Temp Check 13/13: What I did on my Summer Vacation

So, have you ever watched the Olympics, or any gymnastics competition actually, and noticed the poise of the participants? No matter how poor the performance, no matter how many missed moves, no matter that the dismount was more of a fall-and-collapse, the gymnast springs up beaming and salutes the audience and the judges.

Here's my version:

This happy affect belies the reality; the truth is in the tally sheet to the right [edit: it has been moved to below in this post]: WARMER was pretty much a crash-and-burn, at least statistically. I had set a goal of 91% engagement with each element of this year's Summer Self-Improvement Scheme™, and the numbers just don't pencil out:

Writing: was gonna do the hour-a-day-for-nothing-but scheme - 72% 

(only because I included blogging)

Art: was gonna make a sketch or drawing a day - 30% 

(yeesh)

Reading: was gonna make sure I set aside time to read every night - 94% 

(well, that's a bright spot!)

Music: was gonna practice the uke every day - 47% 

(was actually doing pretty well until mid-term)

Exercise: was gonna keep up with my daily workout - 75% 

(again, better earlier, worse later)

Road work: was gonna walk, run, or longboard daily - 81% 

(that's okay, actually)

Live by the spreadsheet, die by the spreadsheet, I guess. What's more important than these arbitrary goals is keeping this focus on productive play as we move forward through the rainy season. I am teaching a full load and taking a class, so time management is gong to be very important: I can't let things just slip-slide away. But I remain confident.

And look at that last day - at least I nailed the dismount!

Excellent book by community college instructor

So, one part of WARMER that has been going well despite overall trends is the summer reading program, and the latest book in the series was The Deepest Human Life, a philosophy primer by Scott Samuelson, a community college philosophy instructor in Iowa City. Here's the TLDR: if you want an overarching understanding of what it means to do philosophy and are only going to read one book, this might well be the one to read.



I don't know if I have ever told the true story of how I got my first job teaching in a community college. The philosophy chair of local school had posted on Craig's List looking for a last-minute replacement instructor for an evening section of Philosophy 101 and had specified that the course text would be Samuel Enoch Stumpf's Philosophy: History and Problems. With no teaching experience and a master's degree in English, not philosophy, I responded with a note that began by describing how I had three grab-in-a-fire books in a rack on my bookshelf: a complete Shakespeare, Aristotle's Rhetoric, and a second-edition Stumpf that I had owned since the late seventies. I went on to explain how the book had been my go-to philosophy reference for twenty years and how I dipped into it on a regular basis just to keep myself somewhat immersed in philosophical thought. None of that was a lie, and it got me the job, or at least the interview that led to the job.

This book is a strong contender to replace that one, or at least to supplement it.

Stumpf, as the title indicates, comprised two sections: History, a chronological overview and summary (Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary) and Problems, a selection of primary sources from all periods addressing the topics of Ethics, Religion, Politics, and Epistemology & Metaphysics.

Samuelson collapses this model. After a lyrical prelude, he investigates four questions: What is Philosophy, What is Happiness, Is Knowledge of God Possible, and What is the Nature of Good and Evil? Each section has an interlude, a vignette usually drawn from Samuelson's experiences at Kirkwood Community College, and the book closes with an overarching conclusion.

This structure allows Samuelson to move somewhat chronologically through the history of philosophy -- we do begin with Socrates and end with Hans Jonas -- but because our inquiry is based from the beginning around topics, the flow of the discourse is much more like a conversation than a lecture and the tone much more like a memoir than a textbook. Samuelson successfully blends precise, specific philosophical discussion with everyday language, analogies, and examples in precisely the way San Kean did less deftly with his explanations of DNA in The Violinist's Thumb. The Deepest Human Life is a joy to read on every page.

The difference in structure and the difference in timbre speak to a difference in intent: while Stumpf is clearly and unapologetically a reference work about philosophy, Samuelson has given us a personal perspective on doing philosophy. While a close reading of The Deepest Human Life will let you come away with a broad contextual understanding of the development of western thought, the book is really about inspiring the reader to think - and act, and live - more philosophically.

I think in some ways the book might be an attempt to replicate the experiences that Samuelson and some of his students have had in his community college classes: he describes how the introductory study of philosophy occasionally leads some students - or Samuelson himself - to profound insights, critical understanding, or new ways of dealing with life-and-death situations, important decisions, or just daily living.

While reading sections like "The Exquisite Materialism of Epicurus" and "The Mysterious Freedom of the Stoics" was like visiting old friends, of especial interest to me was the extended consideration of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. "The Ecstasy without a Name," Samuelson's discussion of the 11th century Iranian philosopher's journey from skeptic to Sufi, was a fascinating inquiry into the nature of the spiritual and mystic experiences, topics that are less in my daily ken than others. This section is perhaps paradigmatic of Samuelson's approach: while Stumpf presents religion as a topic for consideration, Samuelson addresses the question from a very quotidian standpoint: every day, each of us chooses to believe in god or not; how can we do that with any confidence at all?

If you wish you could have a conversation with a friendly, supportive, smart friend about all the Big Questions you want to consider, you should consider reading The Deepest Human Life. It will be worth it.

Did I mention that Samuelson is a community college instructor?

Temp check 12/13: almost over (thank goodness)

So, a check of the tally sheet over on the right shows a little bit of pre-fall free-fall going on. It would have been a pretty disappointing week if hadn't been for my discovering Babymetal.

(check 'em out) 

Anyway, as might be said in politics, WARMER has not been an unqualified success. The lofty goals embedded in the concept and the strong performance early in the season have given way to a perhaps less-ambitious regimen. I have been honest throughout; I'm not like this guy:

(check his stuff out - it's good)

but that is, of course, cold comfort when it comes to assessing my own performance. However, we will save the post-mortem until the patient is actually dead.

This week included two RPG game nights, one civilian game night, one working lunch, one playing lunch, a couple of catch-up sojourns, and a beer-drinking, carpet-buying afternoon adventure that almost but not quite resulted in a car being impounded. And long afternoon at the tattoo place where I got married, getting this:

(yeah, I posted about it already, but it's really cool)

Two point seven five for number four

So, I got a new tattoo today up at Two Birds. Since Coco was there for the process, we have voluminous photojournalistic coverage, which I have edited down to a manageable amount, to wit:

Art Design

Stencil on

The great Tarah Pennington wields the machine

Black lines

Karmin watching; Coco shooting

Colors

Coffee break (sort of)

Almost finished

Yup

Done

Voila

Love and rockets, everybody.

Temp check 11/13: Uncorked

So, there's a passage in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff that has always stayed with me. He is describing an instance of early rocket plane testing in which Chuck Yeager's plane experienced what the boffins called inertia coupling and what the pilots referred to as becoming uncorked: the plane "lost all semblance of aerodynamics and fell out of the sky like a bottle or a length of pipe." Yeager fell seven miles unconscious before awakening at 25,000 feet and getting the plane into a spin. A spin is bad, but it is a better kind of bad than being uncorked, and Yeager managed to pull the plane and himself out of danger.

I feel like the WARMER program has become uncorked. I hope that in the next two weeks I can at least put it into a spin and pull out before augering in.

And that's all I'll say about that.

The week held one marathon day of some for-sale craziness, two D&D games, a catchup with Diane in a blessedly air-conditioned Panera, an oil change with some liquid sandwiches, a long luxurious dinner out with Coco and Sissy, and two full days at PAX, as well as other goodness. Still a good summer.

Feliĉa Tago de la Laboro

So, it seems Labor Day is the day we all get together and pretend to celebrate the working class, while ignoring both the sacrifices made by early labor organizers and trade unionists to obtain the benefits we all enjoy today and the growing inequity in the distribution of wealth and income in our country.

Enjoy the holiday from your labors, whatever they may be, but let's keep our eyes open. Here's a sample of (hopefully) thought-provoking items from around the web:

• Even the government recognizes that Labor Day was intended to celebrate "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations."

• Here's an overview of the reversal of economic trends since the heyday of unions.

• An editorial from North Carolina that recounts the narrative of labor history that many people today have forgotten or never knew.

• Another editorial from Massachusetts talking about the importance of a living wage.

So, as the presidential proclamation exhorts us: observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that honor the contributions and resilience of working Americans.

And just so you don't think I'm too much of wet blanket, have fun, too!