Losing my Shadow...

2010-02-13T00:38:00.000-08:00

"The ethical view of the universe involves us at last in so many cruel and absurd contradictions, where the last vestiges of faith, hope, charity, and even of reason itself, seem ready to perish, that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all. I would fondly believe that its object is purely spectacular: a spectacle for awe, love, adoration, or hate, if you like, but in this view--and in this view alone--never for despair! Those visions, delicious or poignant, are a moral end in themselves. The rest is our affair--the laughter, the tears, the tenderness, the indignation, the high tranquillity of a steeled heart, the detached curiosity of a subtle mind--that's our affair! And the unwearied self-forgetful attention to every phase of the living universe reflected in our consciousness may be our appointed task on this earth--a task in which fate has perhaps engaged nothing of us except our conscience, gifted with a voice in order to bear true testimony to the visible wonder, the haunting terror, the infinite passion, and the illimitable serenity; to the supreme law and the abiding mystery of the sublime spectacle."

-Joseph Conrad, A Personal Record

2010-01-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

"Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patters that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

~Cormac McCarthy, The Road

That Terrible It

2010-01-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

I had the (typically) impossible idea to finish War and Peace in the last five or so days of Christmas break. That means about 150-200 pages per day. Yeah, like that's going to happen. I'd really like to see a ratio of the people who start reading W&P compared with people who finish it. I estimate it at 10,000,000/117 human beings. Sweet Mary, do I miss mathematics?

Anyway, I came across this passage describing Tolstoy's awkward, discontent and intemperate character Pierre, who unfortunately reminds me greatly of myself and certain of my close friends:

Sometimes Pierre remembered what he had been told of soldiers under fire in ambuscade when they have nothing to do, how they try hard to find occupation so as to bear their danger more easily. And Pierre pictured all men as such soldiers trying to find a refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, some in the government service. "Nothing is trivial, nothing is important, everything is the same; only to escape from it as best one can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that terrible it."

When I was younger I used to dislike people for distracting themselves with every type thing in life and never looking life directly in the face. Now that I'm older, I realize how much I do the same.

Good morning cruel pragmatic world...

2009-12-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

It's a funny thing, lying down in bed,

Recalling the day, deeds done and words said,

Absorbing the rays, the glorious moonbeams,

Seeing perfection, in thoughts and in dreams.

It's a funny thing, waking up in bed,

With serpentine hair, the need to be fed.

Thoughts swarm through the mind, devouring the crop,

The daily affairs for dreams will not stop.

To hell with this paradoxical hex!

Let's just eat good food, and have lots of sex.

Balance.

2009-04-03T04:29:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that college can have a debauchering effect. Few people know who their identity when they arrive here, and so many people, including myself, find themselves worse individuals than they thought they were before. So considering this, I'm making a effort to set my priorities straight and establish balance in my life, which means keeping myself healthy in all ways--praying a studying Scripture, running and working out, eating healthily, keeping facebook time to a minimum, studying hard, etc.

My problem is that my entire life is cyclical. I follow on course of action for six months and then I seek back into apathy for a while, then return to that course of action. I don't know if all men are cyclical in nature, but I certainly am.

The drawing shows Dr. Jackson, who builds up my soul and tears down my GPA.

My thoughts exactly.

2009-03-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

"Then to me, too, return those times,
When I myself was growing still,
When a clear fount surcharged with rhymes
Sprang self-renewing from the well,
The time the world was swathed in veils,
When yet the bud held wondrous bowers,
When I would pluck the thousand flowers
That richly covered all the dales.
Nothing I had, and yet enough for youth,
Delight in fictions, and the thirst for truth.
Return untamed to me those surges,
That agonizing blissful ruth,
The strength of hate, love's mighty urges,
Alas, return to me my youth!"

~Goethe in Faust

Average people live average lives.

2009-01-24T22:59:00.000-08:00

Dr. Jackson, my English professor, reminded my class that all our actions are imitations of other people. I know this is true. I'm certain I've never done anything unless someone else's actions incited me to do it. Moreover, I'm certain I've never had a single original thought. Every one of my thoughts resulted from other people's thoughts.

I believe people can have original thoughts and actions, but only when God gives them those thoughts and actions. I'm not one of those people.

When I was young(er) I hoped I would be a great writer along the lines of C.S. Lewis, or Dostoevsky. But here at Hillsdale I meet so many people who are more intelligent than I, more talented than I, and have a much more promising future than I do. Hillsdale has and continues to teach me many things, but one of them is this: I am average. I have nothing original to give to the world.

Average people live average lives. They get a married, get a desk job, have a few kids, weather existential crisis or two, retire, and die. I know I'm average, but I don't know if I want to do any of those things. But maybe I ought to.

Politics

2008-10-01T22:17:00.002-07:00

It amazes me that the students here at Hillsdale have such an exhaustive knowledge of politics and political philosophy. If you ever find yourself lost in Hillsdale, Michigan, take my advice: Don't get involved in a political discussion. Religion? That's fine--the students here don't know much about that. Philosophy? That's OK--the average student knows a bit. But Politics? Don't do it.

It's not that the vast majority of Libertarians and Conservatives here don't know what they're talking about. They do. As soon as open yourself to the possibility of a political debate they will eagerly engage you. If you happen to disagree with something they say, they will drown you in an obsequiously infinite flow of examples and statistics, many of which you suspect are made up.

This is not true of every Hillsdale student, but it is true of many. The problem for me is their arrogance and close mindedness. Democrats as a whole are frequently regarded as stupid and mindless (which may be true of many, but certainly not all). "How could anyone believe that!" and so forth.

In all thinking matters, nothing is so annoying to me as intellectual arrogance and close-mindedness. It may be obvious to you that the purpose of government is limited to protecting the human's right to life, liberty and property; but it is certainly not obvious to me. I don't know where I stand politically. Libertarianism seems too simple to me, Conservativism blends Church and State dangerously and Liberalism doesn't understand human nature. Where does that put me? I don't know, but I do know I know no one's going to find out where they stand politically when they can't look at other positions with new and humble eyes.

*This is a critique of many Hillsdale students. I have had some great conversations with many other Hillsdale students about politics, philosophy and religion. Hillsdale is a great school, probably in the top ten in this nation. However, this political attitude is one of its few downsides.

* * * * *

The picture is a sketch of my philosophy teacher. The kid who sits next to me in class saw it and suggested I major in art, which is of course, ridiculous. But still, it was a nice compliment.

2008-09-21T22:15:00.001-07:00

Last week the readings, the essays and the tests hardly mattered. My mind inhabited a different place and time--a classroom thousands of miles away one year ago.

I wonder, what is death? Is it a cessation of existence? If so, then life is really nothing more than matter that moves. But life must be more than mere movement.

A world without rising action, without a buildup of plot is a strange world. I could be walking to my first class tomorrow morning and get run over by a truck. In an instant my life is over for no particular reason. How sad to die randomly, not because you completed what you were here to do, not because the plot of your life was reaching a climax, not because you were fighting for a hopeless cause, just because you got on a particular train on a particularly normal day. Just because.

How very strange.

* * *

When swift flying Death cometh to me,

I shall no doubt go frivolously

And be remembered for a mere week more

Only in the writing boring and poor

Of a newspaper obituary.

2008-09-14T20:53:00.001-07:00

Death puts all in perspective.

Please pray for the Souser family. Mr. Souser, was killed in the California Metrolink train crash this friday. He was a husband and father of three, and taught my high school economics class. He also recommended Hillsdale to me.

Please pray.

What can we know?

2008-09-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

My philosophy teacher is about two-hundred pounds overweight and honestly, during the first class I had a hard time taking him seriously (which shows the importance of appearance, regardless of what Disney and cultural proverbs would have us believe). However, today I have a new perspective. The guy is a genius and a great teacher.

We read two of Descartes' Meditations in which Descartes decides to abandon all beliefs that cannot be proven absolutely. Descartes rejects authority and the senses as suitable foundations of knowledge based on the fact that they are fallible. He goes so far as to deny the seemingly objective aspects of reality such as mathematics, based on the possibility that even they might be fallible. It is possible that there exists a depraved God who delights in deceiving mankind and thus, even mathematics might be a chimera.

My philosophy teacher left us with this question: "How can you know anything for sure?" How do you know for sure that the things you perceive are real? That you aren't living in a Matrix? Descartes eventually concludes that at the very least we can be sure that our thoughts are real and thus, through them we can uncover the rest of reality. I'm not so sure. How can I know that what I believe exists truly does?

This is a drawing of my sister, though it hardly looks like her. I'll probably put some piece of artwork in each of my posts, whether it be a drawing, poem, short story, etc.

2008-08-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

So this is my new blog, replacing the arrogantly ambitious xanga of my high school years.

The topic of my posts will be inconstant, though you can bet a good many will involve felines, females and philosophy. And bacon.

That's it. Vaya con Dios.