research and teaching
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
I have been in the habit of reading many different types of things with the intention of discovering links and correlations between them. This has been very fruitful over the years. Lately, however, since I have been doing research for my doctorate, I have been forced to read less widely with more focus. But this is besides the point. In some fashion, I am still looking for the correlations between ideas, histories, things that would give me a unique view of the world. I choose the things I wish to read with the intent of discovering, uncovering, revealing, washing away, alethia, the truth behind the standard view. There is a way of reading the world that forces the world to reveal its secrets; a way of seeing the world that forces it to shed its glamour; a way of touching reality that forces it to say its name, to speak its reality, to take its clothes off and show itself nude.
It is disappointing for the world to reveal itself, almost as if its hiddenness was intentional, that it didn’t show its face because it was afraid to be seen crying.
I wept today when I saw the new MacBook in a movie talking about its features. Ephemeral, to be advanced beyond, but beautiful nonetheless, green, minimalist, exhaustively simple, worth the money for the design alone, whatever one’s taste must be in OSs.
The world weeps in silence, hoping not to be seen. The grief of its beauty unappreciated, passed by for its utility.
Enough anthropomorphizing!
I read with the hope that my fertile mind will grow a reasonable response to all the input, a reasonable organization of all the details. My intelligence has always been organic in this way. I always feel a deep unpreparedness, a panic when I know I have to teach. It is this that drives me to read. I read, then sleep, then hope that something, a central principle would float to the surface, something to tie all the loose threads together. Sometimes it works. Today, tonight, after reading Aristotle for the last week, it doesn’t. Nothing floats to the surface, nothing coheres. Aristotle is more than a bit too deep to expect this to happen in such a short time. There is so much material, so much to consider. He was advanced in some things and archaic in others. I don’t know what key to turn to make the connection between his world and ours.
We’ll see. Tomorrow, (today).
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