paying attention

I really liked this quote, by one Todd Kashdan, in an interview over at The Happiness Project:

When I think I know something, I stop paying attention.

I don't see this as anti-intellectual (as in "don't try and figure things out" or "you can't 'know' anything"), I see it as staying humble (as in "you could be wrong; you could have more to learn").

Then again, there undoubtedly are things that don't warrant much attention.

Still, there is something to be learned even from, say, Paris Hilton. For one, I recall that one can learn by positive as well as negative example, i.e., what not to do. . . .

The important thing is to pay attention.

Just maybe not to Paris Hilton, or she'll wear this bathing suit again. Let's not encourage her.

spending time

Does spending time make something real? Can you really be friends with people you never see?

It's a big question for me, in light of all the facebook, myspace, digg and twitterings.

You could spend your whole day keeping up with all that - and end up completely alone, with a life effectively un-lived.

So: what makes something "real"?

Perhaps the better question is: what's real?

never again

I have learned as much - possibly more - from the "never again"s as I have from the "wow, that worked out nicely"s.

I'm thinking that remembering this might help me actually go through the experience I am never again wanting to experience. . . .

the backdrop

All meaning requires context, does it not? Yes, it's a basic idea in Philosophy 101, but let's not dismiss it as "elementary, my dear."

Context can take the shape of the "other" - the necessary backdrop for comparison. One's self, and an 'other'.

The ultimate backdrop of meaning is the finite and the infinite. That's the reflection of meaning that leads us to look to God. But the finite can't really even think infinite, just as we [in time] can not comprehend an eternity that has no time. I can think of it only in terms of time - a looooooong time, for example, which is what we usually mean when we speak of eternity. . . .

How is it, then, that we see glimpses of the infinite all around us, and know immediately what it is, even as we know we can not know it? It's a mystery. . . . A common one, perhaps, but mystery nonetheless.

I think it's a good thing to think about every now and again, especially upon waking up in the middle of the night.

caution: words!

Words are our main means of communicating, yet so easily misunderstood. Whether that is a failure of the words or the failure of our own underlying understanding is not always so easy to determine.

I had to laugh today upon reading Kierkegaard saying

I for my part have applied considerable time to understanding Hegelian philosophy and believe that I have understood it fairly well; I am sufficiently brash to think that when I cannot understand particular passages despite all my pains, [Hegel] himself may not have been entirely clear.

This is the same man who wrote:

Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but as superior - yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation takes place only by virtue of the universal; it is and remains for all eternity a paradox, impervious to thought.

Right.

Of this man, we so easily affirm that he held faith to be non-rational. Some people even say that he found faith to be IRrational. But is that really what he said? I don't think so. It's much more simple - and yet much more complex - than that.

Take care with what you define - and how you define it - as well as what you think goes without need of definition. Those words are sometimes the hardest words of all to define.

______________________

Both quotes are from his Fear and Trembling - the Princeton University Press Edition, p. 33 (the first quote) and pp. 55-56 (the second).

Augur Day

Inauguration Day.  An 'historic' day, as we are being told over and over again by the talking heads of the media.  

I suspect that every day augurs well for the chance of new beginnings if we will but show up and take hold. That's a secret of life:  most of the battle is won just by showing up.

Likewise, every day is 'historic' insofar as it passes into history as it ends. . . .  which leads to another secret:  every day can be a new beginning - no need to drag along past days.  Let them pass.

I do not mean to take away from the special new beginnings of this Inauguration Day, 2009.  May it augur well for the United States of America.  May we truly be united: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Oh God:  how long has it been since I've said/prayed that?  Suddenly I see myself a small child, wearing saddle shoes, a maroon jumper, and a Buster Brown haircut.  Solemnly I place my hand over my heart and face the flag at the front of the classroom.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands:  one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I wonder what ever happened to the rest of that class?  Peter Bowie - he still comes to mind surprisingly often.  Where are you, Peter?  And Pete, with the Italian last name.  Irene Dunne, the little blonde minx I used to race to the toilet at recess (there was only one for us girls). . . .  All of us solemnly standing to face the flag.  I wonder what they're thinking this Inauguration Day?

beginnings

Beginnings start small, if they are to start at all.

Only in tales of the gods do their offspring spring forth, fully grown.

We start much smaller; much slower.  First, we take a deep breath. . . .