Hello again, friends
Thanks, Marcy, for edging me along to post again. Things have been pretty alright for me. I'm in a new apartment with a long-time friend, and in a newish job, so there's been some transition. I'm most proud of the fact that my student loans are aggressively being paid off, and after my most recent payments are processed, I'll have less than $3K, meaning, I think, freedom to travel and learn some skills by the new year. I may end staying at my job a whiel longer to save a bit, but that's to be determined in months to come.
I've read some interesting things since last I posted, most notably The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, by Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation. It helped inspire me in a renewed way to eat more exclusively locally and to try lots of different vegetables.
Also watched What the Bleep Do We Know, which was alright, but not great. I mean, I'm really open to a lot of that out-there stuff, and it was fun to watch the movie with my roommate and my partner, who seem often to be at odds philosophically. My roommate is much less open to these ideas, and I think he's a good example of seeing one's worldview as a fortress rather than a prison, as Ran articulates. I really do think that how he and I differ is that he's a lot more suspicious and guarded, and I'm (perhaps naively) more willing to open and benevolent toward new information. I understand- he comes from a family who he thinks don't always form ideas based on reason, and often on received wisdom, which often means the 'wisdom' of the dominant paradigm, and rationality is the way to combat that. He's also a middle school teacher and is faced with illogic and prejudice, which reason is a defense against. I mean, it's hard, and I am sympathetic to where he's coming from, but I just prefer to be more (foolishly) open to crazy ideas and I want to accept things that may not make 'sense.'
On the other hand, I really do retreat to reason and use that as my defense when I am forced to interact with prejudiced people, folks who are misogynist or homophobic, and so in some ways my openness is contingent upon being in a supportive environment where all the tedious stupid popular misconceptions and biases are not present.
Hopefully that makes some sense.
More to come, I hope. Thanks for reading, y'all.
I've read some interesting things since last I posted, most notably The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, by Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation. It helped inspire me in a renewed way to eat more exclusively locally and to try lots of different vegetables.
Also watched What the Bleep Do We Know, which was alright, but not great. I mean, I'm really open to a lot of that out-there stuff, and it was fun to watch the movie with my roommate and my partner, who seem often to be at odds philosophically. My roommate is much less open to these ideas, and I think he's a good example of seeing one's worldview as a fortress rather than a prison, as Ran articulates. I really do think that how he and I differ is that he's a lot more suspicious and guarded, and I'm (perhaps naively) more willing to open and benevolent toward new information. I understand- he comes from a family who he thinks don't always form ideas based on reason, and often on received wisdom, which often means the 'wisdom' of the dominant paradigm, and rationality is the way to combat that. He's also a middle school teacher and is faced with illogic and prejudice, which reason is a defense against. I mean, it's hard, and I am sympathetic to where he's coming from, but I just prefer to be more (foolishly) open to crazy ideas and I want to accept things that may not make 'sense.'
On the other hand, I really do retreat to reason and use that as my defense when I am forced to interact with prejudiced people, folks who are misogynist or homophobic, and so in some ways my openness is contingent upon being in a supportive environment where all the tedious stupid popular misconceptions and biases are not present.
Hopefully that makes some sense.
More to come, I hope. Thanks for reading, y'all.
posted by Archangel at 4:46 PM
1 Comments:
That's funny b/c I just recently watched "What the Bleep..." Actually, I didn't watch all of it. It grated on my nerves a lot.
I used to read some new age stuff when I was in college, and I did get some value out of it...but the things I got the most value were the ones that were more "psycho-spiritual." Things like the idea that people don't make you mad/sad/upset/whatever, it's your thoughts about the situation. And things like gratitude. I've even experienced something that was referred to as "your willingness to do whatever it takes will often remove the obstacles from your path." And I'm on board with mind/body medicine to an extent. Happy people are healthier, duh.
But, when these new agers start claiming they can affect reality with their thoughts alone, I'm skeptical. It's no different than prayer. If the answer is yes, no, or maybe, then you can't prove anything. And blaming a person's lack of faith or belief in why something didn't materialize isn't helpful, either.
So, when I was watching the movie and the guy said something about the Indians not even seeing Columbus's ship b/c they had no knowledge of ships, I turned it off and sent it back to Netflix.
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