A gnawing hypothesis

Shorpy Historical Photo Archive.

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:

--Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. 

Monday Update, tempo edition

In distance training, whether on a bike or in running shoes, there's a thing called a "tempo" workout, wherein you choose a moderately challenging pace and keep it up over a fairly considerable distance.  That's opposed to something like a sprint or interval workout where you vary the speed from quite slow to very fast.  I think a teaching term is much like a tempo workout, and for me, it usually takes me the first 45 minutes of a ride to get comfortable with what I'm doing--just like it took me all of last week to feel comfortable with what I am doing back in the full job.

The Triathlete and I had triumphs of our respective sorts this past weekend; she of course ran a superb race in her triathlon, winning first in her age division and 7th overall of all the women.  And she had so much fun that she has actually had a difficult time returning to normal life with the rest of us regular people.  I, on the other hand, received word that I've had an essay accepted at the 2014 Southeastern Renaissance Conference in Greensboro NC...which means that in early October we will be traveling back to our old stomping grounds for the first time since we moved to NTWN in 2005.  It also means another publication for me, and the start of the productive phase of the sabbatical study I've been doing.

So, although the sabbatical is over, and I've got a tighter schedule than I had just a couple of weeks ago, It seems that things will be okay as I adjust. Though I'm a slow starter, once I get going I do alright.

Plus/Minus

Plus:  Glad to be teaching this summer term--having the opportunity to make a little money to help out the bottom line of the family. Those opportunities are about to dry up completely.
Minus: Summer teaching is exhausting; there's no way around it. And I'm out of shape when it comes to the energies involved.

Plus:  I used the time well this past semester, learned a lot, did a lot of writing and editing work.
Minus:  Didn't do nearly enough.

Plus:  A couple of months ago I turned a corner personally and have been able to move forward in my life with a far more positive, constructive outlook.
Minus:  I mourn the five years during which I stagnated personally and professionally.  It is going to take a long time to get back to where I should be.

Adventures With Students, Vol. 51

Students on the first day of class when I'm making jokes:



GIFSoup

Monday Update, Back to Work Edition

Maya Desk--Dare Studio. Definitely not my office.

Sabbatical is over. I start teaching summer classes tomorrow. I don't know how it is at other institutions, but the summer teaching opportunities have just about completely dried up here. As in many other respects, the pace of change is leaving us grasping at straws, more or less unprepared for the transformations staring us in the face.

I am quite thankful for the time I got this past semester . . . I did an enormous amount of work, and I really do think it may have saved my willingness to be doing this career for the foreseeable future. Still planning to make our way to a new location, but for now I'm able to take the next step.

The Triathlete has impressed this summer with the intensity and variety of her workouts. It is pretty intimidating for a bookish sort like myself, but I'm also proud of how strong she is, i.e., ridiculously strong.  She says she looks forward to riding with me in a couple of weeks while the kids are in Atlanta; I think she will find me . . . slower.

Readjusting to a new kind of schedule, and trying not to let up the research and editing intensity.

Deus est Machina

"Cannot you see, cannot all your lecturers see, that it is we who are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops--but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds--but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die. Oh, I have no remedy--or, at least, only one--to tell men again and again that I have seen the hills of Wessex as Ælfrid saw them when he overthrew the Danes."

--E. M. Forster, "The Machine Stops"

A return

"How often it is the case, that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance."

--Hawthorne, "Rappacini's Daughter"