosophers and professors. But considering the very nature of the ideas that have been confirmed for me, it would be silly of me to pretend that I thought them originally. I can trace the generation of every idea that I had to something I had learned in school, or some conversation I had with friends. I may have a few particular insights that are unique to me, and maybe if I discover these and explicate them I could get something worthwhile published. But true and total originality seems to be impossible.
Something that has been pounded into my head again and again in college is that there has been no true break from "western tradition". Sure, it has been bent and bent again until we reach something far enough from the past way of things as to be unrecognizable, but in all areas of human endeavor in the west, there has been a continuous and unbroken stream of thought, always changing, but always mostly subsumed by the context of the past. Picasso did something new, but when you look at the art leading up to him, it's easy to see how it was heading in that direction. Derrida did something new, but once again, he made only a few small leaps from what philosophers before him had done. Joyce did something new, but only in form; in content nearly his entire body of work is made of direct references to historical and cultural facts. All of these three were followed by others who took their instances of newness and innovation even further, but these steps are still small. And you can trace back these steps that Derrida, Joyce, and Picasso have trodden. You can trace Picasso back to Michelangelo, from there back to ancient Greek sculpture, and from there back to cave drawings. (Or if you want to skip a few steps you can trace him back to African art, but that's neither here nor there.) Standing on the shoulders of giants never seemed more true.
There are so many metaphors to describe the "western tradition" which is so lauded at this school: standing on the shoulders of giants, a long journey of small steps, etc. I'm fascinated by it. Fascinated enough to make me angry that they don't offer a course on eastern culture. Not because I want to eschew my own culture, but because in comparing it to another I can achieve a fuller understanding of it, much like learning another language to better understand one's own. I want to understand how our culture changes, and how it stays the same. Maybe then I'd be able not only to understand the progression of our culture, but where it is going, and from whence it came...
Well, perhaps not. I got bit too big for my britches. I fell off the giant, if you will. Time for bed.
I've attended a couple of lectures on philosophy, linguistic theory, and literary criticism over the past couple of days. I have very little experience in any of these areas, but I was glad to see a few conclusions that I had reached on my own validated by people who know exponentially more than I do in such fields.
For example, thoughts do not take on words as a way to be expressed in the world. Rather, words are the thoughts. Without the words, there would be no thoughts. If something cannot be expressed in words properly. Primordial thought, in which we leave the words behind and return to the basic ideas which the words represent, does not exist. Or perhaps does, but it is only as instinct, which cannot in any way differentiate us from animals.
Or the idea that the secrecy if an individual's thoughts, of the individual's self are required for a functioning society. If everyone knew what everyone else was thinking, society could not exist. This of course leads neatly into the whole idea of writing in general. Because writing is expressing one's self in words, and because words are thought, the only truly complete piece of writing is an entire transcript of every thought that one has ever had. But since this cannot be done, and even if it could be done it could most likely never be read and comprehended by anyone in a lifetime, there is a certain amount of (mis)interpretation that must occur when one reads another's writing. So can we ever know what the author actually intended?
Well, we can get a good idea. But there really isn't any way to know completely what the author was thinking. This is not only because the mind of the author is necessarily secret from the minds of the readers, except in the specific words that have been written (and even those may have different meanings for writer and reader), but also because the social and cultural context in which a text is read will be different after the text is published. So the things which the author intended to be understood a certain way based on the culture in which he or she was brought up may not be understood that way at a later date. Obviously any text that cannot be understood outside of its historical and cultural context is bad, and probably not worth reading even in its proper context.
So we may try to read texts in the context in which they were written, and some value may be gained from this. The intent of the author is a starting point for reading a text. But this reading is neither the only way in which one should read a text, nor is it necessarily better than any others. Reading a text from the vantage point of the current social and cultural situation may not be the way the author intended it to be read, but because the culture in which we now live was influenced by the text itself, this reading is by no means without merit. A text must be read from the vantage of the culture which it has wrought, as well as the culture which wrought it.
Anyway, these are all things I had thought before, though sometimes more crudely than I've written here. And starting this week, I had them confirmed, or at least re-stated, by philosophers and professors. But considering the very nature of the ideas that have been confirmed for me, it would be silly of me to pretend that I thought them originally. I can trace the generation of every idea that I had to something I had learned in school, or some conversation I had with friends. I may have a few particular insights that are unique to me, and maybe if I discover these and explicate them I could get something worthwhile published. But true and total originality seems to be impossible.
Something that has been pounded into my head again and again in college is that there has been no true break from "western tradition". Sure, it has been bent and bent again until we reach something far enough from the past way of things as to be unrecognizable, but in all areas of human endeavor in the west, there has been a continuous and unbroken stream of thought, always changing, but always mostly subsumed by the context of the past. Picasso did something new, but when you look at the art leading up to him, it's easy to see how it was heading in that direction. Derrida did something new, but once again, he made only a few small leaps from what philosophers before him had done. Joyce did something new, but only in form; in content nearly his entire body of work is made of direct references to historical and cultural facts. All of these three were followed by others who took their instances of newness and innovation even further, but these steps are still small. And you can trace back these steps that Derrida, Joyce, and Picasso have trodden. You can trace Picasso back to Michelangelo, from there back to ancient Greek sculpture, and from there back to cave drawings. (Or if you want to skip a few steps you can trace him back to African art, but that's neither here nor there.) Standing on the shoulders of giants never seemed more true.
There are so many metaphors to describe the "western tradition" which is so lauded at this school: standing on the shoulders of giants, a long journey of small steps, etc. I'm fascinated by it. Fascinated enough to make me angry that they don't offer a course on eastern culture. Not because I want to eschew my own culture, but because in comparing it to another I can achieve a fuller understanding of it, much like learning another language to better understand one's own. I want to understand how our culture changes, and how it stays the same. Maybe then I'd be able not only to understand the progression of our culture, but where it is going, and from whence it came...
Well, perhaps not. I got bit too big for my britches. I fell off the giant, if you will. Time for bed.
Bibere Amo
I know that I decided to post every time that I got drunk, but I didn't mean to only post when I got drunk. But so far, that's the way it's turned out. I suppose that's to be expected. Only when I'm drunk do I have the courage to actually write anything of substance. To put myself and my thoughts out there for the world to see, that takes guts. Guts filled with beer. Yes indeed.
There's really no particular reason for me to write today, except that I'm drunk. And it's a Tuesday. I'm brilliant. But anyway, to fill the space, I offer a link: The Monkey is consistently hilarious, inventive, and curious. I've been reading the blog for a while now, and since he is kind enough to comment on my blog with some regularity, I'll return the favor with a shout out and such.
There are other blogs I've also been reading daily and to which I shall link and give brief comment. But I'll save them for a later post. Right now I'm just going to get some Latin done, then go to bed.
There's really no particular reason for me to write today, except that I'm drunk. And it's a Tuesday. I'm brilliant. But anyway, to fill the space, I offer a link: The Monkey is consistently hilarious, inventive, and curious. I've been reading the blog for a while now, and since he is kind enough to comment on my blog with some regularity, I'll return the favor with a shout out and such.
There are other blogs I've also been reading daily and to which I shall link and give brief comment. But I'll save them for a later post. Right now I'm just going to get some Latin done, then go to bed.
Oh Shit
I decided to post every time I get drunk, and I'm not going to break the tradition on just the second occasion. But my thoughts on this evening haven't fully formed yet, and I need to get some sleep, so I'm just going to leave off by summing it up with a paraphrase of a quote from Wet Hot American Summer: "What am I gonna do???"
This Spring, Hope Springs Eternal
I've decided to make sure I write a post every time I get drunk. This is the first product of this decision. I'm probably drunk enough to do two posts, but I'm starting off slowly.
Spring has arrived, and with it comes what I like to call my "spring-time blues". It all goes back to that silly old saying, "Ah, spring... that wonderful time of year when a young man's fancy turns to love." I think that it is this little bit of folk wisdom, or perhaps the reality that spawned it, that has made me rather depressed for the past week or so. Well, that in combination with the fact that I had no prospects for love. The time of year alone does little to affect my mood, but the mental connection that I make with the time of year, and the smells and feelings that accompany it, along with the fact that I don't have the love that I'm supposed to, have always made me a bit forlorn. Ever since 7th grade. That year sucked. Maybe every year has just been a re-living of that year so far, and that's why I consistenly get depressed at spring.
But today, in the midst of my early-spring funk, something happened that snapped the bad mood and made me my usual chipper self. I was wandering aimlessly through the party, not having any particular place to be or any particular group of people to hang out with, when this girl randomly came up to me and introduced herself. We talked for a while, and it was pretty cool, then she had to leave. So I said bye, and she told me to say hi sometime if I saw her in the halls. It was really dark in the room, and I don't even know what she looked like, so the chances of ever meeting her again are slim to none.
BUT... now that I've thought it over, that's probably for the best. What this chance encounter accomplished was to restore my slipping self-esteem, and give me something to dream about. Recently, even for the girls about whom I used to think to myself, "oh, that'd be cool if something happend" it has become clear that nothing ever will happen. And I had come to the conclusion that I am completely romantically uninteresting. Now I don't know if that's still true or not, but I at least have hope from this encounter. I had grown tired of constantly telling myself that something will happen eventually, that I actually am worth knowing, that I will find the right girl, when it never came true again and again and again. My whole life I've been in a battle with feeling like a complete piece of shit, and nothing had really happened recently to aid me in that battle. Indeed, I had suffered a number of rather crushing defeats.
And now I have this small victory, this minor conversation. Chances are, nothing will ever come of it. But what I'm going to do is purposely not follow up on it, and that's why I'm glad that I don't even know to whom I was speaking. That way my hopes won't get crushed. When I start feeling down, later on in the spring, I'll just break out the memory of that conversation. All I need is that little bit of hope to keep me going. It had been gone for so long that the spring-time blues were really starting to get me down. But now I have spark again, and I can be cheerful and chipper.
Really, it was quite funny. A couple of my friends at the party noticed it immediately. I was all of a sudden happy again. I didn't even realize what had happened, but when they mentioned it, it only took me a few seconds to realize what had changed. I had a smidgen of hope, and suddenly I could be happy again.
I know that my hope has no basis in reality, but its effect on my demeanor is real enough. My regained happiness is real enough.
Spring has arrived, and with it comes what I like to call my "spring-time blues". It all goes back to that silly old saying, "Ah, spring... that wonderful time of year when a young man's fancy turns to love." I think that it is this little bit of folk wisdom, or perhaps the reality that spawned it, that has made me rather depressed for the past week or so. Well, that in combination with the fact that I had no prospects for love. The time of year alone does little to affect my mood, but the mental connection that I make with the time of year, and the smells and feelings that accompany it, along with the fact that I don't have the love that I'm supposed to, have always made me a bit forlorn. Ever since 7th grade. That year sucked. Maybe every year has just been a re-living of that year so far, and that's why I consistenly get depressed at spring.
But today, in the midst of my early-spring funk, something happened that snapped the bad mood and made me my usual chipper self. I was wandering aimlessly through the party, not having any particular place to be or any particular group of people to hang out with, when this girl randomly came up to me and introduced herself. We talked for a while, and it was pretty cool, then she had to leave. So I said bye, and she told me to say hi sometime if I saw her in the halls. It was really dark in the room, and I don't even know what she looked like, so the chances of ever meeting her again are slim to none.
BUT... now that I've thought it over, that's probably for the best. What this chance encounter accomplished was to restore my slipping self-esteem, and give me something to dream about. Recently, even for the girls about whom I used to think to myself, "oh, that'd be cool if something happend" it has become clear that nothing ever will happen. And I had come to the conclusion that I am completely romantically uninteresting. Now I don't know if that's still true or not, but I at least have hope from this encounter. I had grown tired of constantly telling myself that something will happen eventually, that I actually am worth knowing, that I will find the right girl, when it never came true again and again and again. My whole life I've been in a battle with feeling like a complete piece of shit, and nothing had really happened recently to aid me in that battle. Indeed, I had suffered a number of rather crushing defeats.
And now I have this small victory, this minor conversation. Chances are, nothing will ever come of it. But what I'm going to do is purposely not follow up on it, and that's why I'm glad that I don't even know to whom I was speaking. That way my hopes won't get crushed. When I start feeling down, later on in the spring, I'll just break out the memory of that conversation. All I need is that little bit of hope to keep me going. It had been gone for so long that the spring-time blues were really starting to get me down. But now I have spark again, and I can be cheerful and chipper.
Really, it was quite funny. A couple of my friends at the party noticed it immediately. I was all of a sudden happy again. I didn't even realize what had happened, but when they mentioned it, it only took me a few seconds to realize what had changed. I had a smidgen of hope, and suddenly I could be happy again.
I know that my hope has no basis in reality, but its effect on my demeanor is real enough. My regained happiness is real enough.