The Good, the Bad, and the Perfect

A week or so ago I posted this status on Facebook:

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  

In the context of Facebook most folks assumed that the target was myself, my writing, and my insecurities.  They were partly right.  The target was myself and my insecurities, but not my writing.  The post was meant to relate to politics and criticism.  

I don’t talk much about politics, not because I don’t care, but because I care too much--or too much about the wrong things.  I care too much about being right and not enough about doing right.  In cases of conflicting opinion I take the safe route and stay mute.  If I don’t think I can convince someone else of my position I don’t articulate it.  Why, after all, would I speak when I believe that my words aren’t worth my breath?  

The biggest danger for me is criticism.  An example: I want to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the US in 2020.  But there’s a problem.  Women’s suffrage was made possible through the actions of some people who were racists and used explicitly racist arguments to make their case.  Should these people--their achievement--really be celebrated?  

Or another: Argument in politics is irrelevant.  There is some reason to think that, when it comes to politics, no one is listening.  Positions are simply a reflection of basic values, impervious to argument.  Worse, arguing might be counterproductive, missing its target and causing folks to dig in their heels.

 

I can see the easy path laid out before me:  Say nothing; do nothing.  

But how seriously should I take such statements?  What should I do in the face of them?  There’s simply no way to deal with any complicated issue--and all issues are complicated in politics--without running into truly legitimate criticism.  So here I return to the slogan I started with:

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  

Perhaps there is a single right answer and someday, far in the future, I’ll achieve it.  But for now, something has to be done.  With that in mind I’m headed to the Women’s March here in Vancouver. I don't know about its efficacy or legitimacy, it’s surely not perfect, but it’s an effort to do some good.  

Americans: don’t move to Canada.

I live in Canada.  It’s a nice place with friendly people and a pretty decent government.  But you know what? I’m coming back home.  I’m coming back to America in May.  I didn’t come to Canada because I hated the US or thought it was hopeless.  I came here because I wanted to see what someplace else looked like.  I wanted to learn.  And I did.  

Vancouver, where I live, is one of the most diverse places in the world.  It’s true.  Around half of the population here is are recent immigrants.  I’ve met people from parts of the world I otherwise never would have.  I’ve made friends with a few and I’ve learned a few things too.  

Here’s one thing I’ve learned: Things can improve, but they can also get worse.  The arc of history does not unerringly bend towards justice.  We--or perhaps more accurately I--believed that because we lived in a prosperous nation with good folks things would always get better.  But that’s no guarantee.  Some people I have met have lived through revolutions and wars.  Some have lived in countries that were once prosperous and are now destitute or, in some cases, gone.  

I’ve asked some of these folks, “What can I, as an American, do?”  So many things look hopeless.  Nothing we do seems to make a difference for the better.  There’s no simple solution--maybe there isn’t a solution.  It’s not unanimous, but here’s what I’ve heard: Make the US an example to the world.  Show the world how things can be.  That there is a place that values everyone.  Show us that there is hope.

Tuesday night we did not do this.  We sent the opposite message.  That not everyone is valued.  That the US is willing to hand over the reigns to someone who has promised to be and anti-democratic and not work for the interests of us all.  

So here’s the deal.  The US needs you.  I believe that it needs me.  I believe this more strongly than I’ve believed anything in a long while.  

I don’t believe that rational argument sways people, at least not about the things that matter.  That probably sounds weird coming from a philosophy student, but there it is.  I don’t mean that it has no place, but when one’s mind is set--as so many of ours are--no amount of argument or list of facts will matter.  I happen to think that it may, in fact, be irrational to be swayed by argument in these cases, but that’s a story for another time.  

So what does change minds?  How can we make things better?

Here’s what I know: The one mind I have changed--and maybe I shouldn’t take credit for it--was changed through understanding.  We had an interest in each other as humans, as friends.  Neither of us wanted to change the other’s mind--really--we just wanted to understand each other.  Not by pushing or prodding.  Not by antagonism.  Just by being interested.  There is a paradox here.  In order to really change someone you must not desire to change them.  

So actually, now that I think on it, do move to Canada, if you can.  Move to Japan.  Move to Australia or Spain.  Maybe try out California or Texas too, for that matter.   Live there.   Listen.  Try to understand.  And then move home.  America needs you.  

One Down

About two months ago now I stopped using Facebook. Maybe you noticed. Maybe you didn't. I had a lot of reasons—lack of productivity, a hatred of everything and everyone, depression about the state of the world, a fear of telling you what I really think. Others have listed other reasons in other places—an inability to keep up with the Jonses, addiction, decreased attention span. I don't know if those things have affected me. Maybe.  Probably.

Two months in I have no plans of going back. I don't miss it. I am less connected. I am less in touch. Perhaps I've even got my head stuck in the sand. Probably so. Especially now. But as someone once said, I don't care anymore.  

PS.  I still get personal messages.  You can contact me.

Iron Knee 25k: a race report

Years ago, on the way home from the Arrowhead, I stopped by a ski shop in Minneapolis to try on ski boots. I knew I needed a new pair, a pair that fit, and since the shop had a good selection, I took advantage of it. Since I had no intention of buying—I knew I could get them at cost elsewhere, but was just using the shop—I bought a ski mountaineering magazine as a sort of “thank you.” Now I've never done ski mountaineering, I can't truly claim to have done downhill skiing or mountaineering, but the magazine had some amazing photos. The writing on the other hand—every trip report was exactly the same:

It was a long trip in the (car, boat, helicopter) to (exotic location). We were really excited to be in (exotic location). We got one last good night's rest then (skinned, snowshoed, dogsledded) as far as we could before setting up camp. We were nervous about (avalanches, crevasses, overhanging seracs, rock face), but tried to sleep anyway. We got up before dawn and skinned up as far as we could go. Then we had to face the (avalanches, crevasses, overhanging seracs, rock face), but we made it. It was beautiful from the top. We could see all the way to (other exotic location). Then we shredded the pow on the way down. The end.

I was bored. The genre was dull.

Now I admit that not every trip goes according to plan. If something went wrong then you've got an interesting story, but that's not good writing, that's a lucky break for your narrative (unlucky for the folks involved). I've written my share of “something went wrong” stories. They're fun to write. They get a lot of hits. They can be the most useful to read too. But, all happy trip reports are alike; each unhappy trip report is unhappy in its own way.

What can I say about the Iron Knee 25k? The race was beautifully managed by the Mountain Madness folks. There weren't too many people. The aid stations were well stocked. There was even a long climb called “The Powerline” that, yes, ran along a powerline right-of-way. There were rocks and roots. There were smooth, fast sections. There were views of mountains and water.  I had a good run, but I was out of shape. I was more sore afterwards than I wanted to be. It was too short. It was a happy race.

But maybe that's not all there is.

This was my first glimpse into a community of runners here in Vancouver. It was my first time seeing people who I felt like I knew. Who I connected with. I struck up conversations with folks at the start line. They seemed to understood how hard it is to get out and do something in this fenced in city. They understood that it isn't the outdoor paradise that is promised. That long trip to the start wasn't by boat or car or dogsled, it was two hours by foot and train and bus and it started at 5:30 in the morning. That long powerline climb featured signs with each runners name and a message for each of us. Mine read, “If it got any easier, it wouldn't be a challenge.” Did I get any names; did I make any friends? No. But for a little while I felt like I was home.   

Shoe Shopping

Yesterday, I needed a new pair of shoes.  'New' is the wrong word here, of course.  I can't really afford new shoes, but I did need something dressier.  All I had were old running shoes, and with two conferences coming up, I decided I needed to look a little more professional than neon-green and orange.

I've never been stylish or trendy.  I don't want to be.  For years I refused to wear jeans because they were too cool, and I didn't want to be that.  Take that as you will.  But here in the land of conspicuous consumption, I stick out.

Which brings me to my main point: If you want a pair of really nice leather dress shoes for a great price, Value Village in Coquitlam is the place to go.  There is an entire rack of men's dress shoes in all sizes.  The least expensive I saw were $9.99, the most expensive, $24.99.

Now you should probably take this with a grain of salt.  I wouldn't know a nice dress shoe from a cheap one if it kicked me in the face.  All I know is that the men I see wearing these ridiculous pointed toe shoes—elf shoes, almost—seem to be the sort of well-dressed people you're supposed to want to be, and that they had scads of these shoes at Value Village.

Of course, no one would want to say that they bought them at Value Village.  That kind of ruins the effect.  The point of these shoes seems to be that they are expensive.  But as I've said, that isn't me.

I thought about it for a minute, but decided that if I got a pair of these shoes I'd have to get a decent suit and all to go with them.  I'm not going to do that, not even at a thrift store (though the last suit I did buy I bought at Goodwill—for a LARP costume).

So I went over to the opposite side of the rack and looked through their sport and work shoes.  After some thought, I picked out a pair of slightly scuffed Adidas Sambas for $6.99.  Very professional.

Coping

It's a good thing I like school. When I started talking to my professors about going to grad school, one thing they all said was, you have to be willing to sacrifice everything—family, friends, hobbies, homes—to philosophy. I didn't listen. So it's a good thing I like school, because I sacrificed all that other stuff.

The past six months have been the hardest since about a decade ago. I don't know if I'm worse off or better than that time. I don't think that's relevant. But if you do some digging you'll notice something about that decade ago mark. That's the time I started this blog. It's also the time when I started racing ultras. Those were my ways of coping with my problems and they worked pretty well.

Unfortunately, I've sacrificed those things and now I'm paying the price. Luckily, I've learned a few things in the intervening time. The big one is, keep busy. I'm okay when I have something going on. Two days of my week I'm so busy I forget to feel terrible. Those are my favourite days. Then there are weekends. Weekends are bad.  Weekends I don't have anything going on and I haven't found anything yet to take the place of the kind of mind-numbing bike ride that made training for ultras so satisfying.

So I've had to find things to fill the time. To that end I've started going to the gym. I hate gyms and I've railed against them in this blog before, but they're saving me now. I can thrash myself on a rowing machine, go through my lifting routine, and then take a few minutes to relax in the sauna (not as good as a Finnish sauna, but it'll do). Biking is out, I tried one final time and—just no. Skiing is out too—too expensive and far to travel.  Running still has potential, but I need to get back on that wagon. We'll see if I can find some races to work toward.

I've also started writing. I got a good taste of it in my last two semesters at ISU and I've gotten too much encouragement to let it drop. I like it in much the same way that I like ultras, but really it's more like working on bikes. To write a story you have to take something apart—whatever that core idea is, the thing that must be told—see how it works and then put it back together. And if it's put back together in the right way you'll find that it works better than before. I won't claim that I'm any good at it. Others will have to make that judgment. But I've found a writing group, a place to workshop. They seem to like my stuff so far—even if it isn't their usual romance and thriller fare.

As the semester progresses and I become busier I'll probably become happier. Sometimes I think this is what it's all about, jumping from one distraction to another. If you're lucky those distractions are positive and lead to better and more fulfilling distractions. If you're not they compound and grow in on themselves in a sneaky hate spiral.   

Working Man's Hero

Moving to Vancouver has been tougher than expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but I had been told, and had been expecting that it was a more bike friendly city. Oh, sure, I can see the mountains from my office (when it isn't foggy). And there are bears and trees. But riding my bike, riding the way I used to ride, is out of the question.

When I trained for Trans Iowa, Arrowhead, Dirty Kansa, and Tuscobia, among others, I trained daily, but it wasn't a burden. I was always shocked by the time and money that people would throw into their workouts, as though they had to become a martyr to the race. All I did was go out for an hour ride after work. This wasn't a big deal. I'd cycle home, change clothes, and head out for fifteen, or so, miles of gravel. It took me about ten minutes to get out of town and then I could really go. I never considered getting in a car or taking the bus to a destination and then riding.

But I can see that this isn't realistic here. Riding in the city isn't something done lightly. There are few trails, the trails that do exist go nowhere, and, while there are bike lanes on some roads, I felt safer riding on highways without shoulders back in Iowa. I was reminded of this when I was back in Ames over the break. I rode from my old apartment to the movie theater, in the dark, through the snow, without a helmet, in the part of town I would never go to when I lived there because it was inaccessible by bike (South Duff, for those who know). And I was able to do it without ever having someone cut me off, honk at me, or box me in: three things that often happen to me in Vancouver.

One might defend this city by pointing to all the beautiful mountains and all the great mountain bike trails. One might mention all the bike lanes downtown, or the trails in North Vancouver. But these are destination rides. Getting there would mean an hour+ on the bus or a long ride through the 'burbs. Sure, there are fifteen-year-olds who use the 145 bus as a shuttle up Burnaby mountain, on their $5k downhill bikes. Sure, I see folks driving their carbon wonders around on top of their Audis. But I don't have the time or money for that kind of “riding,”

This adjustment has been the hardest thing about coming to this city. Maybe I am beginning to understand why the martyr attitude is normal.   

A Livelier Post

Things are looking up here in Vancouver. I mean, I was looking up at the moon earlier and that was kind of cool, though it wasn't as cool as you had it back in the Midwest. I thought that maybe I could get a photo of the moon and Mt. Baker in the same shot, but sadly, no. By the time the moon was visible, Baker was invisible, not to mention the two of them being in different parts of the sky—er, horizon (in the case of the mountain). My biggest accomplishment of the evening was not telling the woman standing behind me to leave her negging, braggart of a boyfriend. Maybe that wasn't an accomplishment, maybe that was cowardice. 

Now that my cold has abated I've been able to get out running again. And any running here is a workout. I live at the top of a mountain and, if I want to go anywhere, I have to run down. Then I have to get home somehow, so I run up. Yesterday I did 300 vertical meters (984') and about 12k, today I did 168 vertical meters (550') and about 5k. No long runs just yet.

School is fine and all that, but I am trying hard to keep it in its box. I don't want it to take over my life and make me miserable. Thus the running, and also some reading.

I finished Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book One. It's an astounding book. I wasn't sure exactly how he would pull off a rambling autobiographical non-fiction novel, but he did it. (Hint: it's not actually rambling.) He uses sentences like, “The sky was blue,” and “The grass was green,” and rather than roll my eyes I'm like—YES! The sky is blue and the grass is green! That's exactly how it is. Like any good literature though, meaning is more than literal. If a novel could be summarized in a few sentences then it should have been said in a few sentences. Luckily, for the art lovers among us (and un-luckily for the literalists among us) there is much that can only be said in metaphor. A great novel, I believe, is just as long as it needs to be to get this metaphor across.  A six-volume memoir-novel? I believe that Knausgaard knows what he is doing.

I also picked up Stephen King's On Writing. This is the first book of King's that I've read. Some very good essays, but never a book, and oddly enough, never any fiction. I'm convinced that King is an impressive writer. He knows how to get out of the way of a good story, and maybe that's what's most important. But this is a book about writing and, despite many attempts to become a memoir, it succeeds. He has serviceable advice about writing. I don't agree with him on every point (apostrophes, for instance), but he does give good reasons for why he does what he does. And really, that's what I want and need. I want to know how to make informed decisions on writing. He's best when discussing revision. Every writer repeats Strunk & White's advice (and every writer has repeatedly heard) “Omit needless words.” What King does is show, by example, how to use that advice. Then again, I think that King could take his own advice and lose some of the snarky asides and vaguely sexist remarks that pepper his writing. He needs to get out of his own way, take T. S. Eliot's advice, and extinguish himself in his writing.

Vancouver Rain

Last night I had a headache so bad that it made me wonder whether, were I stuck with that kind of pain, could I go on living? I say this because years ago I remember saying that I thought I could deal with most any hardship so long as I could read and communicate. Such a level of function does presuppose that I'm some way up Maslow's hierarchy, but still, I didn't think it such a high standard. But this sinus headache made me wonder. For the past few days I've had a nagging cold and, while it hadn't stopped me dead, it had slowed me down. I could read, but only fitfully and reading philosophy was out of the question—when I read φ, I ψ-ed.

Since I arrived in Vancouver two and a half weeks ago I've been eating beans & rice and peanut butter & jelly. I'm used to a pretty boring diet, the same veggie sandwich every day for thirteen years, but these particular foods have become disgusting in short order. The peanut butter & jelly is cloyingly sweet and the beans & rice is just a bowl of fiber. However, as my expenses total about 150% of my income—before food and entertainment—I don't feel inclined to splurge. Today I decided I had to splurge. After three days of leaving my room only to go to class, I had to get out. My headache was significantly improved and I was neither coughing nor snuffling constantly, so I went for a walk all the way to the Starbucks on the other end of campus where I bought a coffee for $2.25.

I thought that I would sit and read a sci-fi novel for a while, but that wasn't to be. Every once in a while I would give a snuffle, I'm still recovering from a cold, after all, and when I did the woman two tables over would glance over her shoulder and give me a look that said, “This is a nice coffee shop, you don't belong here.” Maybe so. In Ames, Iowa, my look said, grad student, bike mechanic, or bartender, but here it says, hobo, drunk, guy-who-yells-racial-slurs-on-the-bus. The fact is, I haven't seen a single person with long hair and a beard here except for people sleeping on the streets and, yes, yelling racial slurs on the bus. I've seen more fist-fights and heard more hate speech here in two weeks than I did in Iowa in a lifetime. Perhaps I've just lived a sheltered life.

When I arrived I had a plan. I planned that I would get up each morning, go for a run or a bike ride, write for an hour, then go and do my eight hours at the office. I did pretty well the first week, but I still don't have a bike and since I came up short of breath—the first signs of this cold, I expect—on my run last Saturday I've had to take it easy there too. Writing is sporadic. I have two blog posts 90% done, but that last 10% is proving too much. Some days I've managed 500-600 words—blog, essay, or story—easy, others it's too easy just to go in early and get a start on my day. Hopefully this has just been an off week and I'll settle in to the routine, but today it feels like it's all falling apart. Campus looks more like a damp parking garage than a benevolent futuristic utopia. The rains have just begun here in Vancouver and will likely not abate until next summer.  

Books Read: June

Tim O'Connor, In the Lake of the Woods

If you read last month's books read you might notice a theme, another war story by O'Connor. Here's the thing, these books were recommended to me, not as war stories, but as stories of failure, and honestly I'm not sure how to deal with failure—in literature or life—which, as it turns out, is exactly what I'm interested in. Failure is dear to my heart. It's something I'm good at, experienced at, and so it's what I want to explore philosophically and through creative works. I expect to fail.

O'Connor makes it clear early on: there will be no definite conclusion to his story. We'll never find out what happens. And this isn't so far removed from the idea of failure; uncertainty, skepticism, and doubt figure in as well. There are times, probably most times, when the situation is just too complicated and cloudy to allow us a the satisfaction that we crave. It is no coincidence that I am skeptical of simple answers and distrustful of certain people. I am not sure we ever know the truth. I'm not even sure it's something we should be worried about. Rather, in the face of uncertainty what should we do?

But there's something else about failure in this story: the failure to control one's life and destiny. Perhaps this is the more profound failure, the one that makes this story interesting. The protagonist, Wade, like many of us has a script for how he wants his life to go. One thing will follow another—war hero, perfect wife, political career—but all these turn out to rest on a rotten foundation. All turn out to be illusions that he creates to get others to love him. His failure to deal with reality leads to...what? His downfall, death, escape, love, tragedy, freedom, or more illusion?

Neil Nakadate, Looking After Minidoka

I know Neil as the nice guy who stops by my workplace from time to time. I knew he was an English professor, but really I didn't, still don't, know much about him. What I do know (a little) more about is the Japanese-American experience. Nakadate describes the struggles and paradoxes of a generation both interred in camps and serving on the front lines in World War II, the ways in which they both fought for their rights and lived with injustice. More to the point, he is bringing to the surface those things that have been hidden—for many reasons, by families and governments—and ought to be seen.

The book is part US history, part family history, and poetry. Maybe it's best understood as a new genre (or new to me anyway): the situated poem. Interspersed through the text are poems that bring us around to a more personal wondering about the experiences of that generation. But these poems would be meaningless to us, most of us, without some knowledge of who Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Yasui were, the differences among issei, nisei and sansei, and what Minidoka was.

Lewis Hyde, The Gift

I've had a passing interest in gift economies for the past decade or so, but the relationship has been troubled. To begin with I'm really bad at giving gifts, even at the expected times. I question what and whether the gift is appropriate and what it will make the recipient think about me. Simply put I'm bad at thinking of other people; it is hard for me to get out of my habitual self-consciousness. And gift giving is, above all, an act of—not other-centeredness—but group-centeredness; it brings the focus of the economy to the whole of the group and the group's needs, not the needs of the individual.

The first thing I read on gift economy, a long decade ago, was The Personalist Manifesto by Emmanuel Mounier. True to self-centered form, I pretended to understand it. Actually, to say that I didn't understand it would be charitable. I read the words, but comprehended nothing. Still, from the little I understand about personalism, it fails to be a group-oriented account, or if it is group-oriented it is a group that includes the entirety of humanity. A group that Hyde dismisses as too diffuse and too heterogeneous for a healthy gift economy.

What is needed for a working gift economy is a small group of people who share some goal. In Hyde's case: artists. Artists become part of a gift economy when they accept the influence of others in their tradition and seek to incorporate, increase, and give back to the community of artists. It's an argument that suggests our current understanding of intellectual property and creativity is misguided. Now, before you get all high and mighty on how artists need to make money note that Hyde does recognize this fact. But he also suggests that simply viewing art as a commodity, part of a market economy, is inadequate to the discussion. The book is an attempt to navigate these waters.

Art, as it turns out, is not simply a sack of grain. Art and other intellectual property gains value by being appreciated, commented on, quoted, and stolen. One reason that Shakespeare is still relevant today is that we are still using his works, still building on them. Similar things happen in all arts, visual, music, literature, film and so on. Some level of fluidity in the art community is necessary to creativity. Now art can certainly become a commodity, but this reduces its value as art either through dilution or, more likely, through excessive restriction. How can we recognize the necessity of homage, quotation, and outright theft, without denying the artist a living? It turns out, to almost no one's surprise, to be a difficult question. What isn't particularly difficult is that to be creative we need to turn to the tradition we inhabit and enter into a reciprocal gift relationship with it.¹

Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King

Bellow has been hovering around the edge of my reading list for a while now. It only took the suggestion that he is an author of failure to kick it to the top. And talk about failure he does. In fact he does it so well that I'm starting to wonder if he meant it, if the whole thing wasn't a failure in itself.² One might think that Bellow, having explored mistakes so intimately in his writing, would be aware of his own potential for making them and thereby gain some humility. But then it wouldn't be a failure would it?

Regardless, it is fascinating to watch Henderson make wrong decision after wrong decision based on his own simple understanding and certainty of the world. He believes himself smarter and wiser than he is. He believes he can help, can give the benefit of himself to the world. He wants to be a doctor, but can't seem to get the “first do no harm” part of the Hippocratic Oath. A man who wants to be a doctor to the world? Who desperately wants something to fix? Where have we seen this hubris before?

Alongside this is Bellow's use of metaphor. I found myself walking down the street, looking up and wondering: how would Bellow describe this? Would he turn the usual metaphor about the freedom and possibility of floating clouds into, “the clouds reached down to claw the earth?” I don't know. That's just what struck me now. It gets me thinking.

Thomas Harris, Red Dragon

I could criticize this book on the basis of genre—I don't like psychological thrillers, they violate my insistence on underdeterminacy in literature—but that isn't the point or why I read it. I read this because of Lewis Hyde and David Foster Wallace. Harris is a master of pacing, readability, and dialogue. Wallace respected that, saw what he was doing, and emulated it (and occasionally stole it. DFW was a fan of Hyde as well).

Most of all, I noticed that Harris' dialogue was always immaculately readable. He never suffers from the problem of confusion over who is speaking, however difficult the exchange. I could simply read a line and know, without any other textual help, who was speaking it. I would know that Jack Crawford was speaking rather than Will Graham just by the tone and attitude of the quote. And this is done without feeling stilted or unnatural. It's an incredible skill.

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I like literature. One of the reasons I like it is that it offers up multiple interpretations and spurs conversations about, well, anything and everything. The reason I point this out is that it would be really easy to make this novel into a morality tale; most readers do and most criticisms of the novel assume that it is so. But I think there's more going on. There are two things I'd like to keep in mind here. First the story is from the point of view of a young girl, a young girl who adores her father and thinks that he can do no wrong. I think most of us are like that in our childhoods, assuming that our parents are smarter, stronger, and more moral than anyone else. In my opinion this novel is the story of how Scout finds out that her father isn't the divine being she thinks he is. This leads to my second point: this is a story about how Atticus fails.

There are three values that seem to drive Atticus: the rule of law, the innate goodness of people, and non-interference in others' business. But these three values³ are bound to come into conflict and he is bound to fail. Atticus fails in the courtroom (note that Scout does not understand what is going on, in spite of her protests to the contrary). Atticus fails to be the head of his household; he lets his sister dictate what is right for Scout. And perhaps most tellingly, Atticus' values fail in the last scene of the novel; his faith in the rule of law and the goodness of other people is challenged by the events of the night. Ultimately he ends up compromising his values in order to keep the peace.

While I have not read, or read much about, Go Set a Watchman, I don't think we should be surprised by what an adult Jean Louise reveals about Atticus. Remember, the trial and verdict, while important to the story, are not its conclusion, rather it is the reminder that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Think about how robust—or more to the point, how weak—Atticus' values are, especially given their time and place. What do they entail? What do they allow?

1 For the most amazing example of this I recommend Jonathan Lethem's “The Ecstasy of Influence,” which I first read on the toilet. http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/

2 I know that one of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, completely misunderstands himself. Many claim his worst work as his best (Farenheit 451 is awful. Sorry). Bradbury doesn't write about the oppression of totalitarian governments, he writes about the soft oppression of culture, even if he can't see it.

3 You could probably generate an I Robot like series of stores based on these three values, or really any list of values.    

Books Read: May

Have I lost my last shred of humanity? Last month I was unable to read—bored with, really—two science fiction novels, but found myself staying up late and avoiding responsibilities to read Moby Dick. The two sci-fi novels weren't slouches either, Octavia Butler and Vernor Vinge are fine writers.  I simply didn't care. Melville though, wow. Even the spoilers didn't distract (the ship sinks, just like Titanic).

I suppose that sounds like a humblebrag. Maybe it is. As Muhammad Ali said, “It ain't braggin' if it's true.”¹ But then Ali wouldn't be worried about the humble bit.

I do think it's odd that I've (at least temporarily) lost my taste for sci-fi. It's not as though I haven't championed the genre before. I'll continue to do so. There's a lot of good stuff (and a lot of dreck, but that's largely a function of volume) in sci-fi. Here's the thing though, sci-fi is plot driven, moral driven, it has a clear arc of progress and a certainty that, even if we can't tell the good guys from the bad, at least we can know what they did. The facts aren't in dispute. Anytime sci-fi diverges too much from this, say in Delaney's Dhalgren, Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, or Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, it is difficult to peg as sci-fi.

What I appreciate, what got me excited, about the books I did read this past month is that they aren't so easy. They're epistemically impoverished and evidence rich. They ask the reader to construct the character as a real human being, not a caricature. I think it is this demand on the reader that makes literature meaningful. It is this demand that makes me want to write, to emulate (all humility aside) these writers and explore what it might mean to be human and reclaim that humanity that I've lost. Why is this? I believe we're all a bit of a mystery, even to ourselves—then again, I've been told, in the most strenuous way short of physical violence, not to project my own inadequacies and failings onto others. But what can I do?

It is tempting here to delve into specifics, to tell you why Ahab isn't the simple obsessive he's made out to be in popular culture, to go on a tangent about negative capacity, but this isn't lit-crit, this is a blog listing the books I've read since school let out in May. So:

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried.

This is the only book to read on how to tell, not just a true war story, but that oxymoron, the true story. I don't trust simple stories. I don't trust easy answers. If I could… But when someone tells me that something is true, or right, or obvious, my eyes narrow, I check my wallet, I lock my door.

I would say that these stories are universal, that they tell us something bigger, that these aren't stories about war. These are stories about life. But then I know better. I've been told. I can't comment—I'm not privileged to comment—on war stories. No, that's not right either. The privilege runs the other way. I'm privileged not to comment.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

There is nothing new under the sun. Everything has been done before, footnotes, lengthy asides, doubt, and so on. All those literary techniques and themes you thought were invented in the last half of the twentieth century were already used by Melville. And it's worth reading just for that.

There is an old joke that a classic is a book that people praise but never read. Perhaps. But I have found that classics are most often classics for good reason. I was bored by action and sci-fi. I've been bored by thrillers. I was never bored with Moby Dick. I read it in four days and when I read O'Brien's How to Tell a True War Story and then Chapter 54, 'The Town-Ho's Story,' I couldn't help but note that Melville had written a war story. Why did it happen? What's the moral? Wrong question.

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood.

This book sits next to on my shelf, shares a publisher with, and has a similar cover to The Stranger. That's serendipitous as the two also share themes of crime, purpose, and capital punishment. I think back to reading Camus in high school. I loved the book, but got a test question wrong. The question was, why did Mersault kill the Arab? I don't recall my answer, but I read into the story I couldn't help but speculate on why he did it. What it meant. But the correct answer, the answer indicated, was that the sun was in his eyes. That answer was too literal for me, yet not literary enough. How can you sum up the reason for the book in that phrase, “the sun was in his eyes?” Yes that's it. No it isn't.

Now, why did Dick and Perry kill the Clutters?

I didn't find this book terrifying in the same way that others seem to. I didn't have nightmares. I wasn't made nauseous.² I find it terrifying that Capote makes these killers human. He makes them your brother—you. I don't want to read about inhuman killers, Lecters and Dahmers. Inhuman killers, psychopaths, sociopaths, may as well be accidents, rockslides, lightning. Human killers—killers who are like us—that is scary. But that isn't it either. This book isn't scary at all. It is sad and only sad.

Thom Jones, Pugilist at Rest.

Another book of war stories. Similar to O'Brien, but where O'Brien looks at war as an all too real dream, a nightmare come true that one hides from, Jones finds his message in war as a place of belonging, a place that might be home and brings a perverted form of comfort that peace and civilian life fails to provide. The image of the Pugilist at Rest, the statue and the words, brings together disparate images, violence and peace, readiness and relaxation. The pugilist is never truly at rest. Or, if he is it is a kind of senescence. Here I can't help think of Muhammad Ali. Where do we find our value when our powers are taken from us? What are we good for? Ali has his answer, do we? Does it satisfy?

1 Muhammad Ali never said this.

2No, it was Rich Dad; Poor Dad that made me nauseous and wouldn't let me sleep. Dead serious, that is what my nightmares are made of.

Books Read: July

It seems I can only keep up with the books I'm reading on this blog. I do have more to say, about life, the universe, and everything, but getting it out of my head and onto the page doesn't seem to be happening. I think it's because I've been procrastinating on revising my writing sample (for the 3^rd time). If I turn on the computer and open up a word processor I feel obliged to write a couple of hundred words about the raven paradox and I'm a little sick of the raven paradox right now.

About three weeks ago I realized that in my rush to apply to grad school (an open secret) I had given someone else control of my happiness. Not one particular person, but just handed it over to professors, grades, acceptance into grad programs and so on. I don't do well (and I expect most of us don't) when I'm not in charge of my own happiness. I've been there before. I've handed happiness over to school before, to co-workers, to relationships. It doesn't work and it makes me rebel. I think it's a part of the reason that I didn't do well in school before. One of the things that allowed me to go back to school has been that I am doing it for my own reasons and not to please anyone else (you're welcome to be pleased about it, but I'm not doing it for you).

So upon realizing that I had turned those reasons, responsibility for my happiness, over to someone else I stopped and reevaluated. I had to approach this like an ultra. In the middle of a race you will lose your motivation and not want to continue. It happens to everyone. The trick, for me, is to look around and remind myself that this is where I want to be, I am doing what I want to do, and even if it isn't fun, be in awe of it and what I can do. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm in awe of all the learning I've done and the papers I've written. I know I'm not done and maybe I'll change my mind about grad school, but for right now it's easy enough to act as though I'm going to do it (that includes revising that paper). This is where I want to be and what I want to do right now.

Maybe I lied about not being able to get this stuff typed up. Once again I haven't read as much as I thought I would. I think that's in part for the reasons listed above. But looking back I guess I have read a fair bit, most of it classic sci-fi, the comfort food of books.

Infinite Possibilities, Robert Heinlein.

This is a collection of three of Heinlein's “juvenile fiction” novellas. Tunnel in the Sky was so-so. Although it had a few good psychological elements towards the end it seemed to be a stream of consciousness Boy's Life meets Lord of the Flies. Time For the Stars was much better as it had a good hard sci-fi grounding and explored the twins paradox of special relativity with literal twins. Not his best, but fun. Citizen of the Galaxy was the last and strongest. Not super deep, but it brings up some good points about how blind we are to what goes on in other places and cultures and different sorts of freedom. Besides, any novella that subverts the happily-ever-after trope by means of stifling bureaucracy is okay by me.

Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu/Stephen Mitchell.

A good reminder that I don't know as much as I think I do.

The Nine Billion Names of God, Arthur C. Clarke.

A collection of Clarke's favorites of his own short stories. Most of these follow the sci-fi short story formula pretty closely. Find a curious scientific fact/theory, run with it for a while, twist ending. Good stuff anyway. Clarke's dark but goofy sense of humor along with a frontier aesthetic and humanist ethic underpin these stories. It makes me wonder what is really important: here and now, something greater, or nothing at all.

Apology, Plato.

A good reminder that I don't know as much as I think I do.

Books Read: June

Well, I didn't do as much reading in June as I'd have liked to.  Actually that's a bit misleading.  I read a lot, but not many books.  There is just too much on the internet that catches my attention and keeps me from reading all the books I'd like to.  There's a surprising number of good articles out there.  Sturgeon's Revelation may be true, but 10% of the internet is still quite a bit.  I also got a lot read in a book I've been working my way through for a while, but probably won't finish for another month or so.  It's not an easy one.  Here are the books I read in whole in June:

The Limits of Science, Peter Medawar.
Really I wanted to read Memoirs of a Thinking Radish, but since the neither of the two libraries I have easy access to had it on hand I read this instead.  I think I read this one too fast and without enough thought.  He's an easy and accessible writer and a good anthropologist of science, but I think that made it easy to miss what he was saying in some cases.  I kind of stopped reading after he dismissed induction by way of an apparent paradox; a paradox that I think has been reasonably solved.  Not only that, but I don't think that, understood properly, that particular paradox bears on induction one way or the other.  Because of that rather trivial mistake I kind of skimmed the rest of the book so I may have missed what he was getting at.  I read him as saying something like Stephen Jay Gould, that science and religion are separate domains and never the two shall meet.  Of course hardly anyone believes this, not even Medawar or Gould.  Their religious beliefs were heavily influenced by their scientific worldview.  Still, a great scientist who I happen to think got the philosophy wrong is still worth listening to on the topic of what science is and how it works.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts In a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain.
As a self-identified introvert I object to the hamster ball theory of introversion.  I find it insulting to both the introvert and the extrovert, as though introverts are somehow fragile and special care needs to be taken or that extroverts are boorish and annoying and ought to back off, neither of which is accurate or useful.  I had hoped to find some alternative understanding in Cain's book, but it wasn't to be.  I don't think it's a bad book, and it certainly isn't as narrow-minded as the hamster ball theory, but it doesn't do much to explain introversion/extroversion.  The problem, I think, lies with trying to force the concepts to do more work than they are prepared to do.  For instance, Cain makes the case that introverts have trouble in school because schools encourage speaking up.  On the other hand Cain also makes the case that introverts do well in school because they can focus better than extroverts.  So which is it? Do introverts do better in school or worse?  I think the answer is that the I/E continuum doesn't have much to do with it at all.  There's a lot more in the book trying to reduce I/E to some other function like sensitivity or openness to experience, but these seem to be different traits that are at least partially independent of I/E.  Open/closed, sensitivity/insensitive, introvert/extrovert, liberal/conservative, fox/hedgehog. Once we cram everyone into some sort of simple dichotomy that purports to explain so much we end up losing what explanatory power the concept had to begin with.  Still, the concept does have some usefulness.  By knowing that I'm an introvert you know whether I'd generally prefer to go to a large exciting party with lots of people or talk one-on-one with someone.  Leave it at that and it's fine.  Then again the real case that Cain wants to make is that we ought to value the opinions of those who aren't outspoken or dead certain of their beliefs and that thesis seems entirely reasonable.

You can make it, (only) if you try.

There are a few things about pop-philosophy that really get to me.  What do I meant by pop-phil?  I mean aphorisms, mostly about how to succeed, what we ought to do with our lives, what we should value.  It's not meant to be rigorous, it's meant to provide some guidance; to reassure or inspire us.  Pretty obviously there's some spillover from/to pop-psych.  Mostly, I don't mind it, Epictetus' Enchiridion (hardly new) is probably the best of the bunch, but unfortunately some of the aphorisms in other works or oft cited on social media are just plain wrong.

The big one that bugs me is getting conditionals mixed up.  I suppose it could be affirming the consequent, but I don't even think that it's obvious what the antecedent and consequent are intended to be in many of these cases.  Usually it's something like:  If you work hard you will be successful.  If this is true then what do you know about someone who is not successful?  Well, they must not have tried.  But of course that isn't true.  People work hard and still fail all the time.  And what do you know about someone who succeeds?  Not much.  Maybe they worked hard, maybe not.  But flip it around, take the inverse and you get: If you don't work hard, you won't succeed.  That seems much more true to me.  And what do you know if someone doesn't succeed?  Not much.  Maybe they worked hard and something got in their way.  You don't know.  You can't point fingers.  You can't blame every failure on a lack of trying.  But at least you know what you ought to do if you want to succeed.  You ought to try.  You ought to work hard.

Another one is getting feelings mixed up with facts.  Confidence, fear, and epiphanies are some of the big offenders here.  One might consider these to be semantic disagreements, sometimes yes, but we still ought to be careful not to get too much spillover from one meaning to another.  Being selfish or judgmental is different from having self-interest or being discerning (respectively) even though these terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

I remember back in middle school someone claimed (in the gym locker room) that they weren't afraid of anything.  I answered back that I was afraid of lots of things.  I was justifiably afraid of falling from heights, getting in a car accident, disease, and the like.  Now maybe I'm getting fear and respect mixed up here, but I don't think the other guy was claiming that he had respect for heights, etc., it was a brag.  Of course being afraid here doesn't mean that I stayed in bed all day.  It meant/means that when I briefly worked as a rigger I clipped in, I do my best to drive responsibly, and I wash my hands, among other things.  Of course since we're talking about feelings versus facts here there are plenty of cases where it is unreasonable to have fear and fear is distinct from panic.

Confidence is a similar case.  If you are confident that you know what you are doing it doesn't mean that you do know what you're doing.  If you know what you're doing it doesn't mean that you're confident.  Well placed confidence is great.  It means you can apply your knowledge appropriately, but in many cases misplaced confidence is worse than no confidence.  Well placed confidence comes from long experience; from successes and peer evaluation.  If you think you're a great poet, but no one likes your stuff maybe you ought to take a step back (working hard couldn't hurt though).  Hedging bets and being unsure of oneself is a really great thing when it is called for.

I don't trust epiphanies or “ah-ha” moments either.  Just because I think I understand something doesn't mean that I do.  Just as with confidence, understanding is something that is proven through experience, not emotion.  If I read something and think, “yes, I got it,” I can't really be sure until I've checked my knowledge and believe me, many times I haven't “got it.”

“Do or do not, there is no try,” is still pretty cool however.

Be Careful

In my last post I mentioned that two of my professors had cautioned me to “be careful”. I think it's good advice and something I need to work at, especially in the field I've chosen. It's easy to take shortcuts and wave off mistakes with a, “you know what I mean.” Much of the time of course it's perfectly reasonable to be close enough or approximately right. Much of the time it doesn't matter. But then there are times when it does. Here are a few:

I try to be careful on this blog. I'm not always. Of course it's a personal blog and not a professional blog. The point isn't that I argue convincingly or am precise in all that I say. It's more important that I get across what I'm up to, how I'm feeling, and what I'm thinking. There's a balance to be struck here of course. Too careful and I write too much about too little. Not careful enough and I make unsubstantiated claims that deserve to fall. That said, in two of my posts of this year I have written about someone whom I don't know and been (at least a little) critical of them. In both cases one of the first responses was from the person who I was critical of! Its always a little shocking when someone I don't know reads my blog. I don't think that my criticisms were wrong, but if I had known they were reading I might have chosen my words more carefully and made weaker claims. I guess the internet really is a small place. All the more reason to be civil.

I've been taking an online logic class. Last night I took the first substantial quiz over the material. I missed a few questions. I didn't do poorly, but I really wanted to ace it. My first reaction to those questions that I missed was, “hey, that's a trick question,” or “that's just being pedantic.” True of course, but it's a logic exam: trick questions and pedantism are just exactly what the test is over. The real lesson is: be careful.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to play a game of Pente. For those who don't know it's a game somewhere between othello and connect four with a little go thrown in. I'm always a little leery of playing strategy games, somehow I think that if I don't do well it reflects poorly on my intelligence and thus my character, but knowing my lack of care, my need to improve, and remembering my “learning attitude” I decided to join in. I didn't win, but I did once force a loss. I'm actually looking forward to playing again.

Over the past couple of days I've seen some pretty heavy Facebook arguments get going. It starts with a post or shared link with some uninformed or ill-formed arguments in it. Then some other party, with a differing opinion comments and gives their own uninformed or ill-formed argument for the other side. In particular these arguments seem to get down questions of what is science, how does explanation work, and how do we know things. These are just the questions that I am most drawn to in philosophy. They're where I want to do work. But I do not feel qualified to butt in, even when the questions are exactly the ones I am working on. Why not? These are difficult issues. I don't know what the answers are much of the time. When I do have an answer or an opinion Facebook is not generally a good forum to discuss it. It's pretty much impossible to be succinct and yet get across an argument for why I believe something. I hardly want to assert that I know the truth because I took a class (one!) in it.  To really get something across I need to sit down, discuss, and think about it.  Thinking clearly isn't something that happens in 140 characters.  Devastating arguments don't happen in a three minute video.  

In sum: The more I learn, the less I know.   

Books Read: May

I'm in a bit of a quandary here. I read a book that wasn't exactly assigned for class, but does relate directly to what I'm studying in school. Actually I'd say that the book has gotten me in a little trouble. It caused me to go off on a tangent in a paper I was writing. In any case since I'm a bit fussy about what I say about what I'm studying I don't think I ought to write much about it here. When I do say something I want to get it right or at least have thought carefully about it. As more than one (two!) of my professors has admonished me, I need to “be careful.” So if you came here for a review of Pursuit of Truth by W. V. Quine you've come to the wrong place.

That said, I have done some less than academic reading this month. I won't try to justify it too much, but I do believe there is such a thing as 'marginal time'; time that isn't worth as much in terms of getting stuff done, but is well spent in entertainment or napping. Sometimes watching TV, reading celebrity autobiographies, or schlock fantasy really is the best use of your time. So with no further ado, here are the books I read in May:

Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

A well written fantasy novel. No dragons, but a few dungeons. It's pretty classic low fantasy fare, but Lynch does a good job of fleshing out the characters and giving some plausibility to their hi-jinks. I also appreciate that while this book is a part of a series it is also stand-alone. I like series, TV, movie, book, etc., that are either episodic (this book, Star Trek) or have a complete arc (LOTR, Babylon 5), but I can't stand those that are soap operas, that aren't going anywhere, but like to trick you into thinking they are (Game of Thrones, Lost, anything by Orson Scott Card). Lies hints at deeper back story, but doesn't make it essential to understanding and appreciating the story.

Singled Out by Bella DePaulo

I picked this one up while I was 'researching' my last blog post. I was looking for a single people's support group online, but there doesn't seem to be one. Or at least not of the sort I was looking for. The cursory search that I did pointed me to DePaulo's work and website. Apparently she's the big name in research on single people qua single people. That is, not single people who want to become coupled as their primary life goal.

The first few chapters are occupied with taking marriage researchers to task for sloppy and misleading studies and headlines. I think she does a pretty good job of demonstrating the problems that plague the field: conflating single with divorced, widowed, or coupled-but-unmarried, cross-sectional versus longitudinal studies, leading survey questions, biased funding sources. None of these problems are fatal, but they must be carefully parsed. What do the studies really say? DePaulo's own studies, however, seem to run into some of the same problems. She sometimes conflates categories when it suits her and her website sports a blatantly leading survey.

The second part of the book is more about the stigma and discrimination that single people are subject to. In large part I agree with her. Coupled people and even more so married people are given privileges that single people are not. Tax breaks and health care discounts on the more tangible side and a perception that they are less responsible and more selfish on the less tangible. Unfortunately she sometimes goes too far by suggesting that coupled people are in fact the less responsible and more selfish ones.  We'd best settle on what it means to be responsible and unselfish before we try and point fingers on those topics.

As I read it DePaulo is trying to make two different points in the book. First that single people are happy, healthy, and productive. Second, that they are but ought not be discriminated against. She uses the first point to bolster the second. I don't see the need for the first point though. It seems clear enough to me that even if single people were less productive, happy, or healthy in general that they ought not be discriminated against just for their 'alternative lifestyle.'

Test of Metal by Matthew Woodring Stover

Yes that's really the title. Sorry. It's a Magic: The Gathering novel. I've only played the game a few times (okay, only twice) and I had no idea that there was actually some sort of back story for the game. Apparently there is, or at least there is money to be made in selling novels with the name slapped on them. In fact this is a very well written fantasy novel. I've read a few of Stover's books in the past and true to form he elevates what can be a very painful genre to thoughtful and introspective heights. It might be that early on he lampshades a Gettier problem or that he talks in some detail about the consequences of the existence of many worlds (I'm a sucker for that stuff), but I really thought it had something going on. Stover is also well aware that he isn't writing a literary novel. He has no problem throwing in anachronistic phrases and acknowledging that he's writing for an editor and a shared world. It seems like he has fun messing with other people's characters. Also there are dragons in this one.

Being Single

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to reflect on being single. I needed someone to drive me to and from a surgical appointment and I didn't know where to turn. For a moment I was envious of those people who have someone special in their lives. Who know exactly who they are supposed to turn to in times of need. I don't have anyone like that; anyone who is my everything and who will do anything for me.

I have never really felt the need to be in a relationship. I've tried dating. I've had one relatively serious relationship that didn't work out. Other than that I've been single my entire life.  But I am perfectly happy on my own. In fact I was much less happy, much more uncomfortable, in a relationship. I felt as though I was always performing for my S.O. and never quite like I was myself. I told myself that it was just because I wasn't used to it, I would get used to including someone in all of my plans, and that eventually I would be able to be myself again. I would become comfortable. That didn't happen. I should have realized, I did realize, just two months in that the relationship was not going to work out. Still I continued, sure that I simply had to get over my misgivings.

Eight months later I finally called it quits. It was one of the best decisions I've made in my life. I was upset about it of course. It probably took me two years to get over the disappointment. No one likes failing at something, especially something that everyone is told they ought to do. Something we are told that we need to be truly happy. More than that though I was relieved. I was able to do what I wanted for the reasons that I wanted. (What I wanted was to race ultras, but I've already told that story.)

Still, there I was: low wage job, no car, no house, no kids, over thirty, and single. It looked like a recipe for no life.

Then a few years ago I was talking with a good friend who was also single. She asked, when are we going to get to real life? When do we start? I hadn't really thought about it, but the answer just came out of my mouth: Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans. We already had lives and our lives had meaning. I was a bike mechanic who liked his job and loved to race ultras. Who cares what other people, or even I, thought I needed to be happy? I was happy!

Since then I've tried dating a few times, but it hasn't worked out. Usually when I felt that someone else was interested in me.  I haven't been on a second date though and, largely, that's my choice. For me the costs simply don't outweigh the benefits. There is nothing special that a romantic relationship offers me that I need or particularly want. I am perfectly satisfied being single and the longer I stay single the more I think it suits me.

The realization I have come to is that I was being too narrow minded when I thought that I needed an S.O. to help me. I have relationships that work for me. Marriage or a coupled relationship is no guarantee that someone will be there for you and neither does being single guarantee that there is no one there for you. I had two great offers from good friends, people whom I trust, to drive me to and from my appointment. It was humbling to realize that I needed someone and more humbling to realize that someone really was there for me. My view of relationships was too narrow. I have friends to have intellectual discussions with. I have friends to bike or run with. I have friends to have deep personal discussions with. I don't need someone to be my everything when I have so many someones who are something.   

Some thoughts on going back to school

I'm two semesters into my return to school. I've managed to achieve my GPA goal (even if those weren't the grades I deserved). I'm off academic probation for the first time since I don't know when. So what have I learned?

I had to start out in community college because I had been kicked out of ISU back in 2000. I honestly didn't know whether or not I could hack it. I kind of figured I was an irresponsible know-it-all who was really not cut out for anything remotely academic. While I can't say for sure that I'm not an irresponsible know-it-all (I can think of one or two people who might describe me that way) I do know that I managed to pull off a 4.0 at DMACC. Honestly it's a little bit disappointing when you want to work on improving your writing and you get a paper back with a perfect score and a “Great job! Loved the Wittgenstein quote.” If anything makes you look like a know-it-all it's a Wittgenstein quote. Worse than perfect scores with banal comments though are A- scores with no comments at all. It's tough to improve if I don't know what to improve upon.

So anyway, I got back into ISU with the help of a few recommendation letters (thank you!). I still wasn't sure I could handle it. After all were my grades at DMACC just a reflection of my peers? It wasn't too hard to set the curve in those classes. Add to that jumping straight into 400 level philosophy classes after taking 100 level survey classes. Whatever one may say it is not true that philosophy is just bullshit. If it is bullshit it is very specific bullshit. You can be wrong, very wrong. I hadn't really bounced serious ideas off of someone else in a very long time and I know how bad it is to work in an echo chamber. What if my ideas were way off, stoner philosophy, or just plain crazy?

It didn't take long to figure out that school is not that hard. It is embarrassingly easy. Do the work, show up for class, ask questions. That's it. Occasionally I felt like I was cheating when I saw more talented students skipping class and turning in assignments late or not at all. Why should I get a better grade than someone who understands the material better just because I followed instructions? What is a grade supposed to reflect anyway?

I did pick up a few other lessons along the way: Don't worry about not understanding something or not doing as well as you'd hoped. This is what I have come to call a "learning attitude”. Why are you in school? To learn. If you already knew it you wouldn't be in school so don't be surprised when you get something wrong. Rather take that as an opportunity to improve. If you do think that you already understand then check your knowledge. I made sure to ask questions and try to restate my understanding of what we were learning. My motto became: Dare to be Stupid. If I said something in class and got it wrong I counted that as a victory. I had learned that I didn't understand. I knew where I stood and could move from there.

I can't say that I've learned these lessons perfectly. There is a (large) part of me that thinks I ought to get everything right and if I don't it's simply because I am not smart enough. I have to constantly remind myself how to succeed. Even though I have now managed a 4.0 at ISU I am still afraid of the echo chamber. Even though a (deeply flawed) first draft won me a scholarship for best paper I know I have a long way to go.   

Summer Break: Semester's Reading

Sorry it's been so long, but if you're a follower you know that I've been busy. Specifically I've been back in school. Now that I'm free for the summer I can go back to blogging in full force. Actually right now I'm feeling a little eager to blog, but that might just be because for the last semester I've been writing 2+ short essays per week. As I noted on my very first blog post though I started the blog (in part) to work on my writing in the hopes of going back to school. So that happened.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be back at it for the summer. 2-4 posts per month is the plan. I'll start with an easy one: Books read Fall and Spring semesters.

I'm not going to recount the books I read for class, though since I did take a sci-fi lit class in the Fall I certainly could. I'm just going to talk about the books I read for “fun”. (It has been a while though so I may have missed a few.)

-A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

(Almost) Exactly the same as the movie. Extremely well written and a quick read. I had been intimidated by it as it is one of those “classics”. I ought to know better by now. Books do not generally become classics if they are poorly written and unengaging. It isn't as shocking as the movie, I don't see how it could be, but it is worth the read. It's not for everyone and if it's not for you you probably know it. Still, if you read it or watch the movie you must commit. Watch the whole thing and don't dismiss it until you've thought about it a little.

-The first 200 or so pages of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Some books you just feel obliged to read (ironic, no?). I have been trying to read something, anything, by Rand for about 15 years now. This is the most I've managed. Some of you will ask, “Why do you even bother.” Others will ask, “What is wrong with you that you did't get it?” To the first question: I want to take it seriously and get beyond the caricature. Some people whom I really respect cite her as a major positive influence. One thing I don't like doing is simply dismissing someone's opinion without understanding why they hold it. I don't like saying, “You like/believe this because you're stupid.” It is condescending and stifles any meaningful conversation that could have been had. To the second I can only say, I don't get it. I have a basic understanding of the philosophy and I can see ways in which it makes sense. I can also see some problems with it. But really that isn't why I stopped reading it. Her prose is awful. It's like getting hit with a sledgehammer and not in a good way. She could have written a book on any of my favorite things and I still would have hated it.

-A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

A pretty darn good sci-fi novel. There's a lot to think about in this novel, mostly on the subject of what a mind is and how information moves. There is some fun sci-fi alienness, but that doesn't excite me much unless it's tied to an idea. Here just about every alien has a different form of mind and asks the question of what it means to have/be a mind. How does technology form a part of our mind? Is a community a mind? Is a mind a community? How do we get a detailed picture of the world with only the very little information that our senses give us? Good stuff.

-The Theory That Would Not Die by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

I thought I needed a little introduction to Bayes' theorem and this looked like a good way of getting a taste without getting too technical. It's a good story of how, where, and why the theorem works. I would have liked to see a little more discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the competing frequentist view however. One thing that I was grateful for was the appendix that shows (with actual numbers!) what is going on with Bayes. Working (struggling mightily) through the problems made me understand much better than I would have if it had just said: Bayes=Good (the text comes close to being a hagiography). Still, I'm not a committed Bayesian yet. I don't think it solves all the world's problems, but I do think it is a useful tool.

-The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

Have you heard of utilitarianism? Yes. Then you don't need to read this book. A cogent defense of utilitarianism, but nothing new and fails to solve the old problems (if you consider them problems).