Monday:
In honour of this weekend's Poetry Symposium a friend and I hosted, here is one of the pieces read that night:
- Adrienne Rich, 1976.
I had a dickens of a time picking just one poem from that night! So I picked the poem about a poem.
The experience of poetry is quite different when read out loud.
Also, played my first round of bells with the other members of the Warwick Bell Ringing Society. I was on bell 4(?). Under Vic's guidance, I started my ringing and before I knew it, the other players had gathered around the other bells and were ringing along. It was so cool. I'm glad I did little beyond just be in the moment.
Tuesday:
No lectures today and tomorrow. One of the interesting things about the lecture structure here is that the term lasts 10 weeks, but the lectures don't. Some last 7 weeks, some 9. Some courses meet once a week, some thrice. The outcome is a slow lecture beginning and end to the term. And might I add, since I'm here, that these are shockingly short terms. I don't, however, think the longer US semesters are any better or worse than the shorter UK terms. It's still a matter of orienting to a schedule and meeting deadlines, regardless.
So here's a true story about a little old lady on a Tuesday afternoon:
In a posh, little English town, where the average age is 65 and coffee shops flavour the soil, a teacher waited with her learners on the street corner. The teacher, tired from a full day of returning pilfered store wears and snatching up hidden joints, stared off in the distance, dreaming of tropical islands and warm briny breezes, and took another long draw off her cigarette. The relaxing smoke swirled around her face then whipped into the air to follow traffic.
"Oy! Teach! Why you smokin', but then say we can't?" This was Kieran, poster boy for the group of rejected learners.
"What are you talking about? You smoke all the time? Since when have you ever done what I ask?" and with that, she took another drag.
*BLURRRM!!*
Everyone, teacher, learners, custodians, and magpies quickly turned in the direction of the blasting horn just in time to see a double-decker city bus barrel on through and nearly side-swipe a little old lady. They looked on with a mixture of awe and horror. It was only for a second, maybe less, but they collectively held their breath for a second more.
After the bus passed, the little old lady looked around for a bit, blinked her tired, wrinkly eyes a few times, took notice of the onlookers and shuffled over. On her short trek she made sure to correct her red scarf, straighten her cashmere shawl, and check the tilt of her Sunday bonnet.
"Did you see that, that my dear?!" she asked the nearest learner.
"I did! I nearly shit me pants!" replied Kieran.
"Me too!" agreed the little old lady.
Wednesday:
Another work in progress...
Have you ever heard of the "hedonic treadmill"?
You should, you're chained to it. And you will continue to be until you die.
"Freedom and autonomy are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically."
- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
With that in mind, the hedonic treadmill helps partially explain Mr. Schwartz's claim why we're failing to psychologically benefit from such desired freedom and autonomy. It seems to be a very human thing to want to be happy, and happiness is unquestionably vital to personal well-being (though difficult to pin down). So we do things to achieve that happiness. We move in some sort of forward progression toward happiness. However, for most of us (and don't think you're so removed that you don't fall into this trap yourself) under most happiness-pursuits, we simultaneously acquire a new concept of 'happiness'.
For each of us, at least one idea has formed about an experience or achievement that will bring more happiness. To date, you've experienced and achieved many things that brought happiness. You laughed, felt elated, smiled uncontrollably, what-have-you, but those initial feelings of happiness didn't last. That joy of achievement didn't last. The initial palpable goodness of the desired experience didn't last. But you've had a taste - or a banquet - of that good thing, and now that *thing* is required to maintain happiness.
Why is that? You were happy before the acquired good, but now you won't be as happy without. That is because you are not progressing forward toward happiness. You are walking a treadmill that gives the illusion of forward progression. This is due to a sick joke innate in humans. We walk toward happiness, but inevitably balance back to a *neutral* state, which feeds the desire for more pursuits of happiness. As we pursue, we equilibrate, as we equilibrate, we pursue. However, we never actually sustain a single forward step.
Sounds awful, but do realise it works in the other direction, as well. Sadness does not last. Pain does not last. The crushing blows of life and living, do not last. We eventually find an equilibrium. Such is the life of a human.
Friday:
Nothing happened other than everything. Enjoy a great song :)
oh yeah, finally successfully chased down my research professor!
In honour of this weekend's Poetry Symposium a friend and I hosted, here is one of the pieces read that night:
Origins and History of Consciousness
(The Dream of a Common Language)
I.
Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis.
No one lives in this room
without confronting the whiteness of the wall
behind the poems, planks of books,
photographs of dead heroines.
Without contemplating last and late
the true nature of poetry. The drive
to connect. The dream of a common language.
Thinking of lovers, their bind faith, their
experienced crucifixions,
my envy is not simple. I have dreamed of going to bed
as walking into clear water ringed by a snowy wood
white as cold sheets, thinking, I’ll freeze in there.
My bare feet are numbed already by the snow
but the water
is mild, I sink and float
like a warm amphibious animal
that has broken the net, has run
through fields of snow leaving no print;
this water washes off the scent—
You are clear now
of the hunter, the trapper
the wardens of the mind-
yet the warm animal dreams on
of another animal
swimming under the snow-flecked surface of the pool,
and wakes, and sleeps again.
No one sleeps in this room without
the dream of a common language.
- Adrienne Rich, 1976.
I had a dickens of a time picking just one poem from that night! So I picked the poem about a poem.
The experience of poetry is quite different when read out loud.
Also, played my first round of bells with the other members of the Warwick Bell Ringing Society. I was on bell 4(?). Under Vic's guidance, I started my ringing and before I knew it, the other players had gathered around the other bells and were ringing along. It was so cool. I'm glad I did little beyond just be in the moment.
Tuesday:
No lectures today and tomorrow. One of the interesting things about the lecture structure here is that the term lasts 10 weeks, but the lectures don't. Some last 7 weeks, some 9. Some courses meet once a week, some thrice. The outcome is a slow lecture beginning and end to the term. And might I add, since I'm here, that these are shockingly short terms. I don't, however, think the longer US semesters are any better or worse than the shorter UK terms. It's still a matter of orienting to a schedule and meeting deadlines, regardless.
So here's a true story about a little old lady on a Tuesday afternoon:
In a posh, little English town, where the average age is 65 and coffee shops flavour the soil, a teacher waited with her learners on the street corner. The teacher, tired from a full day of returning pilfered store wears and snatching up hidden joints, stared off in the distance, dreaming of tropical islands and warm briny breezes, and took another long draw off her cigarette. The relaxing smoke swirled around her face then whipped into the air to follow traffic.
"Oy! Teach! Why you smokin', but then say we can't?" This was Kieran, poster boy for the group of rejected learners.
"What are you talking about? You smoke all the time? Since when have you ever done what I ask?" and with that, she took another drag.
*BLURRRM!!*
Everyone, teacher, learners, custodians, and magpies quickly turned in the direction of the blasting horn just in time to see a double-decker city bus barrel on through and nearly side-swipe a little old lady. They looked on with a mixture of awe and horror. It was only for a second, maybe less, but they collectively held their breath for a second more.
After the bus passed, the little old lady looked around for a bit, blinked her tired, wrinkly eyes a few times, took notice of the onlookers and shuffled over. On her short trek she made sure to correct her red scarf, straighten her cashmere shawl, and check the tilt of her Sunday bonnet.
"Did you see that, that my dear?!" she asked the nearest learner.
"I did! I nearly shit me pants!" replied Kieran.
"Me too!" agreed the little old lady.
Wednesday:
Another work in progress...
[Hand in the grinder]
The machine does not think,
The machine performs.
Sometimes, the machine breaks,
And a mechanic is needed.
And sometimes, just sometimes,
The mechanic lacks understanding
Of the machine.
An elbow is carelessly rested,
A lock is poorly secured,
A glance at the most perfectly wrong moment,
In the most perfectly wrong direction.
And the machine whirls again,
The machine performs as required.
With no preamble,
Snatching up the mechanic.
The machine tears flesh,
The mechanic screams.
Nip points reroute tendons,
The mechanic protests.
The machine only works in one direction,
The mechanic can only fight in the other.
The machine will never be reasoned with,
The machine does not think,
The machine only performs.
The mistaken mechanic can only succumb,
To the machine.
Blindly and painfully entwine with the machine.
The mechanic was never meant
To bend that way.
Thursday:
Have you ever heard of the "hedonic treadmill"?
You should, you're chained to it. And you will continue to be until you die.
"Freedom and autonomy are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically."
- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
With that in mind, the hedonic treadmill helps partially explain Mr. Schwartz's claim why we're failing to psychologically benefit from such desired freedom and autonomy. It seems to be a very human thing to want to be happy, and happiness is unquestionably vital to personal well-being (though difficult to pin down). So we do things to achieve that happiness. We move in some sort of forward progression toward happiness. However, for most of us (and don't think you're so removed that you don't fall into this trap yourself) under most happiness-pursuits, we simultaneously acquire a new concept of 'happiness'.
For each of us, at least one idea has formed about an experience or achievement that will bring more happiness. To date, you've experienced and achieved many things that brought happiness. You laughed, felt elated, smiled uncontrollably, what-have-you, but those initial feelings of happiness didn't last. That joy of achievement didn't last. The initial palpable goodness of the desired experience didn't last. But you've had a taste - or a banquet - of that good thing, and now that *thing* is required to maintain happiness.
Why is that? You were happy before the acquired good, but now you won't be as happy without. That is because you are not progressing forward toward happiness. You are walking a treadmill that gives the illusion of forward progression. This is due to a sick joke innate in humans. We walk toward happiness, but inevitably balance back to a *neutral* state, which feeds the desire for more pursuits of happiness. As we pursue, we equilibrate, as we equilibrate, we pursue. However, we never actually sustain a single forward step.
Sounds awful, but do realise it works in the other direction, as well. Sadness does not last. Pain does not last. The crushing blows of life and living, do not last. We eventually find an equilibrium. Such is the life of a human.
Friday:
Nothing happened other than everything. Enjoy a great song :)
oh yeah, finally successfully chased down my research professor!
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