The end is near

 

 

This is the direction my final blog is leaning!

Don't forget to laugh!! From an article on "Insider", Chris Weller, when writing about scenes in Aziz Ansari's show stated: "These scenes coalesce into a smartly executed show. But more than that, they exemplify how comedians are the most important philosophers in America right now. Rather than offer light-hearted escape from the world's pressures, today's best comedians embrace and ruminate on them." (https://www.businessinsider.com/aziz-ansari-proves-the-best-philosophers-are-all-comedians-2015-11)

 

“The Last Days of Immanuel Kant,” a Physical Comedy of the Philosophical Life

...The film depicts Kant’s famous punctuality by way of his daily stroll through a park lane: a governess times the end of her entrusted children’s play, and a foreman the end of his workers’ break, according to when the philosopher passes by (followed by Lampe, a dozen steps back, who must carry a parasol whether or not it’s needed). Unyielding in his habits, his senses infinitesimally calibrated to register changes of routine, of temperature, and of environment, he’s similarly attuned to his own metabolism and the minutiae of his physical state, all with an overarching philosophical principle at stake, the maintenance of health in view of the preservation of life—and the pursuit of his colossal intellectual project, which, in his late seventies, remained in full swing...

Contented

From Mr. Clemens, on his birthday:

...“I am 70; 70, and would nestle in the chimney corner, and smoke my pipe, and read my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and that when you in your turn shall arrive at pier No. 70 you may step aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart.”

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®  WA

 

Final report

 Give us a trailer/teaser: what's your final report blogpost about? Tell us before the exam, or in comments below.

Remember, in your final draft (due Friday), to include links, video, maybe an embed from Google Books, a bit of colorful graphic content. 

If you have constructive comments for a classmate, please share.

Have fun, don't worry, be happy. 

Just say yes

 LISTEN. Happiness meets for the last time in 2021 today, scheduled to return in '23.

I've taught this course biennially for quite a long time now, and I still don't think we can do better for a coda than Charles Schulz. Happiness is a warm puppy. And really, it's "anyone and anything at all/That’s loved by you."

So our parting takeaway has to be: love profligately, and love well.

And don't be Sally Brown.

Happiness is...

 This seems like a good note to end on. Should make the estate of Charles Schulz happy, at least. 

(Other interesting things also come up when you search "happiness is...")

...For happiness is anyone and anything at all
That’s loved by you. --You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

How to Build a Happy Life: How to Prioritize Joy

For to miss the joy is to miss all. 

In adulthood, many of us are forced to recalibrate our relationship with joy. As responsibilities multiply exponentially, time grows limited, and challenges mount, it becomes harder to make time for fun, let alone remember what it feels like. As we explore the key components of happiness—pleasure, joy, and satisfaction—we ask the foundational question: What really brings me joy?
...
There are three macronutrients to happiness. They are enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose. People who are truly happy about their lives, they have all three. And they have them in abundance, and they have them in balance. And people who are out of balance [with] enjoyment, satisfaction, and purpose tend to define themselves as unhappy. They know that something is wrong with their happiness.

Arthur Brooks, Atlantic

Philosophy podcasts

The list keeps on growing...

Best 80 Happiness podcasts...

Last (meta-) words

 LISTEN. Back from Thanksgiving, it's time to wrap things up and send the classes of Fall 2021 out to meet their uncertain futures. The usual last words apply, there really are no fortunes to be told. There definitely is advice to be given, however. Do stay curious, kids, do keep asking questions. And do keep in touch.

It was nice to hear again from my old grad school friend the Biochemist, who makes a point of sending out holiday missives every Thanksgiving and Valentines Day that keep our old far-flung and socially distant 80s cohort in touch in spite of ourselves... (continues)

Mutation

What doesn't kill you mutates and tries again. https://t.co/OpRLM22reT
(https://twitter.com/EthicsInBricks/status/1464996635730235399?s=02)

Why Does Thoreau Live On?

A Few Famous Writers Offer Answers.

… Why does Thoreau live on? Because we need him to. Thoreau suggested that the busyness of life — the frenetic pace of our jobs, the demands of our bank accounts, the status that we seek and never find — should never be the exclusive focus of living. Can we, as Lightman puts it in his essay, free ourselves from the "rush and the heave of the external world"? This is the lesson of Walden Pond: that our immediate concerns usually obscure the important ones, and almost always distract us from what is ultimate, the chance to live and die with the knowledge that we have tried to "truly live." 

…

John Kaag 

NYT 

Kaag on Bloom

"How can we live a meaningful life not only in the face of suffering but also by virtue of it? At least in America, @paulbloomatyale suggests, we're in a crisis in meaning only exacerbated by our attempts to make life as enjoyable and painless as possible"

...Before the pandemic, when I taught my students about Sisyphus's suffering, the lesson elicited awkward giggles and blank stares. They just didn't understand how suffering might matter. I asked them how they could lead lives of lasting significance, given that their efforts would eventually be rolled over by an indifferent world. How can we live only to suffer and die? How should we take up suffering? Today, students don't laugh at these questions. They stare at me like a class of eyewitnesses. Lately, many of them have experienced suffering in the form of physical and emotional pain, boredom, and continual frustration. Bloom speaks directly to such a reader and suggests that one's orientation to suffering, rather than its total mitigation, is central to a fulfilling life. Many of the most valuable events in life—falling in love, getting married, having kids, being moral—are at certain points excruciatingly difficult or rather simply excruciating. And this, Bloom contends, for better and for worse, is simply our lot if we hope to live meaningfully.

Perhaps you want to be free of suffering. Perhaps you often desire the wrong things. I certainly do. Bloom's modest yet compelling book echoes a sentiment expressed by American novelist David Foster Wallace: "The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty unsexy ways, every day." In other words, one is free to take up suffering, to own it, and to make it worthwhile. It is only when Sisyphus can own up to his boulder, claim it entirely, that, as Albert Camus once said, we might imagine him as truly happy. I am grateful to Bloom for explaining, once again, why it isn't so bad to be long suffering.

John Kaag

https://t.co/MyUGJvqnSM
(https://twitter.com/TheAmScho/status/1464640375549833220?s=02)

The American Fantasy: Our Great Faux Pas

Hello everyone,

Here is my final presentation. I look forward to discussing it in the comments. 

-Patricia Hummel. 

 This presentation analyzes that of the stereotypical American, if such a thing exists, and discusses the issues of embracing such a mindset. I hope you will see this presentation as a critique and that it will lead to future discussion. Enjoy! 

Venture beyond the promise of a new day, that eternal hope that we can all achieve the American dream of obtaining a never-ending stream of happiness, mentality be damned, all through the foreseen path of hard work, matrimony, religiosity, and the spawns. Ignorance is bliss, so says Thomas Gray,  and that is at the very core of American ideology, except we must add to it to say “Purposeful ignorance is bliss” for it to apply fully. 

The American mindset progresses beyond that of one thought process. We believe in science until it conflicts with religion(or vice versa). We believe our history until it reflects badly on our ancestors (or vice versa). We cannot decide on one avenue to follow, else we be labeled as “extreme” or “radical”. Fantasyland discussed oddity well, just with a whole lot more banter and small jabs at religion. We, as Americans, declare that it is our right to think and act and feel however we want, and if we get called out for contradicting ourselves, we start citing the bill of rights, though incorrectly and out of context from its original intent. Stick to your guns, ironically an American-made expression, until you have an arsenal then pick the gun that matches your unique argument and fire. 

As we pick and choose our guns and build our arsenal, we create our own personal fantasy. We don’t focus on what society and life is, we focus on the perception of what it should be based solely on our own Arsenal. All else is refuted, debated, and “cancelled”.  For a more philosophical example, the American mindset is to exist in one’s own cave and when someone else tries to steer you out of the cave unwillingly, the American will instinctively bare their teeth and fight against that change unless it already exists in fragments in their own cave. 

Understandably this argument could be made for different countries too, but here’s the kicker: The American ideology is infamously referred to as a near “golden standard”, despite statistically being a Global cultural minority.  This concept is explained in a few different Freakonomics podcasts. One of which discussed in depth just how different the U.S. is in terms of culture. 

Gert Jan Hofstede, a professor of artificial sociality at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands, described an individual’s place in culture and society as “drop in the Mississippi River. You may decide to go another way, but that doesn’t make the river change.” 

But is this the case for America? Signs say no. 

This definition of culture is relative to countries with strict or even relatively regulated cultures. Our culture is that of an anti-culture. We do not embrace one way of doing, one way of thinking, or even one way of living. It is our culture to invent new culture or to even revolt against it. 

To continue Hofstede’s metaphor; if the world embraces the droplet, we embrace the boulders that interrupt the currents and change tides or we are the tide pools from Greek Mythology. To summarize, the American waters are not easily trodden by those who embrace a single path and thought to living. 

This makes our ability to measure our happiness much more complicated. We will also discover that we are our own hypocrites as we do have traditions and customs we follow, though it is just as much a tradition and custom to deny them. 

So what’s this big faux pas?  Cue the “American Dream”.

 The almighty belief that if we continue to grind, we will reach a bountiful harvest of god knows what, and somehow that level of attainment will be enough. 

Except that never happens, it’s never enough, and the pursuit of happiness continues on in a neverending racetrack.  Is such a thought cynical in nature? Perhaps, but such a statement is not without merit. If taking this class has shown me anything, it is that happiness is not meant to be the product of life, it is in fact a byproduct, a complement of good choices, and most importantly, it arrives when we stop looking for it. This is why the American Dream doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it links the grind to the pursuit of happiness, rather than allowing them to remain separate. 

If we expect happiness to come from working, then we will naturally assume more work equals more happiness, but this isn’t always the case. Often enough, people will try to obtain happiness thinking “I just need one more raise, I just need to work harder, I just need that promotion.” And when they get that promotion, those thoughts will come back because we will still want more. It’s human nature to want, to adapt to your living situation, and to look towards greener pastures. The pursuit of the American dream validates and increases this nature, and happiness cannot be obtained if the seeker is constantly looking at greener meadows. 

We, as Americans, seem to know this for a fact(or at least Hollywood does because they have a million movies on this subject), yet we have a culture of individualism that encourages us to think that we will be that one who is different, the one who will find happiness at the top, but ponder this: if we all make it to the top, then the top doesn’t exist.

Extra Content:

For some interesting statistics, look no future than the first chapter of Fantasyland, of which Anderson discusses these strange percentages that define Americans whether that be those hopelessly pious or insane conspiracists! If my critique be "biting", then let Fantasyland be the Jaws theme as he grounds himself in spicy lines such as "In other words, America was founded by a nutty religious cult" on page 27 or when asking why we are so sporadic in our beliefs, "The short answer is that we are Americans, because being American means we can believe any damn thing we want, that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone else's, experts be damned. " on Page 7.

Thomas Gray is the man who coined the phrase "Ignorance is Bliss". Here is his poem!

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44301/ode-on-a-distant-prospect-of-eton-college

Gert Jan Hofstede was a guest speaker on an intriguing episode of Freakonomics. If you would like to listen, here is the link and transcript!

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/american-culture-2/

For more on how the different the U.S. is on a global standpoint, this episode of Freakonomics is sure to shed some light!

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/american-culture-1/

Lastly, some Hollywood Movies!

A recent one is Falling INN Love, a story about a successful business woman who wins an inn and decides that her happiness will be found living at the inn as opposed to continuing her big dreams in the city.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9860728/

An older one would be The Family Man, staring Nicolas Cage. Living a luxurious lifestyle in the Big Apple, Jack finds himself all alone on Christmas. After accidentally making a wish to a magical being, he is transported to an alternate universe where he married his lost love and had a kid. He is stuck in this alternative universe for just a few short days. Is it enough time to make him cherish the family lifestyle? Watch and find out!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218967/

Exam 3 review

Recorded Zoom review: 

Meeting Recording:

https://mtsu.zoom.us/rec/share/M3UqDVw7-uMufsd0qdKpf4o2CrSrQ_FCEbNK-ThOLYCxEiDfNbujB046sYgY_IQ.4YmjBY-6QrX_nvVA

Access Passcode: 9Cf8D!@9

==

NOV 2 Kaag, Sick Souls (K) Prologue; William James (WJ), Is Life Worth Living? (Link to full text below... or you can order the Library of America's terrific William James : Writings 1878-1899... vol.2 is William James : Writings 1902-1910).

1. Young William James's problem, as he felt "pulled in too many directions" and worried that we might be nothing but cogs in a machine, was ____.

2. What is distinctive about "our age" that makes James particularly relevant?

3.  What happened on Feb. 6, 2014 that prompted Kaag to write this book?

4. "Too much questioning and too little active responsibility lead" to what?

5. Human history is "one long commentary on" what?

6. A "wider world... unseen by us" may exist, just as our world does for ___.

7. The "deepest thing in our nature," which deals with possibilities rather than finished facts, is a "dumb region of the heart" called  (in German) ___.

==

K ch1; WJ, The Dilemma of Determinism

1. Calvinism set out, for Henry James Sr., what impossible task?

2. Kaag thinks the Civil War gave WJ his first intimation that what?

3. WJ's entire life had been premised on what expectation?

4. What did WJ say (in 1906, to H.G. Wells) about "SUCCESS"?

5. What Stoic hope did young WJ share with his friend Tom Ward?

6. What thought seeded "the dilemma of determinism" for WJ?

7. As WJ explicated determinism in 1884, the future has no what?

8. WJ found what in Huxley's evolutionary materialism alarming?

9. Determinism has antipathy to the idea of what?

10. To the "sick soul," what seems blind and shallow?

==

K ch2; The Moral Equivalent of War

1. "Anhedonia" is what?

2. What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

3. Renouvier said an individual's will could break what?

4. What must one frequently do, according to James, to establish reciprocity in a relationship?

5. "Looking on the bright side," though often not objectively warranted, is nonetheless what?

6. Why did James think most of his contemporaries would not have preferred to "expunge" the Civil War?

7. Readiness for war is the essence of what, according to General Lea?

8. James says he devoutly believes in what, and in a future that has outlawed what?

9. Non-military conscription of our "gilded youth" would do what for them, according to James?

==

K ch3; Habit

1. James wrote Principles of Psychology to answer what question?

2. What did Aristotle say about habit?

3. What realization would make young people give more heed to their conduct?

4. James complained in 1884 that what devoured his time?

5. James thought everybody should do what each day?

6. How is habit "the enormous fly-wheel of society"?

7. There is "no more miserable human being" than ...

8. There is "no more contemptible type of human character" than ...

==

 K ch 4 Consciousness and Transcendence; Principles of Psychology ch IX The Stream of Thought

1. Tragedies that befell him in his 40s led to James's quest for ___. 

2. What experience led James to "the taste of the intolerable mysteriousness" of existence?

3.  What did James think is sacrificed when we study the mind in objective analytic terms?

4. What did Thoreau say at the end of Walden?

5. His experiments with nitrous oxide gave James what warning?

6. What did James say about his house in Chocorua?

7. What does James mean by "continuous," when he says consciousness is continuous?

8. What metaphors most naturally describe consciousness?

9. We all split the universe into what two great halves?

==

K ch5; WJ Pragmatism Lec VI, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"; "The Gospel of Relaxation"

1. What "vectors of meaning" saved James's life?

2. Embracing the pragmatic theory of truth is a commitment to what?

3. As a professional academic philosopher, Kaag has trouble remembering what?

4. James's hallway (corridor) metaphor, treating pragmatism primarily as a method in philosophy, reminds Kaag of what?

5. What's the difference between truth and facts, for WJ?

6. Embracing free will is the first step in what?

7. What is Binnenleben?

8. Where does "zest" come from, according to WJ, and what is it?

9. For James pragmatism was a protest against what proposition about salvation?

==

K ch6; WJ "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"; "A Pluralistic Mystic"...Exam review...

1. The greatest use of life is what, according to WJ?

2. What did WJ write to Benjamin Blood about education?

3. What was WJ's final entreaty in "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"?

4. What does WJ say is the difference between resignation and hope?

5. What would we lose, if we were without feeling?

6. When does a life become "genuinely significant"?

7. "To miss ___ ___ is to miss all."

8. "Life is always worth living" if you have responsive sensibilities like ____'s.

9. What is distinctive about B.P. Blood's version of mysticism?

10. What's WJ's last word in philosophy?

How to Be Thankful When You Don’t Feel Thankful - The Atlantic

...Thankfulness has been strongly and consistently shown to raise human beings' happiness. It stimulates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain's reward circuit. Gratitude can make us more resilient, and enhance relationships by strengthening romantic ties, bolstering friendships, and creating family bonds that endure during times of crisis. It may improve many health indicators, such as blood pressure and diet (Thanksgiving feasts notwithstanding).

Giving thanks also makes us better people. Approximately 2,000 years ago, Cicero wrote that gratitude "is not only the greatest, but is also the parent of all the other virtues." Modern research shows that he was probably right. Gratitude can make us more generous with others, more patient, and less materialistic.

Gratitude also appears to be at least partially under our control. Researchers have shown that you can call it into existence by choosing to focus on the things for which you are grateful, instead of the negatives in your life. For example, writing in The Journal of Positive Psychology in 2018, four psychologists randomly split a sample of 153 human subjects into groups that were assigned to either remember something they were grateful for, or think about something unrelated. The grateful remembering group experienced more than five times as much positive emotion as the control group...

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/11/gratitude-thanksgiving/620799/

How Liberals Can Be Happier

They can embrace social institutions like family, religion and local civic organizations. 

(Or they could just care less about injustice and inequality. Not recommended.)

For many of us, the holidays offer a time of reflection. We look back at the year that’s passed and ahead to the year to come. Some ask a simple question: Am I happy?

That appears to be a more difficult question for liberals than for conservatives. It’s a puzzling but well-established finding: Conservatives are more likely than liberals to report they are happy.

But why are conservatives more likely to say they’re happier? And how can liberals live happier lives?

Some scholars believe that the happiness gap between conservatives and liberals is driven by differences in how liberals and conservatives think about politics and inequality. For example, John Jost and Jaime Napier, two psychologists at New York University, have written that “the rationalization of inequality — a core component of conservative ideology — helps to explain why conservatives are, on average, happier than liberals.” In other words, happiness is a function of legitimating the world as it is. Conservatives are happy because they’re fine with the status quo; liberals are unhappy because they’re not...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/opinion/liberals-happiness-thanksgiving.html?smid=em-share

"Feeling machines"

Who are you, really? Neuroscientist Anil Seth lays out his fascinating new theory of consciousness and self, centered on the notion that we "predict" the world into existence. From sleep to memory and everything in between, Seth explores the reality we experience in our brains -- versus the world as it objectively might be.

"We are not just cognitive computers, we are feeling machines..."
https://youtu.be/z7_LwuuPsAE

Darwin

"The vigorous, the healthy and the happy survive and multiply." Charles Darwin

"If I were to give a prize for the best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin for the idea of natural selection." Daniel Dennett https://t.co/kxXI7Exkkc

— Phil Oliver (@OSOPHER) November 24, 2021

Spinoza

Today is the birthday of the philosopher Benedict Spinoza (books by this author), born in Amsterdam in 1632. Spinoza was the descendent of Portuguese Jews who immigrated to the Netherlands seeking religious tolerance. Young Spinoza studied Hebrew, the Old Testament, the Talmud, and Cabala’s traditions of mysticism and miracle. Fluent in five languages, Spinoza wrote in Latin, which he learned from Christian teachers who introduced the young scholar to mathematics and philosophy.

By age 24, Spinoza had developed his own ideas. He asserted that everything in the universe was made from the same divine substance, possessing infinite characteristics. He defined God and the laws of nature as one and the same, a part of this infinite substance. All of this was too far-flung from the dominant vision of an almighty, singular godhead for Spinoza’s religious contemporaries to tolerate, and Spinoza was excommunicated.

This did not deter him from his intellectual pursuits. He said, “Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.” He left Amsterdam and supported himself grinding lenses while writing books of philosophy. He lived in solitude and studied the work of Bacon, Boyle, Descartes, and Huygens. Spinoza published three books while he was alive, though more of his writings were published later by friends. The only book that named him as an author was Principles of the Philosophy of René Descartes (1663). He withheld much of his work because he feared retribution from a group of theologians who had publicly accused him of atheism.

For more than a century after his death, Spinoza’s work was widely considered heretical and atheistic. But toward the end of the 18th century, his ideas underwent a revival. Thinkers called him “holy” and “a man intoxicated with the divine,” and he influenced philosophers such as Goethe, Herder, Lessing, and Novalis. According to the philosopher Hegel, “to be a philosopher, one must first become a Spinozist.”

Spinoza said, “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

And, “If you want the future to be different from the present, study the past.” WA

Launching today: the Journal of Spinoza Studies! JSS publishes original scholarly work on any aspect of Spinoza’s thought or its reception, and is fully open access. We are now accepting submissions. https://t.co/aQnW1IrfMW #spinozaresearchnetwork

— Beth Lord (@ProfBethLord) November 24, 2021

WJ's last words

To Mrs. Whitman:
"...I have found myself in much better condition than I was in last summer, and consequently better than for several years. It is pleasant to find that one s organism has such reparative capacities even after sixty years have been told out. But I feel as if the remainder couldn t be very long, at least for "creative" purposes, and I find myself eager to get ahead with work which un fortunately won t allow itself to be done in too much of a hurry. I am convinced that the desire to formulate truths is a virulent disease. It has contracted an alliance lately in me with a feverish personal ambition, which I never had before, and which I recognize as an unholy thing in such a connexion. I actually dread to die until I have settled the Universe's hash in one more book, which shall be epoch- machend at last, and a title of honor to my children! Childish idiot! -as if formulas about the Universe could ruffle its majesty, and as if the common-sense world and its duties were not eternally the really real!" Letters, 1903

To Henry Adams:

...Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the penultimate state might be the millennium in other words a state in which a minimum of difference of energy-level might have its exchanges so skillfully canalised that a maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result. In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I am so happy and perfect that I can stand it no longer!" Letters, June 1910

From A Pluralistic Mystic:

... “There is no conclusion. What has concluded, that we might conclude in regard to it? There are no fortunes to be told, and there is no advice to be given.–Farewell!” *

Eagerness

 LISTEN. We conclude Sick Souls, Healthy Minds today in Happiness, with John Kaag's concluding chapter "Wonder and Hope"--a far cry from the "Determinism and Despair" we began with. We also glance at James's own favorite essay, "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings," and at his last, "A Pluralistic Mystic." 

Is there a greater use of life than to spend it on something that will outlast it? Surely that depends on what the lasting legacy turns out to be. James spent himself defending experience, sometimes "against philosophy" but always against resignation and despair... (continues)

A Spirit of Gratitude Is Healthy for Society

On Thanksgiving, consider the multiple benefits of giving thanks.

Quote of the day:

"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good."

— Bertrand Russell, "New Hopes for a Changing World" (1951)

nyt

 

Final Blogpost, Philosophy of Happiness, PHIL 3160, MTSU

Gary Wedgewood, November 2021

Montaigne traveled determined to:

1. Satisfy his intellectual curiosity

2. Walk where his heroes once walked

3. Sharpen his thinking by interacting with new people

4. Seek a cure for his painful kidney stone attacks (bathing in hot springs seemed to help)

Furthermore, he was determined to:

5. Avoid repeating a route, freely explore off the beaten path, and witness odd events

6. Enjoy the local cuisine and gather recipes

7. Shake off prejudices about other cultures

Montaigne gathered together a large entourage of servants, friends, and other curious people and traveled around Europe from the summer 1580 until November 1581 (for 17 months).  The travel itself was demanding, dangerous, and difficult (an “extreme sport”).  Diseases were causing plague conditions in some places. The roads were rough and travelers were preyed upon by robbers. Various travel documents were necessary depending on the region. At times they had to prove that they had not been exposed to the plague and officials often demanded bribes to get all of the bureaucratic paperwork done. What Montaigne loved most in his travels was when he could just go with “the flow” seeking out whatever pleasures enticed him, relaxing and observing his surroundings, and “seeing everything afresh and with full attention, like a child.” (Bakewell, p. 231)

To be a happy traveler you need to acquire a certain skill set and you need to be resilient, flexible, prepared, and resourceful. As Montaigne enjoyed having objects around his study to stimulate his thinking, I find that the mementoes I have brought back from my travels can bring back happy memories of those trips. Also, foods I encountered while traveling have become part of my diet like mango, pomegranates, figs, dates, and Mediterranean olives.

My experiences with travel began when I was in college and joined a tour of England lead by the Dean at my college who traveled every summer to Oxford where he studied and wrote.  During this trip I discovered my heritage at the Wedgwood museum which features this statue of master potter Josiah Wedgwood holding one of his vases.

After this trip I became curious about my ancestors and began doing genealogical research into my family tree by searching the internet, by interviewing older family members, and by collecting family photos, letters, and keep sakes.  On a later trip to England, I was able to do some research at the Wedgwood (In England they leave the second ‘e’ out of the name) museum with the enthusiastic help of the museum’s curator.  He took one look at me and said he could see the Wedgwood traits in my facial features.  He then proceeded to give us a personally guided grand tour of the museum and its archives of documents and books.

In my 20’s I began hiking and canoeing in wilderness areas from Tennessee to Canada.  These encounters with nature had a great impact on me, especially my experiences in the Canadian wilderness of Quetico Provincial Park (which sadly was closed this season due to climate change and the resulting wild fires in the park) and in the vast wilds of the South Cumberland Recreation Area which contains a restricted area of Virgin forest (a very rare occurrence East of the Mississippi river). 

Before my children were born I ventured with my wife to Israel with no itinerary or reservations.  We landed in Tel Aviv, rented a Fiat, and drove up to Jerusalem.  On the way we encountered burned out military equipment from recent wars.  We arrived in Jerusalem in the middle of the night, jet lagged by 12 hours to it felt like the middle of the day to us.  We walked the dark streets of Jerusalem looking for something to eat in a way we would not dare to do today.  We stayed at the Jerusalem YMCA, youth hostels, and camp grounds.  While we were camping at the Pools of Solomon campground, our tent was knocked down onto us during the night.  Palestinian youth were celebrating a holiday with a bonfire and began climbing the fence around the campground, throwing picnic tables into the pools, and at some point, knocked down the tent we were sleeping in.  They did not try to harm us but, we were having other problems.  My wife began having an attack of appendicitis during the night.  I went looking for the camp director who greeted me with an M-16 at his front door.  He did not understand English so I was only able to show him that our tent had been knocked down.  He put us in a cabin realizing that we might be in danger but never understood that my wife was feeling ill.  I was unable to explain to him that I needed our passports back so we could drive our rental car to a hospital.  The next morning, we drove off without our passports to find medical care and my wife ended up having surgery to remove her appendix. Fortunately, a nurse at the hospital who had immigrated from New Jersey took an interest in our situation and I ended up staying with her and her mother who had immigrated from Germany at the Kibbutz Biet Hashita that week until my wife got out of the hospital and could travel again.  Only later did we learn that Israeli officials had been watching over our situation with concern that an international incident might have resulted.

When my children were young we took camping trips to our national.  Every American should spend weeks at a time in our magnificent National Parks.

In 2007 after our children were grown, my wife and I decided we wanted to travel internationally with friends while we were still physically able.  Thailand was our first destination. 

In northern Thailand where elephants once were used for logging operations, we road an elephant.  Notice in the second picture our guide sitting on the head of the elephant with is “Sexy” knit cap and talking on his cell phone in the middle of the jungle.

Then, we went to Peru. We visited the Inca site “Machu Pichhu” and cruised the Amazon river where we frequently stopping at villages and explored the jungle along the way.

At Machu Pichhu our guide was able to arrange for us to spend most of a wonderful sunny day at the site when most groups were allowed far less time to tour.  Today, there are only limited reservations allowed for visitors to the site.  In this high altitude setting the Inca people escaped the Spanish invaders and worshipped the sun god.

On our five-day cruise of the Amazon river we were on a ship built as a replica of the ships which historically cruised the Amazon.  Notice the dragon head on the front of the boat.  We stopped at several villages along the way, danced with the villagers, toured a school and shared school supplies we had brought with the children, were invited into the home (built on stilts near the river) of the naturalist on our crew, went on jungle treks with the naturalist gleefully showed us frogs whose blood was the poison used on the tips of blow darts, took several excursions by smaller boats up some of the tributaries of the amazon to view the wildlife and see how people lived by fishing and farming, and we were able to go fishing for the much-feared piranha fish. The naturalist showed me where a piranha had taken a chunk out of his leg when he was younger.  Our catch was cooked up by the kitchen crew for our dinner that day.

In Turkey we walked where Paul had walked and visited the Asclepeion, one of the earliest hospitals for physical and mental illnesses. 

The first picture below is of the main street and entrance into Laodicea which is mentioned in the biblical book of Colossians. We could see the grooves in this Roman street caused by carts coming a going over the years.  The Apostle Paul would have entered this, the “lukewarm” city, at this gate and walked on this street.

The second picture is taken at the Asclepeion which featured mud baths, isolation treatments where dreaming was supposed to be a cure, and one treatment which utilized the tunnel pictured here.  Patients traversed the tunnel while snakes were dropped on them from above (to scare the disease out of them, I suppose).

We went to Jordon and Israel on an educational tour where we visited Golgotha (the place of the Skull where Jesus was said to have been crucified), and the sea of Galilee where the “Jesus boat” was on display.

At Golgotha, on the right of the cliff face you could make out eyes and a nose of a skull which is much more distinct in photos from the long ago.  Some of the rock has evidently broken off since the time of Jesus.

At the Sea of Galilee we saw what is referred to as the “Jesus boat”.  Though it is very unlikely that Jesus road in this particular 25-foot-long boat, it is a boat from the time of Jesus which was found preserved in the mud of the Sea of Galilee when the water levels got very low one year.  We met a man who helped devise a method using injectable Styrofoam by which the remains of the boat were lifted out of the mud and preserved in this climate-controlled room.

Before the pandemic we made it to Kenya and Tanzania in Africa.

Although we spent many nights in tents on the Serengeti plains in Tanzania, occasionally we stayed in luxurious hotels.  The room we stayed in the night before this first picture was taken was the fanciest and featured an outdoor and indoor shower as well as a bathtub.  As we were leaving the next morning we observed young people hauling the daily water supply for their family from a water tower in the nearby town.  While we had running water, that had to make water runs.

We also visited a Masai village where the tribe received us with singing and dancing and gave us a tour of one of their homes.  The homes were arranged in a circle around the open area in the picture.  They would bring their cattle herds inside the circle at night to protect them from predators.  They lived in houses entirely constructed with cow manure which dries like cement and is plastered on a woven frame of tree limbs. The young men jumping in the picture are leaping to impress the young women.  They shared a number of demonstrations related to their way of life including starting a fire with dried cow dung using sticks to create friction-heat and fire.

Gary’s Philosophy of Travel and Happiness

(Like Montaigne, my travels have had a big impact on my life and led to me developing my own philosophy of travel and happiness.)

•      Start traveling while you are young

•      Travel is a mind-expanding experience and an open mind is more prone to expansion

•      Both free-wheeling travel and educational touring are of value

•      Walk in the footsteps of your heroes (Jesus and Paul in my case)

•      Meet the local people on their turf and on their terms

•      Go to the hot springs just for pleasure

•      Wander off the beaten path and be a sensible risk taker

•      Eat local foods fully cooked, hot, or after peeling and use only bottled water (travel meds like Cipro are essential)

Quotable Quotes for your Edification:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

 “Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind, and fills your life with stories to tell.”

― Paula Bendfeldt

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

― St. Augustine

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
― Anita Desai
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
“Travel brings power and love back into your life.”
― Rumi Jalalud-Din
 “I read; I travel; I become”
― Derek Walcott
“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
― Henry Miller

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
“Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.”
― Ma Jian, Red Dust: A Path Through China

In conclusion, travel far and wide, meet interesting people, expand your mind, and be happy!

Grateful for matter

"...Our question, then, is whether we have reason to be grateful for the universe..." Of course we have. Happpy Thanksgiving!

  

Awake, elevated, grateful

 LISTEN. It's the short week before Thanksgiving break, and just a couple class days remain of the Fall semester after it. It's getting late real early, as Yogi said. (He really didn't say everything he said.) 

So we'll step it up in CoPhi today, looking at James on habit and consciousness. We'll preview some of our final reports as well, and get started reviewing for our last exam. Busy time. We should be grateful.

We saw Tick Tick Boom last night, Lin-Manuel Miranda's paean to his hero Jonathan Larson, to creative perseverance, and to friendship. I give it all the stars.

Oh, and by the way... on Saturday I finally went and did that skin-deep, self-indulgent thing I almost did last May, before surgery forced a postponement. I know it's no big deal to my students' generation, but to mine it still feels subversive and transgressive and a little risky. "Bad ass" even, said Younger Daughter. Stats and anecdotes are mixed on the matter of regret.

But I can't imagine ever regretting an arms-length reminder to regard the recurrent daily light of dawn as a perpetual invitation to wakefulness and, well, to creative perseverance. Morning is "when I am awake and there is a dawn in me," when (like Henry) I'm most susceptible of enlightenment... (continues)

"What Makes a Life Significant"

    In reading ‘One a Certain Blindness in Human Beings’ I accidentally came across another piece by WJ entitled ‘What Makes A Life Significant’.  I want to share an excerpt from this piece which I think speaks loudly to our current times. I hope you find something useful and inspiring in this. Gary Wedgewood

   In ‘What Makes A Life Significant’ Williams James shares his care free experiences at Chautauqua, the reverence for the heroism of common toil he finds in Tolstoi, and the faithfulness to ideals of Intellectuals and proceeds to drop each of these views “when they pretend singly to redeem life from insignificance. (He tells us that) culture and refinement all alone are not enough…ideal aspirations are not enough, (nor are) pluck and will, dogged endurance and insensibility to ganger enough, when taken all alone. There must be some sort of fusion, some chemical combination among these principles, for a life objectively and thoroughly significant to result…a balance struck by sympathy, insight, and good will…in this notion of the combination of ideals with active virtues you have a rough standard for shaping your decision…your imagination is extended. You (achieve) a little more humility on your own part, and tolerance, reverence, and love for others; and you gain a certain inner joyfulness at the increased importance of our common life. Such joyfulness is a religious inspiration and an element of spiritual health, and worth more than large amounts of that sort of technical and accurate information which we professors are supposed to be able to impart. To show the sort of thing I mean by these words, I will just make one brief practical illustration, and then close. We are suffering to-day in America from what is called the labor-question; and, when you go out into the world, you will each and all of you be caught up in its perplexities. I use the brief term labor-question to cover all sorts of anarchistic discontents and socialistic projects, and the conservative resistances which they provoke. So far as this conflict is unhealthy and regrettable, —and I think it is so only to a limited extent, — the unhealthiness consists solely in the fact that one-half of our fellow-countrymen remain entirely blind to the internal significance of the lives of the other half. They miss the joys and sorrows, they fail to feel the moral virtue, and they do not guess the presence of the intellectual ideals. ‘They are at cross-purposes all along the line, regarding each other…Often all that the poor man can think of in the rich man is a cowardly greediness for safety, luxury, and effeminacy, and a boundless affectation. What he is, is not a human being, but a pocket-book, a bank account. And a similar greediness, turned by disappointment into envy, is all that many rich men can see in the state of mind of the dissatisfied poor. And, if the rich man begins to do the sentimental act over the poor man, what senseless blunders does he make, pitying him for just those very duties and those very immunities which, rightly taken, are the condition of his most abiding and characteristic joys! Each, in short, ignores the fact that happiness and unhappiness and significance are a vital mystery; each pins them absolutely on some ridiculous feature of the external situation…Society has, with all this, undoubtedly got to pass toward some newer and better equilibrium, and the distribution of wealth has doubtless slowly got to change: such changes have always happened, and will happen to the end of time. But if, after all that I have said, any of you expect that they will make any genuine vital difference on a large scale, to the lives of our descendants, you will have missed the significance of my entire lecture. The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing, — the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman’s pains. — And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place. Fitz-James Stephen wrote many years ago words to this effect more eloquent than any I can speak: ‘‘The ‘Great Eastern,’ or some of her successors,” he said, “will perhaps defy the roll of the Atlantic, and cross the seas without allowing their passengers to feel that they have left the firm land. The voyage from the cradle to the grave may come to be performed with similar facility. Progress and science may perhaps enable untold millions to live and die without a care, without a pang, without an anxiety. They will have a pleasant passage and plenty of brilliant conversation. They will wonder that men ever believed at all in clanging fights and blazing towns and sinking ships and praying hands; and, when they come to the end of their course, they will go their way, and the place thereof will know them no more. But it seems unlikely that they will have such a knowledge of the great ocean on which they sail, with its storms and wrecks, its currents and icebergs, its huge waves and mighty winds, as those who battled with it for years together in the little craft, which, if they had few other merits, brought those who navigated them full into the presence of time and eternity, their maker and themselves, and forced them to have some definite view of their relations to them and to each other.”! In this solid and tridimensional sense, so to call it, those philosophers are right who contend that the world is a standing thing, with no progress, no real history. The changing conditions of history touch only the surface of the show. The altered equilibriums. and redistributions only diversify. our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals. But, with each new ideal that comes into life, the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish; and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world. I am speaking broadly, I know, and omitting to consider certain qualifications in which I myself believe. But one can only make one point in one lecture, and I shall be well content if I have brought my point home to you this evening in even a slight degree. There are compensations: and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men’s hearts. That is the main fact to remember. If we could not only admit it with our lips, but really and truly believe it, how our convulsive insistencies, how our antipathies and dreads of each other, would soften down! If the poor and the rich could look at each other in this way, sub specie xternitatis, how gentle would grow their disputes! what tolerance and good humor, what willingness to live and let live, would come into the world! THE END