career day

increasingly i wonder whether i want to remake the world. of course, then i wonder if i am simply afraid/intimidated/self-defeating.
looking at names, at academic heroes, i wonder - do i want that? is it important to have a c.v. as tall as i am?
this is very quick - i must leave in about 7 minutes for my volunteering position.

but it may be that i want a 'smaller' life.
one in which i might garden and make soap and work in a well-woman's clinic and volunteer and be a part of intimate, connected community.

this is not to say that academia and community cannot be combined. but i don't want to be so married to productivity that i forget to love well. or worse, that i never learn.

back to my first statement. i know that i cannot remake the world. but i can love a handful of people (or learn to. learn to). and that seems like it might even be the more challenging project - to forge community. (not in a retreating way, hiding from the world. that would be safe and easy and would result in death. but in an open, free, growing, move-ing way. i am not making sense)

ok. that's all. oh and no worries that i'm not going to finish this degree. this is simply another musing on how i can use it when i'm done; on what kind of person i want to be when i grow up; on how to best combine philosophy with love.

things i have not done

- finished the brennan proposal
- finished The Idiot
- begun work on the chapter taken from Diana's book
- dishes
- found a good brown cardigan that can be dressed up or down according to occasion
- chosen a dissertation topic
- gone to the gym today
- cleaned the litter box

things i have done:
- made soup
- laundry
- grocery shopping
- taken my vitamins
- ordered an IUD
- cut my hair
- started The Idiot
- started the Tractatus
- ordered Candide
- called my mother
- printed a whole lot of articles
- sent in some freewriting.

on balance, it could be worse

tasting notes

first - many thanks to everyone who contributed to my wonderful birthday, whether consciously or not!
- i have a week 'off' from many of my assistantship duties
- i got free dessert *twice* in one day
- a wonderful group of generous friends gathered to celebrate me
- i had the privilege and pleasure of waking up to the nicest birthday greeting
- i was remembered and acknowledged by such a number of people ...

i am quite fortunate and feel very loved. so thank you.

but how do i love all of you in return? of course, one of the things we do to those with whom we are intimate is we disappoint them. the better we know someone, the better we esteem them, the more they can disappoint us (and we them). sometimes that disappointment can feel very much like a loss of intimacy - 'Not know me yet?' and it seems that we must have been completely mistaken.
and so it may be that handling disappointment might be my new olives - learning to endure, and then enjoy, the flavor, tasting disappointment on my tongue and knowing it to be a pungent part of closeness

so i am not reading philosophy right now. i can't quite bring myself to do so. the question that keeps circling around my head - "to what end?" - is too buzzing and insistent to let me read productively and in peace.

my plan:

- begin again with Beauvoir. Her fiction, her non-fiction (shh. don't remind me it's philosophy...). everything
- some Kierkegaard. (again, shhhhh). Not that philosophy should be a self-help enterprise, but i am most certainly a better person for Kierkegaard. Philosophy should help us to answer the question "But how should I live?"
- fiction.
- i am going to catch up on books i have wanted to read, or suspected might be important, or seem to utilize interesting methods to explore ideas i find interesting.

i'll get back to philosophy. but i am feeling a bit disenchanted right now. i think i just need to start ticking things off of lists, and i think i need a do-able list.

for now, i'm going to forgo my assistantship duties and do dishes. that will feel better too...

how do i love this? no seriously. someone tell me.

it makes me angrier than i can express when otherwise brilliant people name an anti-anti-abortion position "pro-abortion".

NO ONE IS PRO-ABORTION, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that is sick. and really offensive when people suggest it. like we're picketing maternity wards and trying to convince people to have abortions.

no. we want abortion to remain legal (better, to have it decriminalized) to PROTECT WOMEN'S HEALTH. because that's a good thing.

and when you call it "pro-abortion" and talk about its immorality, don't then say to me, "Oh! but I don't mean you. I don't mean to judge you for having had one."

fuck you. you just did.

working on the proposal

I know I have told this story before. It is one of my favorites.

“Why did you choose to study philosophy?” someone will ask.

“Ah!” I will chuckle, “I was an English major for an hour.”

“Only an hour?”

I was the first one in the classroom. A seminar room with the tables arranged into a circle. I sat with my back to the windows so I would be sure to pay attention. A literature class. I was so excited. I love literature. Another girl came in and sat across the room from me. Then a friend of hers came in -

“Ohmygod! Like, how are you?? Like, I haven't seen you since, like, um, summer started? You look, like, soooooooo good! Like, what did you do?”

“Ohmygod!!! Hi!!! Like, I'm, like, good! My summer was, like, super fun! Oh, and my hair? I braided it!! See? It's like, braided!”

“Ohmygod!!!!! You like, totally braided your hair! That's, like, soooo cool! You look like, really good, we should, um, like, good shopping or something? That'd be super-neat!”

Then their friends came into the room ...

The professor, when he arrived and began the class, informed us that, as we read the literature he would
assign, we would learn a bit about the philosophical ideas and movements that influenced and informed the novels. That decided it. I didn't need to listen to these girls yammer on. I could study philosophy and read the novels on my own. I already knew I could do that. Yes.

I didn't do that. I ran out of time. I was busy. I didn't pay enough attention. I forgot to connect the two. Now, it is 8 years later and I have not deeply connected philosophy and literature in the ways I intended. My reason (justification?) for studying philosophy in the first place.

How to make up for lost time? Where to begin? A period of time? Which timeline should I use – philosophy or literature? A series of authors? Which – fiction or philosophers? Is it a bit late to want to go back now? Is this just dissertation procrastination? Or might it be important?

Like, it would be, like, soooo super cool if, like, I could totally figure out a, um, dissertation? by reading more fiction? like, even maybe cooler than my new purse and hat? awesome!

practicing love

am recently confronted by a comment, an idea, a caution which feels very much like an unnecessary - even an unkind - judgment.

what i want to do, what i am trying to do is to remember, to believe that this comment comes from no other place than one of love, is motivated by love.

it doesn't feel like love.

but if i'm going to avoid solipsism, then i need to believe it. 'love believes all things and yet is never deceived'. ok.