AD- Ooh, Shiny!

I’m fairly certain I have ADHD – or, as a friend taught me to prefer calling it, ADOS (Attention Deficit – ooh, shiny!).

One of the things that most helps me to make sense of the rapid-fire thoughts in my brain is writing. Although I cannot string together five coherent thoughts in my brain, I can keep track of five coherent sentences (if only because I can reread what I’ve just written). Parentheses and dashes figure prominently, if only so I can interject – wait, I was supposed to put some crazy random idea there, but honestly the trees outside aren’t that random and attempts to write a stream of consciousness have generally been disastrous.

If there were a god of ADHD, it would surely be Mercury, the ever-changeable god of thieves, travel, and messages. And sometimes medicine. And pranks. And athletes. You get the idea. Mercury, the origin of the word for "mercurial", unpredictability, and the element once known as quicksilver...

Quicksilver-thoughts
Droplets rolling, roiling, pairing, parting
Never-still never-same – patterning poorly
Irregular, unexpected
Interjected
Accepted, rejected, undetected
Beautiful impossible shiny fishes slithering away
Flipping flippantly fluidly ungraspably
How does one order?
How can one make them line up straight and neat
Like iambs marching meekly in a row,
Not one undone, not one left incomplete
Each clearly placed just where it ought to go?
How does one trim the tangled skein of knots
To show a web of tidy tied-up thoughts?
And then the volta's early, out of place
Throwing off the rhythm and the rhyme
Uncertainty comes running on apace
Off-kiltering the slightly twisted line
The yarn unravels, raveled at the ends
Fibers fraying every which-a-way
The rhythm falters, breaking as it expends
Fails the ordering, all thought gone astray.
Empty
Gone
Ashes, dust, decay
Order drives quicksilver thought away.

That poem, by the way, makes more sense if you’re familiar with the sonnet form. (English teacher here; English class is, at least, good for helping you understand an English teacher’s metaphors!) The lines in between “How does one order?” and “Empty” are a warped sonnet. A classic sonnet is fourteen lines, each line in iambic pentameter (iamb: da-DUM beat; pentameter: five such beats) and following a fairly rigid rhyme scheme (multiple options here). The two most popular sonnet forms, Petrarchan and Shakespearean, both usually have a volta, or switch in tone, toward the end. The volta is usually after the eighth line or twelfth…

I miss the classroom.

This is why I’m a teacher, employed or not. I find this stuff so incredibly interesting, I can go on for ages.

And I adore sonnets. It’s doubtful I’ll ever consider myself a poet, but the organization of thought is wonderful.

And this whole post I’m typing in Word in my car on the way home, and I’ll probably edit it heavily before posting, but sometimes… sometimes it’s necessary to think out on paper. Even if thoughts come in ADHD-disorganized fashion. Squirrel!

Note: Didn't end up heavily edited at all. Although I did do a bit of fact checking; on what, I dare not reveal. ;)

Fair Use and Film

"In thinking it through, I made the analogy that if a student had written a paper that utilized four cleverly selected quotes from significant novels to make their point [instead of using four video clips], I would be exceedingly impressed by their literacy skills." -Quoted in The English Teacher's Companion by Jim Burke, page 326

This line struck me like a thunderbolt as I was reading for class. Since the inception of copyright law, fair use clauses have permitted people to quote limited amounts without any concern for copyright. I don't need to pay the author to lift a line or two, as long as I don't claim that author's work as my own; I can quote for reviewing or academic purposes freely, and no one cares if I quote a few lines in an original work of my own (again, as long as I give credit where credit is due).

So what's the deal with fair use for films? A quick Google search yields no regulations about film use, but there's a certain illicit feel to film clips and screencaps. Am I legally liable if I arrange a bunch of film "quotes" from copyrighted works into a new work? If I use a series of screencaps for a show? Why is there a distinction, and why are companies permitted to employ DRM which prevents even fair use of their works?

I don't deal in music and video editing, so the relevance to my life is limited. But with YouTube becoming increasingly regulated re: copyright, I can't help wondering whether anyone will remember the vital use of fair use in analysis, study, and creativity.

Nothing to say

I really don't have anything to say as I start this post. I've simply had my fill of reading, reading, reading for my class on Differentiating Instruction and must transition to writing somehow. Of course, the ideal outlet would be to write on my reading in the class forums, but I find I am disinclined to acquiesce to that suggestion.

This taking-classes-online thing is tricky, especially for an unemployed person with poor natural time-management skills. I also find myself with far too little time to write, too little time to talk, too little time to connect with people - because the natural connections of work and class have been broken. I suppose I could still write (look! I write! I'm a writer!), but I'm always left with the feeling that time could be better spent doing homework.

Perhaps this time could be better spent journalling ...

*glares at spellcheck*

You know, there is no law in the English language which definitely governs whether one does or does not double the final consonant when adding a verb ending. This little Microsoft Word convention seems to have caught on everywhere, but doubled final consonants are traditionally just an alternative, albeit more common in British usage than American. "Journalling" ought to be as acceptable as "journaling"...

...oh.

It is? Equally unacceptable?

Then learn a new verb. And learn also the word "spellcheck." You might find it useful.



There. Done. Where were we? Ah, yes, I could be journalling or working on fiction as well, but that requires that I actually feel like talking to myself (hmm, most of my recent journal entries are discussions of what I'm learning in class) or that I have an idea for a fiction story. Perhaps I should start a blog, even less frequently updated, wherein I publish my short fiction and poetry. It would be eagerly mobbed as people marveled (fine, I didn't double it, are you happy spellcheck?) at my brilliant ideas, then abandoned (or torch-and-pitchforked; maybe I should invest in a ruined castle or old windmill?) as everyone realized that I never get beyond ideas into an actual finished work worth reading. Except in essays where teachers insist on my finishing. Perhaps I should try reworking old essays for blog posts? But this of course will not interest many people. I find it brilliant that I pitted Beowulf against St. Andrew and brought in Sir Gawain to comment on the balance of faith and physical strength, along with Unferth making snide comments about Beowulf and St. Augustine pulling for Andrew, but few people will have both the knowledge base and the right sense of humor to appreciate it.

There's really only one solution. Post, and wikilink it to death so that everyone will learn more about these important topics! Now if only I can find a text of Andreas online.

And now for something completely late

As a junior in high school, I wrote an essay of which I was rather proud. I was given two months to write a comparison/contrast essay on a topic of my choice. I chose men and women. I learned a vitally important lesson: never choose the topic covered by the Dave Barry column you read in class. Your essay will not measure up.

We had to write multiple drafts, and I realized my mistake by the end of the first draft. Unfortunately, I then had only one night left to complete my remaining four required drafts. I was panicking (my notes show that I was considering comparing/contrasting Batman with Larry-Boy). Then, in a moment of inspiration, I discovered a topic and wrote one of my favorite compositions.

I typed it at the school library and failed to save a copy, which distressed me for years. Then, cleaning out my room one day, I discovered a folder full of schoolwork that I had considered important. Inside was my essay! There was much celebration. I determined to transcribe it as soon as possible. It has been a few years since.

In the frantic atmosphere of the end of the semester, I thought of this paper often. Now, having finished my last take-home final, I think it is time to transcribe the essay. Call it deep, call it important, call it thought-provoking - if you can do so with a straight face. And now, after nine years, I present my well thought-out Englilsh paper:

The Procrastinator and the Planner

I'm a teacher! I teach! - The First Hurdle

Today was a very important day. Today, for the first time, I faced down a class of high school students and taught them a lesson. I am officially a teacher!

(That is, until I'm flushed with triumph about teaching with my first official lesson plan in my methods course next semester. Or until I'm student teaching next spring. Or until I get my license. Or until I have my own classroom. Or until I've finished my first year. Or until that magic day when the class REALLY gets it. I reserve the right to name any and all future days The Official Start Of My Teacherness.)

How did I manage? Heroically, considering my deep dislike of presentations. I took presenting an old Scottish ballad to a bunch of apathetic, academically indifferent teenagers, looked it squarely in the eye, and... got myself good and drunk first, my old coping mechanism for nerve-wracking assignments.

Those who do not know me will have entirely the wrong impression now; those who do will be utterly confused. I do not use alcohol or any other foreign chemicals to get plastered. I simply distract myself working or surfing the Net or reading till the not-so-wee hours of the morning, and fatigue poisons do the rest. I used to think it was just procrastination; now I wonder if it's a half-deliberate attempt to hit an altered state of consciousness where I no longer feel nervous or frustrated, only euphoric or depressed.

Anyway, I chose my poem well. I managed to get the kids discussing the nature of fairies, and I managed to stop them at the point when they were looking at me funny by explaining that I wanted to discuss the magical kind. And they stuck with that! The first two verses, I let 'em struggle with the original poem. Then I asked them what they thought it meant, when the last stanza warns "'And nae maid comes to Carterhaugh /And a maid returns again.'" They seemed to agree with the girl who decided it must mean no maid ever comes back alive. All attention was riveted on me when I explained that the second time, "maid" was being used in the sense of "virgin". :-D It's sad how predictably it works, actually - load on the sex, and the kids are completely involved. After that point I gave them my quick translation so they could follow without getting utterly lost.

I lost their attention during the lengthy passage on how to free Tam - in retrospect, I should have emphasized more the odd situation of the man being the damsel in distress. Overall, I felt like I did an adequate job, but I could have done better. I also felt like I was getting off easy. This class was taught by an extremely experienced, competent, and deft teacher whose students were polite and well-behaved for this stranger while their teacher was watching. The teacher had also gotten their sympathy for me by comparing my student teaching to their senior exit presentations. The teacher also covered what would have been a woeful lack if I had been going solo - I completely neglected to review, highlight important points, take questions, etc. The teacher covered for me so naturally that I doubt the students noticed. I'm just glad it wasn't a formal lesson assignment. The review is the part where you actually hammer the lesson home; otherwise, odds are it'll be forgotten by nightfall. The teacher also improvised an excellent assignment: allow the students to write their own ballad. I would have spent more time collectively plotting before splitting the students into groups to work on different sections, but then, I would have planned this in advance or I wouldn't have been able to think of it at all. The teacher was improvising brilliantly with the time I left over.

I'm not being too hard on myself; I did well for what it was, and it's okay that I still have things to learn to pay attention to. (Dangling prepositions will be permitted in my class, thank you very much.) Still, it did get me thinking. I did a fraction of what a teacher needs to do, and I got the following review from a teacher who knows enough to know the lack:

"Ms. [gosh, it's weird to be called by my last name] taught a lesson on ballads (emphasis on "Tam Lin") on April 18. She had a class of 17 English IV Standard students in the palm of her hand. When she completed her lesson, the class decided she should be their teacher until the end of the year. :)"

Is it blasphemous that I spent the latter half of the period thinking about how God covers for us? We're allowed to stand or fall for the part we're ready to play, but for the rest, He covers so deftly that we look like we did something we can't. Here, a teacher made it look like I can teach a class. (Actually, God was probably involved too. Three hours of sleep following a sleep-deprived week, then no caffeine... but then, adrenaline does something too.) Another time, I might hold my temper with that complete and utter idiot, or I might offer good emotional support, or some sudden insight... but the minute I think I'm really doing well, that it's my contribution that's making the most difference, I'm kidding myself.

Still lots to learn and grow into!

The Terrible Trivium

Yes, I'm starting with another quote. Let's face it: quotes are how I frame the world.

The Humbug whistled gaily at his work, for he was never as happy as when he had a job which required no thinking at all. After what seemed like days, he had dug a hole scarcely large enough for his thumb. Tock shuffled steadily back and forth with the dropper in his teeth, but the full well was still almost as full as when he began, and Milo's new pile of sand was hardly a pile at all.

"How very strange," said Milo, without stopping for a moment. "I've been working steadily all this time, and I don't feel the slightest bit tired or hungry. I could go right on the same way forever."

"Perhaps you will," the man agreed with a yawn (at least it sounded like a yawn).

"Well, I wish I knew how long it was going to take," Milo whispered as the dog went by again.

"Why not use your magic staff and find out?" replied Tock as clearly as anyone could with an eye dropper in his mouth.

Milo took the shiny pencil from his pocket and quickly calculated that, at the rate they were working, it would take each of them eight hundred and thirty-seven years to finish.

"Pardon me," he said, tugging at the man's sleeve and holding the sheet of figures up for him to see, "but it's going to take eight hundred and thirty-seven years to do these jobs."

"Is that so?" replied the man, without even turning around. "Well, you'd better get on with it then."

"But it hardly seems worth while," said Milo softly.

"WORTH WHILE!" the man roared indignantly.

"All I meant was that perhaps it isn't too important," Milo repeated, trying not to be impolite.

"Of course it's not important," he snarled angrily. "I wouldn't have asked you to do it if I thought it was important." And now, as he turned to face them, he didn't seem quite so pleasant.

"Then why bother?" asked Tock, whose alarm suddenly began to ring.

"Because, my young friends," he muttered sourly, "what could be more important than doing unimportant things? If you stop to do enough of them, you'll never get to where you're going." He punctuated his last remark with a villainous laugh.

"Then you must -----" gasped Milo.

"Quite correct!" he shrieked triumphantly. "I am the Terrible Trivium, demon of petty tasks and worthless jobs, ogre of wasted effort, and monster of habit."

And, to follow this with a related obstacle earlier in the story, with the Lethargians:

"Well, if you can't laugh or think, what can you do?" asked Milo.

"Anything as long as it's nothing, and everything as long as it isn't anything," explained another.

"There's lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-

"At 8 o'clock we get up, and then we spend

"From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

"From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

"From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

"From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

"From 11:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

"From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

"From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

"From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

"From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

"From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

"From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

"From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

"As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we'd never get nothing done."

"You mean you'd never get anything done," corrected Milo.

"We don't want to get anything done," snapped another angrily; "we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help."

"You see," continued another in a more conciliatory tone, "it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?"

"I might as well," thought Milo; "that's where I seem to be going anyway."

Those are from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster. Shel Silverstein seems to have heard of the Lethargians:

I've been working so hard you just wouldn't believe,
And I'm tired!
There's so little time and so much to achieve,
And I'm tired!
I've been lying here holding the grass in its place,
Pressing a leaf with the side of my face,
Tasting the apples to see if they're sweet,
Counting the toes on a centipede's feet.
I've been memorizing the shape of that cloud,
Warning the robins to not chirp so loud,
Shooing the butterflies off the tomatoes,
Keeping an eye out for floods and tornadoes.
I've been supervising the work of the ants
And thinking of pruning the cantaloupe plants,
Calling the fish to swim into my nets,
And I've taken twelve thousand and forty-one breaths,
And I'm TIRED!

I'm astounded at how literature can be so aware of my busy schedule! It forgets blogging and Internet surfing for quotes, though. Also meticulously editing invisible HTML to clean it up where it won't be noticed.

Wisdom and foolishness

A line from Pride and Prejudice is ringing in my head: "We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room..."

I've always loved and identified with Elizabeth. Not that, you know, my infrequent blogging has ANYTHING to do with a disposition disinclined to discourse with a disinterested audience. Perhaps I need to set myself a schedule to offset the genius impulse. And moving on to tonight's topic, I apologize for its incoherence; I'm running on far too little sleep. But where would I be if I posted only when I wished to say something which will amaze teh interwebs? (Yes, Mom, that "teh" is intentional. Remind me to explain net slang sometime.)

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

-I Corinthians 1:20-25, NIV

I'm very fond of this passage of Corinthians - from around 1:10 till the end of chapter 2. I Cor 1:25-28 or so is quoted in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time, and is possibly my favorite part of that whole book. (One of these days I'll figure out whether the psalms in that book are Scripture or her originals.) When I discovered the source, I kept returning there. I liked to read and reread it; it's about how God chooses flawed instruments to reveal His glory. I still love that quote. I have not quoted it above. Because the part I quoted seems more relevant tonight.

Last week I had the privilege of watching Dr. Francis Collins, head of the now-completed Human Genome Project, give a lecture on science and faith (huzzah for people in favor of ending a fruitless, misinterpreted conflict!). Shortly thereafter, my mother lent me What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza, an interesting book that seems interested in being the Mere Christianity for the scientific mind. Today, a coworker brought up a scenario from his philosophy class challenging the right of Christ to forgive sins. All in all, the ideas wrapped up in the intellectual defense of Christianity are front and center in my mind.

Maybe the reason I like this section of Corinthians - that 1:10 or so through around the end of chapter 2 - is that it contains one of the rare mentions of intelligence. "The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate", in 1:19 - how encouraging! It seems that intellect is an ultimately insufficient means of understanding God. "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age?" Frankly, spread across the board. It seems one can divine truth neither by opposing nor by agreeing with the psychologist, the professor, the scientist. No, one must abandon all hope of reaching true wisdom or power without the aid of God.

It's interesting to me the way people read this sort of thing - the Biblical warnings about Christ appearing foolish to the world, etc. I suspect the atheist would simply say Christianity foolish, a historical misunderstanding ranging from laughable to lamentable. Many Christians seem to react by smugly believing that we'll show them someday! They laugh now, but we'll get the last laugh! They're the fools!

I don't like either reaction. I don't think God's wisdom is foolishness only to the world. I think that as long as we are in the world, even we who say we follow God's wisdom will find it foolish. I also think a lot of foolishness is justified by claiming to be God's wisdom. Unfortunately, while even the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, the foolishness of men is not. To react to this passage in any way other than with profound humility is to become the philosopher of this age with all the answers. (I would also love to reiterate the parallels I see between the Jewish/Greek conflict in the early Church and the conservative/liberal conflict in the modern Church, but that's another topic and I'm already wandering a fair bit.)

All this to say I like a reminder that being a fool for Christ is more than accepting humiliation - it's accepting humility.

I mentioned Mere Christianity above. Lewis is one of the greatest apologists for the Christian faith since Augustine. His strong intellectual arguments are popular to repeat in Christian circles. Unfortunately, they (like all arguments with subjects as all-encompassing as Life, the Universe and Everything) are flawed and fallible. Lewis himself was stricken by a loss in a debate on the subject later in his career. I wish I knew the details or the line of the arguments presented! I wonder sometimes if this blow shook his faith in any way, a faith closely tied with his faith in logic ("why don't they teach logic in these schools!"). I like to imagine that he went through a period of wrestling with God and questioning his faith in the intangible. I also like to imagine that this led to his creating my favorite defense of Christianity:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as ever I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for the Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

Puddleglum, The Silver Chair*

It is a divine foolishness, this search for Overland. And now that I'm done quoting more than Mrs. Who in A Wrinkle in Time, I'm going to bed.

*I suspected I wouldn't have to type this out for myself, that I'd find a quote by googling "Puddleglum four babies" (on the grounds that "four babies" is a rather unique part of the quote). I am happy to report that this worked beautifully. Except for the sloppy transcription on the first couple sites I tried. Linking turned out to be impractical.

Shamelessly literary ramblings

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
by John Donne

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I have no more.

I have a deep and abiding love for John Donne which will probably crop up repeatedly if I keep writing here. An intellectual trying to grasp incomprehensible truths, a pious man with a positive fascination with sex, a believer who often felt no faith whatsoever - the contradictions are delightfully puzzling and familiar. After four years of study and seven years of love, I forget how incomprehensible his language can be for modern readers.

Be glad I'm not posting an analysis of Satire #3 or Sonnet 14: "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God;" that I as yet but seek to study this one song of Donne's.

Anyway, this poem can be paraphrased thus: "God, will you forgive me for being a sinful human? Will you forgive me for sinning perpetually? Will you forgive me for getting others to sin? Will you forgive me for falling into that sin I thought I never would fall into? Hey, there's more I can list! Will you forgive my doubts, too? If you'll swear that it's all good, we're good."

But I love the refrain, because it's part of Donne's perpetual punning. Ordinarily I loathe punning with the fire of a thousand suns, but Donne's so dang good at it. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne, for I have more."

It's speculated, however, that there's another pun in that poem. See, his beloved wife's maiden name was More. "When thou hast done, thou hast not Donne; for I have More." The last line of the poem is usually rendered "I fear no more", but I prefer this obscure alternate version - "I have no more" - because I suspect it's what was on Donne's mind. His wife died a few years before this poem was written, and it broke his heart and almost killed him. "And having done that, thou hast Donne; I have no More."

Long, vaguely comprehensible rambling? Yes. But it comes down to this: this poem is, for me, a potent reminder of all the things I cling to before God. "I have More." This is the same guy who shamelessly wrote "For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love..." and is famous for his mingling of the sacred and the sexual. It must have been very, very hard for him to remember God with his wife, and harder still to face Him having lost his wife. How many good things do I put before God? Shamelessly? Nakedly? Will he forgive the sin through which I run, and do run still, which I ought to deplore? And when will I learn to deplore it? (Donne was also the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral; I suppose he was probably quicker on the deploring front than I.)

A fancy way of saying I've been prioritizing terribly lately. I've got to get on that tomorrow.

Thinking in italics

And this was right. And it was fate that had let Edward recognize this just when he'd got his Plan. And it was right that it was Fate, and the city would be Saved from its ignoble present by its glorious past. He had the Means, and he had the end. And so on... Edward's thoughts often ran like this.
He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance.

Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms

I love Terry Pratchett. Very perceptive man. Okay, so the Discworld books are silly books, meant to be taken lightly. I'm going to commit the grievous sin of taking this seriously. Because it's true.

Thinking in italics is a very dangerous talent. Although truth be told, if all those without the talent tried to watch all those with it, those without would find themselves severely outnumbered. Most people think in italics at least some of the time. The right way to live. The best literature/theater/food/wine. If nothing else, we find ourselves thinking along the lines of how wrong it is to always think in italics, the way everyone [else] does.

Thinking in italics ought to be treated as carefully as morphine. It's addictive, it's dangerous, and in large quantities it's poisonous. One is tempted to ban it entirely. Yet in some extreme cases, it's the only solution. If slavery isn't wrong, it will be tolerated for its many economic conveniences. If honest dealing isn't right, Enrons will abound.

I'm not good or wise enough to say exactly how italics should be allocated. I do say that we should try to be aware of our italicized thoughts, and subject them to particular scrutiny.

And now I shall return to Discworld and silliness.

Addendum

When Hamlet says "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," could we also take it to mean that more things qualify as heavenly and earthly (rather than infernal) than we might expect? Not that Hamlet's exactly a source of divine truth, but a point worth pondering. Or so it seems to my sleep-fogged brain.

Madness and musings

I really should have picked another time to start a blog. The end of my senior year of college, with its research papers and exams, is not the ideal time to have a distracting hobby.

The better part of my focus now is on my 20-page paper on fairies in seventeenth-century English literature. You'd think that would be specific enough, but no, there are a lot of possibilities to be narrowed down. I'm comforted by the fact that my authors were in something of the same predicament. You see, they lived in a time when understanding of the world was becoming increasingly scientific - or trying to. Alchemy, magic, philosophy, and natural history were all intermingled with theology and ancient literature, all trying to find a Theory of Everything. The medieval world had gotten it down to a fine art, explaining how the influences of the stars, plants, angels, animals, elements, and humans all interrelated and danced to the music of Divine Providence, to the rhythm of the music of the spheres. Copernicus had hammered this worldview in the sixteenth century. Philosophers began to question their fundamental premises, and came away frightened by the realization that many things could be explained by "secondary causes" - not everything was a divine miracle kept going only by the constant direct intervention of God. An attempt began to restructure everything, to take the pieces and put them back together in a new shape.

There was little division of labor in academia at this time. One man might be physicist, chemist, biologist, theologian, psychologist, sociologist, economist, historian, linguist... the list goes on. On one hand, it meant that any given writer tends to have a wide range of expertise. On the other hand, it means that any given writer tends to have a wide range of expertise. This is how a doctor creating An Anatomy of Melancholy (basically, a treatise on clinical depression) came to be one of my sources on fairies, in his Digression of the Nature of Spirits. (This doctor was named Richard Burton, but wrote under the pseudonym Democritus Junior. We'll call him DD, for Dick Democritus.)

DD is pretty clear on the subject of my thesis, i.e. the nature of fairies. Quite simply, they are devils. In fact, it's rather hard to discern the spirits known as fairies amidst the demons, pagan gods, classical heroes, and ghosts. Among his (demonic!) water spirits, for example, DD lists succubi, Diana, Ceres, "water Nymphs or Fairies," and the witches with whom Macbeth and Banquo had their friendly chat. "Terrestrial devils, are those Lares [Roman household gods], Genii, Faunes, Satyrs, Wood-nymphs, Foliots [DD claims they're Italian sprites], Fairies, Robin Goodfellowes, Trulli [trolls], &c." Linnaeus would be proud. Each kind of spirit known to man is neatly categorized and labelled. (There are also sections on fire and air spirits, as well as subterranean and superlunerary; I'll leave that digression to DD.)

All, however, are demons. It doesn't matter that brownies and Lares seem to exist only to serve humankind without serious reward. Nor does it matter that a great many of the water Fae in medieval and Renaissance literature are portrayed as helpful to mankind, rewarders of virtue (think the Lady of the Lake).

Is this a universal trait? Do we take all people who don't readily fit into our preexisting categories of "angels" and "humans" and consign them to be "demons"? I don't want to demonize DD. He had likely never met a brownie and might have revised his opinion of them if he had. But demonizing is so easy, so natural with that which we don't understand.

How many people would demonize God if they understood how little we understand Him?

EDIT: I find that I misremembered the name of my source. Democritus ought to be ROBERT Burton, not Richard, and therefore Bob Democritus. Or Bob Burton, BB. Or whatever.