Falling Acorns

On Friday after- noon Asun and I were walking to the car when Asun got hit by a hard falling acorn. Ouch. It's that time of year. Yesterday we were hiking along the Appalachian Trail and I was feeling deeply affected by the season's warnings: life ends. warm to cold, green to brown, moist to dry. What to do? How to respond? Acorns were falling to my left, to my right. Then, kaplut, one fell right in front of me. Damn, am I being spoken to? And then, right on cue, Waldo stumbled badly. As he regained his balance he looked up at me, as if acknowledging, yes, I'm getting old, I'm reading your mind. But it was a sunny morning, too, and we just kept on hiking. The darkness wasn't real. I'd like to be ready for that darkness. Maybe it will help if I think of myself as an acorn. I'll get recycled.

And apropos my thoughts, here is the beginning of today's poem from VerseDaily, "Teleology," by Rebecca Foust:

In the seed lies all that it can ever be,
shoot, plant, flower, fruit and

in the end again, the seed.
In the acorn, the entire tree.

Tone

Yesterday in my poetry seminar we were discussing how poems communicate tone. Initially I noted that there was some confusion about what tone is, so I asked them to forget about poetry and just think about language and communication in general. That helped recenter the discussion. Perceiving tone in non-vocal contexts can be tricky. (After all, tone is a musical term and its etymology is related to the stretching of a string.) In any case, I suggested they consider email and text messaging, modes of communication which are notoriously bad for clarity of tone. (Was that message supposed to be ironic? What does that mean?, etc.) Later yesterday I received an email from a student that conveyed, I trust unintentionally, the wrong tone. And this morning I read an article in the Times about a major mess up at the Met that very probably could have been avoided had it not been for a very poor use of email. Instead of getting on the telephone, Met director Peter Gelb sent German director Peter Stein, an email that made a sensitive situation much, much worse. (Gelb certainly had a right to be irritated, but by exposing his impatience and irritation in an email he forced an outcome that he wanted to avoid.) Read the article here.

So watch your tone. Sing. (I may yet get my nerve up and take some voice lessons--wouldn't it be great to be able to sing?)

Poetry and Science

For the past several days I've been dedicating a good amount of time to the work of Manuel Alcántara, a poet and essayist from Málaga. His work will be featured in the upcoming issue of Sirena. Last night I was translating one of his newspaper columns in which he makes a remarkably simple yet astute and eloquently expressed observation regarding our world. He says, "the whole world is home (patria), beyond the flags that mark dominions and the boundaries that stitch together territories." Alcántara's context is a brief reflection on the occasion of Earth Day, 1990. His concerns are most familiar: parochial and selfish interests threaten our future; our survival as a species (as well as that of all other species!) depends on cooperation. His use of the word patria is most significant: it's a term associated with national identification, but is also frequently used in the expression patria chica to indicate the importance of local identities. Alcántara is reminding his readers that we've got it all wrong, of course: the only true home, in a geological sense, the one that counts, is Earth.

This morning I was reading in the New York Review of Books a review of Rewilding the World by Caroline Fraser. Contemporary conservation science makes the same point as Alcántara: creating islands doesn't work. We need connectivity. (Do we ever!) The reviewer, John Terborgh, offers this quote from the book: "We are realizing that conservation is not about managing wildlife as much as it is about managing ourselves–our appetites, expectations, fears, our fundamental avariciousness." Well, the same can no doubt be said of art: it's about managing ourselves, although most would say art is about understanding ourselves. And I'd say that to understand, to truly understand, is to manage. Donne's Meditation XVII, where you will find his famously quoted lines "No man is an island..." makes a similar point within a Christian context.

Disenthrall!

"To free from a controlling force or influence." That sounds to me like something we should all want. It's a definition of the verb "disen- thrall" and I take note of it having just listened to a short talk by Sir Ken Robinson. One of the TED talks. I came across it thanks to the Open Culture website, which I find so enjoyable. In his talk Robinson quotes Abraham Lincoln's second annual message to Congress, in which the sixteenth president (and don't forget, poet!), concludes one of the final paragraphs of the long document in this manner: "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." To me it's fascinating that Lincoln uses the verb reflexively, without stating from what we must disenthrall. But it is clear that he is referring, generally, to the present circumstances, the usual way of thinking. And the usual thinking in 1862 accepted slavery, and this is what Lincoln is really arguing for, an end to slavery, and he makes this explicit in the next paragraph.

Robinson quotes Lincoln admiringly, and his context is education, and his belief in the need for a revolution in how we educate people. He argues for "personalized learning". The talk is short on details. That's too generous: there are absolutely no details at all; it's a concept, an idea... But in spite of its generalities and clichés it's a very good talk, and exemplifies (I'm thinking of my students) quoting to good effect. Robinson ends by reciting Yeat's famous "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven", which ends, "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams". (That's W.B. Yeats in the image, above.) Robinson urges us to tread softly with our children, who everyday put their dreams at our feet. Yes, we should tread softly, but not just any old way. Let's tread imaginatively. The talk can he heard here.

So, let's disenthrall. Assume nothing, restart, recreate. Or, as ol' Abe had it, "The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just..."

Potter's Wheel

A ceramacist spinning clay on the wheel shapes an object. His/her skill and imagination determines the form. However, the clay imposes its own limits. So there is give and take. This might seem like a metaphor for parenting, but it would be a terrible one. Yes, we shape our children, especially when they are very young, but the whole point of parenting, I believe, is to shape children who can shape themselves. A ceramic vase will not shape itself. (No, we are not going to discuss John Keats today.) Maybe it was the story this morning on NPR about Peter Buffett and his new memoir that got me thinking about this. Warren Buffett did not give his children millions of dollars to lead lives of privilege. Based on the brief interview I heard, it seems like a wise decision: Peter Buffett sounds like a happy man, curious and enthusiastic. For his memoir he chose the not very imaginative title Life is What you Make It. I haven't read the book, but I'm guessing what he means to suggest with this title is not that you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do. Asun and I have tried to be a little more nuanced than that, and I imagine most parents do the same: you can aspire to anything. Want to be an astronaut? Go for it! But be ready to study really, really hard. You can't decide to be an astronaut (or chef, teacher, banker, ballerina, etc.) and it happens. Bad lesson! It might not happen. (Bill Durden spoke about this recently in a talk on leadership.) But you do get to "make your life" in that you are in control of its narrative. Know thyself? Define thyself? Polonius' advice to his son, to thine own self be true, can be read as sage counsel or a crass invocation of selfishness. Indeterminacy can be troubling. I see a bright side: the son determines meaning.

Dolphins and Dilemmas

Last night I learned about the annual slaughter of dolphins at Taiji, Japan, as detailed in the documentary The Cove. If you have not seen this film, go see it! This was all new to me. The end of the film, when you actually see the slaughter, so disturbed me I could barely sleep last night. Truly horrific! It also presents me with a real ethical dilemma. Part of what upset me so much about the dolphins is that they are highly intelligent beings and they seem to connect so well with humans. It's easy to love a dolphin, and we've all read stories about how they come to the rescue of people who are drowning. In fact, in the film a surfer relates how a dolphin saved him from a shark attack. It's quite easy for me to feel sadness and outrage, and I'm quite clear about this: I'll NEVER knowingly eat dolphin meat. But what about my steaks? Is it because we generally consider bovines stupid that I think nothing of chowing down on a nice piece of prime rib? And what to say about my love of jamón de Jabugo? Pigs are said to be pretty smart. I've seen Food, Inc. and the film about Temple Granden, but that hasn't stopped me from consuming animals. We'll see. I guess the test will come next time I'm hungry and there's some meat within reach of my fork. Are industrially raised animals less worthy of attention from our moral compass? Because if what we're talking about here is compassion and empathy, a wish to minimize suffering and to respect diverse life forms, where do we draw the line? Are we justified in establishing a compassion pecking order? I'm all for liberating dolphins from Sea World and like prisons. With regard to "farm animals" I'm less clear. For now.

Suicide as Failure

St. Augustine is credited with giving clear expression to the Christian prohibition of suicide. He saw this prohibition as a logical extension of the fifth command- ment: "thou shalt not kill". St. Thomas Aquinas later elaborated on Augustine, and I believe the basic idea so many of us learn as children–that suicide is contrary to God's will, is taken from Aquinas. (In reviewing thinking on suicide I've referred to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) The ethics of suicide is a fascinating topic in some ways, and it's something I've been grappling with in the context of the recent death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata. And it continues to concern me as I read about the fate of dissident Guillermo Fariñas, who was hospitalized the other day.

But today I am much more concerned and troubled by the spate of suicides at Cornell. Two students jumped to their deaths on consecutive days this past week. It's been three in the past month, and at least four this academic year. Something is going terribly wrong. Yesterday I was thinking about this, trying to reflect on my own role as a teacher, to re-identify my obligations to young people.

I have not read a lot about suicide, but enough to know that individuals struggling with depression are at much greater risk. According to Gayla Martindale, the number one cause of suicide is untreated depression. I wonder: does academic stress and/or failure aggravate depression? Common sense suggests that it would. (I can envision the terrible circle: stress itself can lead to poor academic performance, which in turn leads to more stress, thus poorer performance, and around and around...) Of more interest to me however is this question: is academic failure really a failure?* And if so, whose failure is it? I was trying to see things through the lens of priorities. Students get stressed because they want to succeed, and they fear the consequences of not succeeding. This is simplifying things some, no doubt, but that scenario is lived out again and again. We all go through it, of course, not just students. Fortunately, the great majority of us have a sufficiently healthy perspective so that the stresses we go through do not overwhelm us completely. It's very difficult to imagine, for example, that someone could take their own life simply because they had failed an exam or feared they were about to fail an exam. But I'm not a mind reader. I suspect those individuals who do take their lives are deeply troubled, sometimes struggling with debilitating mental illness. (That's a hard one: it seems to me that suicide is in itself, a symptom of severe mental illness, because a mentally healthy person could not, by definition, kill oneself.) In any case, I keep coming back to the same thought: an act of suicide represents a profound failure. A failure, ultimately, to connect, to communicate. Something I try to communicate is: so you failed an exam. And...? What does it mean? It probably suggests that you didn't prepare well. And if you didn't prepare well, it might suggest that you're not really that interested in the topic. And if you don't feel passionate about the topic, maybe we should think about finding other topics, or looking at the topic in question in a different way. Whatever the failed exam means, it certainy does not mean failure. So, *, no, academic failure is not really a failure. Failure, for me, is when the very idea of learning is seen as fruitless, as unworthy of time and attention. Don't we want to learn about ourselves? In my case, it sometimes seems hopeless, (Knock, knock, anyone home?), but I'm determined to keep trying. It's fun! And I'm definitely interested in fun. (In the image, Thomas Aquinas, by Francesco Solimena.)

Censorship and Intimidation

This morning there is lots of bad news. There always is! In Washington a Google executive has put Spain in horrendous company in testimony before Congress: Spain as a country that exercises censorship by blocking certain blogger.com ip addresses. In 2007 a Spanish judge ordered blocked two blogs that were calling for a boycott of Catalan products, and in particular Cava, Cataluña's most famous export. I thought, wait, surely they got it wrong. How could they possibly lump Spain with China and Iran? A Google representative in Spain clarified that it was an isolated incident and that they have "no issue" with freedom of expression in Spain. (Then why include Spain on that list??!!!) But the damage is done, it's on the record, and someone in the Spanish Foreign Ministry didn't do their job. I'll get back to this case, which goes back to 2007, soon, because I still don't understand the details. (If it's as straight forward as it seems to be, and the judicial order is still active, then Spain has a BIG problem.)

Also in Spain: the little village of Zalamea, famous for being the locale of one of the most famous plays of Spain's Golden Age theatre, The Mayor of Zalamea, has refused to pay copyright for its annual festival in which over 500 (Five hundred!!!) locals perform the play in village's main square. Coyright on a 17th century text? Of course not. The author's rights go to poet Francisco Brines (the great writer who is the subject of my doctoral thesis), who back in the early nineties adapted the text for the national theater company. In spite of Brines ceding the rights gratis, Spain's authors' and artistic creators' association (SGAE) continued demanding their canon. They say they have no documentation of Brines' concession. The SGAE is, of course, being made to look quite ridiculous, and it's funny how this dispute mirrors wonderfully the very theme of the play: popular revolt against an abusive authority. More interesting, and uncommented in the press, is the question of copyright in artistic adaptations. I'm familiar with the text and Brines' adaptation is quite subtle. It's limited to isolated lexical changes that modernize the Spanish and "lessen" the consonant end rhymes so that the dialogue is easier for a modern ear. Does Brines have a legitimate copyright? Perhaps yes, but I would argue that by undoing just a handful of Brines' changes the work would revert to the public domain. How few? There the question becomes quite interesting. I don't have the answer.

Intimidation is bad behavior, but sometimes we have to put up with it. The trick is to put up with it while not giving in to it. Never give in. And intimidation won't work if we don't give in. The more we resist the more it goes away. And that's the story of Zalamea. (Above, a scene from the village's production of "their" play.

Rafael Argullol's Spiritual Vitality

Rafael Argullol is a philosopher, poet, and all around interesting writer. I've been enjoying very much his 2007 book, El cazador de instantes, (The Instants Hunter), a collection of short texts of an eclectic nature: philosophical, enigmatic, sententious, poetic, humoristic ... and almost always paradoxical. Here's a quick translation of one of my favorites:

A good sign of spiritual vitality is to have an appointment with God and forget to go because you are busy with more important affairs.

23F

Today is the 29th anniversary of the failed coup attempt in Spain. It's not news. Literally: I see no references to it in the Spanish papers this morning. It got plenty of attention back in 2006, at the time of the 25th anniversary, and it will get a little attention next year, but time goes by, and this too fades from public consciousness. Last year I read a truly wonderful book (Anatomía de un instante) on this event by novelist Javier Cercas. Cercas' book makes for fascinating reading and had, for me anyway, a wonderful pendular quality to it: a narration of expansive detail which in turn leads to reflections on big questions, such as the nature of history. For example, is history a question of huge, abstract forces beyond the grasp of individuals? I believe not! Decisions made by individuals at particular moments in particular circumstances make huge differences. Cercas certainly makes a good argument for that belief. His review of the behavior of the protagonists in the "23F" episode, as the coup attempt is known in Spain, makes a convincing case that things could have turned out very differently were it not for very small acts performed and decisions made by individuals at specific moments. His interpretation of Juan Carlos' role is especially interesting. In Cercas' reading, which I find quite convincing, the King is both villain and hero. How's that? Well, the King's statements (and silences!) in the months preceding the coup attempt contributed greatly to creating conditions that encouraged the golpistas. Then, on the night of February 23rd, the King "saved the day" for democracy by very explicitly not endorsing the coup. He found some redemption.

Do we learn from our mistakes? Maybe a little, but whose to say the pessimists are not largely justified by events all around us? And what will historians say about the unfolding of our presidential election in 2000? Were we, as we say in Spanish, "up to the circumstances"? (In the photo, an infamous image of an assault on democracy.)

Identities

This has been on my mind recently for a number of reasons. One is that I asked the students in one of my classes to write on the theme of "Identity and Language". I haven't finished reading their compositions, but from those I have read it's easy to see there are many different ways to interpret the connections between how or what we speak and our sense of self. Also, the other day I received a request to fill out a survey about identity and ethnicity. Our obsession with ethnicity is a curious phenomenon. On the one hand, I believe few of us want to be defined by our ethnicity. Who wants to think that their self can be reduced to some kind of predetermined category? On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that our genes, some of which determine how we look, don't have some role in who we are. It's the grand question, and Cervantes had great fun with it at the beginning of his masterpiece when he has Don Quijote respond to Sancho's doubts about their adventure in playing at chivalry with a definitive: "I know who I am!" Hmm, do you think? When I was much younger I think my sense of self had more emphasis on a strong sense of independence. I was quite fond of the Emerson quote "nothing can bring you peace but yourself." I think today I see it a little differently. I'm quite happy to feel more connected to and more dependent on others. (Most everyone around me makes me "look better" than would otherwise be the case!) Funny thing: this morning I found myself wondering about this question and I was thinking "well, normally I think in English", but at that particular moment I was thinking (ok, maybe thinking is a stretch...) en español: normalmente pienso en inglés. Ironic. "Identity theft." Yes, I know what they mean when they talk about that and no doubt it can be a real headache. Yet, it doesn't fail to make me laugh: the thought of being robbed of something we ourselves cannot "fix" with any certainty. Maybe what we mean is theft of identity representation. How well does my name and photo represent me?

What's Happening There?

Last night, at the end of a very pleasant weekend (a wonderful dinner with friends on Saturday, a slow day, with a movie, yesterday), I found my mind wandering in a way that reminded me of my childhood. My thoughts would take me to a specific spot where I had been at some point in the past: a street corner in Madrid or New York, a turn on the appalachian trail, and I'd think: I wonder what's happening there at this very moment. Is anyone there? Who? Etc. I used to play that game a lot as little kid. Right now, for example, what's going on at the entrance to the Rua Nueva in Santiago de Compostela? Well, it's six hours later, so it's a little after 1 pm there. Probably plenty of people in the street. I imagine a typical day (raining?) in Santiago. What does it mean? Nothing. But that's what's going on right now in one part of my little mind. It's going to be busy day, so this nonsense will have to end in a moment. But I'm quite happy to have thoughts of Santiago in my head. A nice start to the week. (In the photo, looking up the Rua Nueva, from Plaza del Torcal. Oh, those times!)

Stairway to Democracy?

In my free time this week I've been listening to Donald Kagan's lectures on ancient Greece and enjoying them very much. I also listen during my visits to the Kline Center, where I spend time on the treadmill and the rowing machine. Certainly makes that time less tedious. (Now, if I could be more successful at cutting back on sweets I could make some real progress...) Kagan's comments on Athenian democracy and the analogies he makes to our times are certainly interesting and thought provoking. And certainly confirm my own ideas about the importance of education and its relationship to democracy. But beware: isn't it suspicious when our ideas find confirmation? On guard! And I didn't need Kagan to reach that conclusion. Socrates makes the point quite nicely. What I mean, of course, is that it's so easy to find confirmation for our beliefs. That's the problem! We've got to continually put them to the test. (And that's why 90% of political commentary today is so deathly boring. All these self-assured pundits. They'd be a lot more interesting if they gave their egos a rest now and then.)

Why do I seem to forget to bring my lunch with me in the morning? Is this an age thing? Should the US have intervened on behalf of the II Spanish Republic? Who's advising Mark McGwire? (Perhaps a Greek ostracism would be a good punishment for him.) In the photo: the spectacular triple staircase at the former churcho of Santo Domingo in Santiago de Compostela.

An email got me thinking...

I just got an email announcing a talk to be given next week in Malaga by Juan Luis Cebrián, the founding editor of El País, the grand Madrid daily that was so important during Spain's transition to democracy. He'll be talking about the future of journalism, certainly an interesting topic, as newspapers are going out of business all over the place. (This morning is classic Carlisle grey; I wish I were in Malaga.) In any case, it got me thinking, not about internet, but rather about the future of education, and this is one of the reasons I'm an optimist, in spite of it all. It's easy to be a pessimist: people read less, everyone seems to be geographically illiterate, kids are on one electronic device or another all day, blah, blah, blah... But these same technologies are going to make high quality, more individualized instruction available to all. A pipe dream? Perhaps, but it can be imagined, and eventually we'll get it right. Teachers will spend less time informing and more time mentoring. (The other day on tv I heard a little girl say this: "When I grow up I want to teach people how to learn." Exactly! That's what I want to do, too, when I grow up!) In the photo, Cebrián. Don't speak Spanish? You can see, of course, that "sociedad" is an easy cognate. Society in red? No, "red" means "network" or "web". The forum is on the topic of Society and the Internet. That is, you might say, the topic these days. Twenty years ago was before the internet age. Today we are in it. A lot has changed.

Vargas Llosa on Culture

About a week ago I came across a stimulating essay by the great novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. In Spanish it's title is "La civilización del espectáculo". In the essay Vargas Llosa reflects on recent shifts in cultural values, the possible differences between high and popular culture, and the ascendence of entertainment as the dominant force of our time. (He's talking mainly about frivolous entertainment.) He observes, as many have, how the distinction between news and entertainment has become terribly blurred for large segments of the population. That's one 'symptom'. This is quite significant because, and I'm sure I've made this argument before, as our pursuit of distraction becomes ever intensified, our ability to sustain, much less improve, a just, democratic society, becomes increasingly endangered. Curiously, I mentioned this essay yesterday to a colleague and she said, oh yes, that's the talk Vargas Llosa gave at Dickinson. (That was in December, 2008, when we were in Malaga.) In any case, the emergence of new technologies plays a central role in these shifts in habits and values. I am reminded of this right now, having just seen a Times headline: "If your kids are awake, they're probably online". Here's the first line: "The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation." Gives pause, no? I am also reminded of a recent conversation with a colleague who has a young son. All his friends have... I don't know what you call it, some hand held video game device. Should he get one too? It's very hard, but I'm all for parents who try to resist the onslaught. Vargas Llosa writes about the declining importance of ideas as a cultural force. The well considered use of reason. He declares himself a pessimist. I'm still an optimist, so one of my tasks is to articulate why my optimism is justified. Stay tuned.

Exile, Home

Towards the end of his essay on exile, Edward Said quotes the twelfth-century monk Hugo of St. Victor: "The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land." This sentiment reminds me of the sixteenth century Spanish mystic poets. Forget the world, our souls yearn for a reconnection with the divinity, and the divinity clearly is not here. St. Teresa, for example, outlines the journey of the soul away from the here and now, towards a connection with God. An Ascent. (Not for me: I like this world. I guess I'm a deist: nature reveals traces of its origins... back, back, back to the Big Bang. And thanks to Original Ignition, here we are! The sun feels good, trees and mountains are beautiful. Water, air...) Said then observes how Hugo does not advocate for a simple rejection of attachments, but rather a working through them. It could be interesting to trace the evolution of thought from Hugo to Teresa. Perhaps it is a worthy exercise to consider where one stands on this scale of place. Where is home? Back to triteness: it's where family and friends are. Well, yes, but not completely so. How strange would it be to suddenly find yourself dropped off in a truly strange and inhospitable environment? Take the family and go live in Greenland? Changes in environment, obviously, can be quite disruptive. There are places that are particularly important to me. Carlisle is one of them. Nineteen years. Well, just fourteen with a physical presence, but still... Familiarity. I'm grateful to not be an exile. In the photo, the Hamilton, on High Street, where I occasionally meet friends and take refuge.

Cold

It has been very cold this week. Whenever it gets like this I end up thinking about basic human instincts. Survival. Get food. Get warm. The other day my father-in-law's home heating system broke down. Not good. He's eighty-one years old. Thankfully, he has options, family, resources, etc. But not everyone does. I've always thought that societies should be evaluated according to how well they attend to the needs of its least fortunate members. I often think that organizing and fulfilling our collective responsibilities in a free and open society should not be quite so complicated. But apparently it is. We should do so much better. Ultimately it's the temperature inside that matters. I find it to be a constant struggle. Maybe I too am being affected by the cold. Stay inside. Listen to the Greeks. Go back to the Mediterranean. Fire. Heat. The Pleasure. Pleasure: "...the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul." Epicurus, I'm still trying, struggling to not struggle. (God is quite the humorist.) Today I've reread Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus. It's easy to see the importance of translation here. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to read that in the original Greek! (In the photo: in Ronda back in November, 2008. Another cold day.)

2009

It's fast coming to a close. Every year I wonder about the arbitrariness of calendars. But there is little chance of our lives being governed by a different one any time soon. And so today, December 31st, is, in one way, the End. (This post is dated 12/30, but in fact, today is the 31st. I started to write yesterday, but never got past the first sentence.) We are taught to look back, assess the year. I have a suspicion there may be more creative ways to approach this time, but I am feeling this morning particularly uncreative. All I feel capable of is feeling generally grateful. It's been a year with some real challenges, good challenges that have worked out well. A very, very good year, but I am not inclined to go through the 'year in review' routine. In the photo, a fifty million year old spider fossil. This year I turned fifty. And? 2010? Of course, I have lots of hopes, goals, projects, plans... I guess that's the important think, no, looking forward... but just a little, like to the next few minutes. Snow fell last night, and that's next on the agenda: shovel some of it. It's so pretty right now, I hate the idea of touching it. We'll take some pictures...

The Circumstance

Christmas Eve. Morning. Cold with bright sun. Waldo at my feet, snoring away. Asun across the table. Good coffee. Children asleep. Warm house. Lucky, lucky, lucky me... But it could come crashing down at any moment. Ha! That's kind of the theme of the most recent Coen brothers' film we went to see last night. A Serious Man is ok, has some very funny moments, but is not an espeically memorable film. (A plane is flying over. It could suddenly come crashing down on our house...)

I could have a heart attack ten seconds from now. Nine, eight, seven... No, it didn't happen. I could win the lottery and our circumstances would be radically different. And on and on. But the routine usually wins out. We plan around predictability. (Is this getting repetitive?)

Around the world the news is good, bad, tragic, and mundane. Depends on your perspective. And your circumstances. And I'm back to the Spanish expression, estar a la altura de las circunstancias: to be "up to the circumstances", that is, able to meet the needs of the situation. I'm thinking about moral and ethical challenges, which we face at every turn. Cosmic injustices... How can I just sit here, typing away nonsense, when there is so much suffering going on? The same old question... I'd better move my butt. Do something. Whenever I look back, take stock, I see many failings. But I've learned not to be too hard on myself. That doesn't help either. Got to just keep trying.

And talking about chance events... I exist because one of my father's spermatozoa penetrated one of my mother's eggs. An average ejaculation contains tens or hundreds of millions of spermatozoa. So, yes, life is a miracle. Well, not really, not in a supernatural sense. It's all very natural. Just so, so unlikely. And then you multiply the remote likelihood of your particular existence by a factor of tens of millions, since at every moment so many different things could happen, and you can move the equation back eons in the other direction, right back to the beginning (beginning?), oh, I'm getting dizzy... what are the chances of me sitting here at this particular moment in this particular space typing these tedious words? The butterfly...

(The image above: La circunstancia, by Spanish painter Juan Medina.)

Silence

Silence plays a very big role in our routines. Well, I guess you could say it plays a central role in life itself. Ourselves as censors. There is so much we don't say! Imagine the chaos if there were a loudspeaker with a direct connection to our brains. That's just part of it. There is another kind of silence that is critical to our well being, the silence that allows for recovery, for tranquility. Right now, for example, there is a very soft thump, thump background noise coming from some kind of aerobics class going on across the street at the YMCA. It's enough to drive me batty. I've got to get away... And this gives me an idea: maybe I could get away today for a little walk in the woods with Waldo. With the big snow fall we had, it will be quiet and beautiful. Maybe without Waldo–he's not much for long walks in the snow.

When you realize you are experiencing the right conditions of silence you have probably just broken the spell. Paradoxes of living.