WONDERING ABOUT WONDERING
Lewis Thomas:
Wonder is a word to wonder about. It contains a mixture of messages: something marvelous and miraculous, surprising, raising unanswerable questions about itself, making the observer wonder, even raising skeptical questions like “I wonder about that.” Miraculous and marvelous are clues: both words come from an ancient Indo-European root meaning simply to smile or to laugh. Anything wonderful is something to smile in the presence of, in admiration (which, by the way, comes from the same root, along with, of all telling words, “mirror.”
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ARENDT, KANT, AND JUDGMENT
Hannah Arendt:
He [Kant] asked: What are the conditions of our experience? Crucial for Kant is that for him, and him alone, the highest faculty of man is Judgment (and not reasoning, as for Descartes, nor the drawing of conclusions after conclusions as for Hegel.
Letter to Mary McCarthy, 1954. Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975, p. 24. (Compare Whitehead on reading Kant.)
SOCIAL INSECURITIES AND FOMO, 1954 VERSION
Mary McCarthy:
Saul Bellow was here too, with son and dog, not very friendly, either. In short, last month was rather paranoid, which got me rattled. That’s the worst of places like this, your value is continually being called into question and you shiver at social slights, even from people you don’t care for. And all your friends are eager to tell you, on the beach, about parties you aren’t invited to. You can’t avoid knowing just what your current status is, unless you stay in the house with the door locked. Even then you would have to emerge to buy groceries and in the store you would meet Mrs. Kazin, Mrs. Levin, Mr. Bellow, Mrs Wechsler, etc.“
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GRIEF AND REGRET
Cormac McCarthy:
Grief is the stuff of life. A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget.
The Passenger, p. 140
THE BONDS OF READING
Cormac McCarthy:
…having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.
The Passenger, p. 143
MAKING A READING PLAN
I spent a couple of hours yesterday making up a list of 20 books to read in fall 2023. I’m defining “fall” as the three months September, October, and November. This follows up on my participation in the 20 Books of Summer challenge. I found setting up and (almost) meeting the summer challenge to be a good exercise, so I’m going to continue it at least into the fall.
Yesterday, as I pulled the list together, it occurred to me that this is by no means the first time I’ve spent hours in July and August pulling together a list of readings. In fact, it was pretty typical for me to spend such time both in the mid to late summer and in October into November putting such lists together when I was selecting texts and supportive material for the classes I was teaching. Those times – like this time – were interesting and exciting, as I pondered the best (or at least not the worst!) combination of readings that would support and challenge students finding their way into an area of study.
Read moreTHE PRACTICE OF WRITING
Albert Einstein:
The most important method of education … always has consisted of that in which the pupil was urged to actual performance. This applies as well to the first attempts at writing of the primary boy as to the doctor’s thesis on graduation from the university, or as to the mere memorizing of a poem, the writing of a composition, the interpretation and translation of a text, the solving of a mathematical problem or the practice of a physical sport.
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RESPECTING TRADITION AT THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
Years ago, I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC shortly after it opened. I was overwhelmed by the different exhibits. The story told of that horrible time was both moving and profoundly depressing. I still remember details, especially the smell of leather when I entered a room where shoes of the murdered were collected. It’s interesting to me that olfactory memories are so pronounced.
One of the most moving parts of my time there came at the end, when we sat in a theater watching video of Holocaust survivors telling their stories. There were signs everywhere instructing people to show respect for the setting and the people on the screen by not taking pictures. I was sitting in the crowded theater between two people I didn’t know. Quite suddenly a woman sitting next to me pulled a camera out of her bag and snapped a picture of a man telling his story. I was flabbergasted and upset that she would violate the dignity of the room by taking a picture even with signs everywhere telling people not to do that. As I was wondering whether I should say something to her, I overheard her telling the person on the other side of her, “That’s my uncle.”
Read moreON TURNING 70
As I approached my 70th birthday last week, I realized that 70 suddenly doesn’t seem all that old any more. Of course this is not a novel observation (I know I’m not the first person to reach this age – in fact, I remember my mother saying, when she was about as old as I am now, “But I don’t feel that old.” – and of course I’m able to think it’s not so old in large part because I’m lucky enough to be relatively healthy and active. While I’m not all that bothered by turning 70, It disturbs me just a bit more to think that in just a decade I’ll be 80. Somehow that’s more difficult to swallow.
Read moreTHE PAST IN THE PRESENT
Virginia Woolf:
The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest satisfactions, not that I am thinking of the past; but that it is then that I am living most fully in the present. For the present when backed by the past is a thousand times deeper than the present when it presses so close that you can feel nothing else, when the film on the camera reaches only the eye.
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