metablog post 1/15/2009

1/15/2009

Each of the roads must be taken separately, because the laws of physics won't let us be in more that one place at a time. We are not Schroedinger's cat and we must be somewhere, otherwise we wouldn't be anywhere at all, which is interesting philosophically, but pretty much sucks in reality. I want/need to do several different things siimultaneously (multitasking is ubiquitous), but that might just result in getting Lost.

So here I am, at the crossroads. Let's look at the different signs and see if we can get some direction from the Crone, or maybe from the Scarecrow.

Even though the different lines on the me map are not in any particular order (the me map is more of a circle or a spiral than a hierarchy) text on a paper is linear, so I will start with the first line first.

Study

I am a firm believer in lifelong learning but I wasted my college years learning thing that left me ignorant of the core of a “good education.” I am like Radar O'Reilly when he says, “ah, Bach.” He doesn't know what it means, but it sounds good. Between my crappy memory and the fact that I was able to slide by without learning much in classes, I can talk about Shakespear or semantics or singers of songs...as long as I don't have to provide depth or back up my rambling with facts.

I can provide a list of half a hundred things I might want to read about, but I get distracted and bored too easily and I go from one thing to the next without picking up more that a smattering of knowledge. It's easier when I am held accountable and forced to follow a syllabus and when I can listen to an idea presented various ways and hear other people's thoughts on a subject. I may not have thoughts, or if I do, may not be able to express them in a way that anyone wants to hear.

In any case, I am going to create a “class” with three core textbooks and use it this semester to provide structure to my reading and thinking.

Camille Paglia, Break, blow, burn (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005).

Bstan-dzin-rgya-mtsho (the 14^th Dalai Lama), How to practice : the way to a meaningful life (New York: Pocket Books, 2002).

Jonah Lehrer, Proust was a neuroscientist (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007).

Each of these books will provide value in itself, will provide a guide to other readings and help me in other areas that I am mapping.