Meditations #40

 You cannot hope to be a scholar. But what you can do is to curb arrogance; what you can do is to rise above pleasures and plains; you can be superior to the lure of popularity; you can keep your temper with the foolish and ungrateful, yes, and even care for them.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eight

Damn, MA, I already feel bad about my lack of scholarly production, way to pile on. 

Actually, I've always loved this passage from the Meditations. As I think about my upcoming talking for the Vermont Public Philosophy Week I suspect that this passage will find it's way into the talk. My point is that, when thinking about the books that made me a better person - or at least gave me the tools to be a better person - I would always include the Qur'an (and I first said this before I ever converted to Islam), the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I think it is a potentially rich topic because they are, on the surface, three remarkably dissimilar sources. And yet, I think there are definite liminal spaces where the three converge, one of them being a sense of your relationship to a larger world, and the role that you can and should play in it. There are things that we, no matter our station or position in life, can do, and one of the first is to, as MA reminds us, "curb arrogance." Certainly the Qur'an reminds us of that, including the consistent reminder to control our temper. I think Proust says the same thing, although in a roundabout and maybe contradictory fashion; that is, I think it shows us the folly of those actions, as compared to merely lecturing us on them.

Meditations #39

 The daily wearing away of life, with its ever-shrinking reminder, is not the only thing we have to consider. For even if a man's years be prolonged, we must still take into account that it is doubtful whether his mind will continue to retain its capacity for the understanding of business, or for the contemplative effort needed to apprehend things divine and human. The onset of senility may involve no loss of respiratory or alimentary powers, or of sensations, impulses and so forth; nevertheless, the ability to make full use of his faculties, to assess correctly the demands of duty, to coordinate all the diverse problems that arise, to judge if the time has come to end his days on earth, or to make any other of the decisions that require the exercise of a practiced intellect, is already on the wane. We must press on, then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.

Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book Three

And since I mentioned my upcoming talk during the Vermont Public Philosophy Week, I guess I should get back into the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, not simply because of the event, but also because it continues to be an essential human activity.  I always come back to this justifiably famous and influential passage from the Meditations. It helps explain why learning Portuguese or giving talks like the upcoming one for Philosophy Week (or my one in the fall on Fernando Pessoa) or finishing the Epics and Ramadan in Winter books are so important to me.  I think it also helps explain why I dropped off of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. We simply don't have that much time, and before we ever end altogether we start to decline mentally. I need to keep living and exploring, even if it's "just" an intellectual quest.

Vermont Public Philosophy Week

 Yes, this is actually a thing - and, strangely enough, I'll be giving a talk during Vermont Public Philosophy Week. As with most things, I came to this fairly innocently. My great friend Erik Esskilsen was asked by the UVM professor who runs the series to talk. EE had, as is his wont, said something fascinating/provocative in a newspaper article so Tyler asked him to speak, and he would have done a great job. However, Erik and his family are going to be out of the country, so he passed along my name instead. As is well-documented, I hate public speaking with the fiery passion of a thousand suns (mainly, it just makes me very nervous). Still, I agreed because I do like to support local efforts, especially those designed to provide a more meaningful and intelligent public dialogue (although having me speak isn't guaranteed to produce either). I asked Tyler if I could give my talk out here in the wilderness, as compared to the big city (at least our big city) of Burlington. He loved the idea and said that one of his goals was to have talks all around the state and not simply in Chittenden county. Then I proposed a talk based on Three Books That (maybe, potentially, hopefully) Made Me A Better Person, which would feature the Qur'an, Marcus Aurelius, and Proust. He also loved that idea. Clearly, Tyler is made of sterner stuff, and my clumsy attempts to get out of the talk were all for naught. So, I guess I have to pull something together. Actually, I think it could be a fun topic and talk, and I don't have to drive more than a couple miles to bore or annoy people (normally I have to drive to campus to do that).

700 Days

 Yes, I recently blew by 700 straight days on Duolingo. I've mainly moved on to Pimsleur, which is both a much better (read: you have to pay for it) site and one that actually features Iberian (as compared to Brazilian) Portuguese. Most language sites automatically default to Brazilian Portuguese mainly because of math (our ancient enemy): there are over 200 million Brazilians and only around 10 million Portuguese. Happily, Pimsleur offers both, so I can focus on the original Iberian version. I don't think that my time on Duolingo has been a total waste, however, because I've learned (according to the site) thousands of words and I've learned a lot about the inherent logic (or illogic) of Portuguese sentence structure. I knew the biggest difference would be pronunciation (although not the only difference, obviously) and, wow, what a difference. I've been reading a couple books on Portugal and one of the authors described Portuguese as windsurfing between consonants (and I would add, hard consonants). All those soft flowing Brazilian consonants are a thing of the past. For example: good morning/day, bom dia: goodbye bom gee-a (almost more of a shee, actually), hello bom Dia. And where , onde: goodbye onjee, hello onDe. It also tends to mush everything together, while cutting off the ends of words quite dramatically. Take good night, boa noise, for example: Brazilian is more boa noiche, where Iberian is boa noiT. So, quite a challenge. And the s's at the end of words are dramatically turned into sh's (hence the wind-surfing). And the pronouns are routinely dropped. Still, I'm enjoying myself, and maybe I'll actually make myself understood in Portugal, but don't bet on it.

Happily, we're heading back to Portugal over spring break, so three weeks from today we'll be back in the convent in Evora.