http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png I arrive late to the workshop on self-flourishing and civic participation. Participants are seated around tables, engaged in animated exchanges. It looks there are no seats still available. Then I spot one forlorn seat at the far end of the room. I make my way there, meekly take the seat. I notice that this is the one group that is pretty silent -- and not because of yours truly, the latecomer to the festivities.
Even so, I apologize for my tardiness. They seem relieved that I have arrived. "We're supposed to be sharing with the rest of the group a resolution we haven't kept," I'm told. "Do you have one?"
Oh, I do. I have an embarrassment of choices. I blurt out, "I vowed I'd write a regular blog, and I haven't honored it."
This captures their interest. Everyone leans forward. I'm met with a chorus of, "Why?"
The rationales spill out: Well, I'm used to writing books, to worrying over words and sentences for as long as it takes until I've convinced or duped myself that my writing and thinking is as good as it gets. They seem to buy this, and nod understandingly. I go on: All of my 'Socrates books' took a minimum of two years to write. Then I became a daddy. So add another year to that for my Constitution Cafe. With my latest manuscript, which I've just turned in, it took 3 1/2 years -- chalk up a new bundle of joy to the family for the even more protracted period.
But to write a blog, to turn something over rather quickly, I tell my commiserators? I have not found it an easy transition. Most of my first series of blogs posted at Huffington and elsewhere were a year in the making. It was a worthwhile experience, but exhausting.
I look at my past entries: in one blast, I came out with a series in about a month's time. They had germinated over years. That approach isn't sustainable. So I haven't posted in six months or so. I'm disappointed, in myself, in my inability (or unwillingness) to write more quickly.
What I don't offer: I used to write columns for newspapers, used to write on the fly. It was pretty good. Mostly well received. Just a different thinking process. Why in the world don't I go back to that, look at these offerings as the first 'iteration' of what turn into something more substantial? I don't share these thoughts, because then my excuses don't hold as much water. Maybe I'm just lazier and less disciplined than I care to admit.
But wait, I then offer out loud (continuing with the rationales: I've written all these books, and a doctoral dissertation on top of that, earning a PhD at the ripe age of fifty. I'm an overachiever if anything, right? Oh, the days and weeks and months of time I waste. No, I'm one of those who feels he always has to be 'productive' - or at least, to me, productivity can include playing with my children, going for a walk, staring at the stars and contemplating and embracing the joyous miracle of being alive and being a hubby and daddy and being aware that I'm part of something bigger or greater and rather incomprehensible and awesome and magnificent.
The understanding and empathy oozes from the group. It becomes a support/encounter group. I've triggered an upwelling of fellow feeling. My presence and ensuing confession is the equivalent of a pent-up human dam being unleashed. Everyone else now feels a sense of relief and release that they're not alone in their own failings to follow through with their creative hopes and dreams. They share in a chaotic outburst what they have aspired to make and do and say and have fallen short in realizing. The message: I'm not alone. We're not alone. Some share how they fear that if they really gave all they had to their professional and other projects, their personal relationships would take too much of a hit, and they're now willing to risk that. There is now a bond and a sense of comfort among most everyone at my table. A sense that it's okay to fall waaaay sort of our goals and aspirations. I want no part of this.
The confessional atmosphere doesn't make me feel better. Just the opposite. There are so many more hours in the day, for many if not most of us, at laest of middle class (and above) backgrounds, than we put to good or meaningful or rewarding use. Or at least, that certainly is true for me. When I think of all the additional books and essays, poems and works of fiction, even songs, that I might have crafted, if only I didn't waste so much time on the good ol' Internet. If only Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn didn't distract me and siphon away so much meaningful time day in and day out.
Walter Kaufmann, the philosopher who most influenced everything I do, had this moving and jarring insight in his timeless classic 'The Faith of a Heretic':
"Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time reading magazines and watching television, hope for eternal life. If one lives intensely, the time comes when sleep seems bliss. If one loves intensely, the time comes when death seems bliss."
Kaufmann is that rare soul who goes against the grain and challenges the notion that most of us live with anxiety about death. To him, knowing our mortal moment comes to an end at some point is the essential impetus for inspiring us to make the most of however much time we have on this earth. It's a shame he needlessly alienates his otherwise keen insight by taking to task those whose belief systems include a notion of eternal life in 'another place,' since this does not have to be any impediment to abiding by his dictum to live fully here and now.
Be that as it may, I'm determined now to post another blog -- now. I write this while I attend a conference. It is a week later. I had left that workshop determined to write a blog that same night. But I was too tired. Then I vowed to write it during the plane flight across the coast to return home. Once again, I played the 'too weary card,' and did not write a word. But that night, upon arriving home, I began -- only for the Internet suddenly to quit working. So i went to bed. I woke up the next morning to resume my work, only to realize I hadn't save my work. It was vaporized.
In what I decided was well-justified self pity, I abandoned the vow. It just wasn't meant to be. But I woke up this morning refreshed, because I slept past the hour I was supposed to take the shuttle bus to this conference. So I arrived late, and as I absorb all the thoughts being offered here, I also am moved to try, try again at this blog. I can listen carefully (or so I choose to think) and write (though whether I can write well is debatable). I started writing this a mere half hour or so ago. And now I want to finish and post it. I can always revisit it, polish it, add to it and change it as new thoughts occur to me.
Is it ready for primetime? Am I so anxious to post that I overlook that I haven't said much of worth, and haven't said it well? I'll find out.
But before I do, I look up the meaning of the word irresolution on Dictionary.com: "lack of resolution; lack of decision or purpose; vacillation."
I am none of those. I am very resolute, just don't come nearly as close as I'd like to the high bar I've set for myself. So now I look up resolute: "firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion."
Welllll, I'm not sure if I'm that either. Or at least, what I'm resolved about, determined to do, the purposes I set for myself and the opinions I harbor, are subject to change -- and that is in part because, as a Socratic sojourner who engages in inquiry of people of all ages and walks of life across the globe, I am forever exposed to stores of knowledge and wisdom ways, to a wide variety of objections and alternatives to any given way of seeing things.
Dictionary.com's second definition characterizing someone who is resolute is "characterized by firmness and determination, as the temper, spirit, actions." Okay, I can go with -- but I'm resolute in a bit of a squishy or at least non-dogmatic way. I'm more resolute (or like to think I am) in the way that someone with a childlike temperament would be -- resolute but open to changing my heart and mind about what I should be most resolute about.
There is a break in the conference now. While I was composing Version 1 of this, I stood up at one point and was moved to offer my Socratic take about what had been shared so far in terms of what we scholar-practitioners should seek to accomplish in making ours a more connected world. It seems to give folks pause. Some now cluster around me in animated fashion; they want to speak with me further. I'll write about this next.
But what about what I'm writing now? Have I offered anything that is 'new' or 'deep' much less insightful? Will anyone at least be able to relate -- at least to take me to task? Does this contribute in any way to how we might go about more thriving ways of living, doing, making?
I hope I'm on a roll. Or at least, I hope I am. I'm at least resolute about posting this particular blog, come what may.
And as soon as I get home, I'll show my oldest daughter. She'll be proud. She has written more books in her 8 1/2 years and sold them at the local Barnes and Noble that her daddy has written. She comes up with an idea, puts thought into deed, her imagination turning and churning as she composes works of beautiful words and tales and drawings of her own making. I hope to be more like her, more resolute in her open and committed and deeply wondrous way, if and when I ever grow up.
But first, I must post this. I feel good. Giddy even. Like a child.
from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/healthy-living/
Even so, I apologize for my tardiness. They seem relieved that I have arrived. "We're supposed to be sharing with the rest of the group a resolution we haven't kept," I'm told. "Do you have one?"
Oh, I do. I have an embarrassment of choices. I blurt out, "I vowed I'd write a regular blog, and I haven't honored it."
This captures their interest. Everyone leans forward. I'm met with a chorus of, "Why?"
The rationales spill out: Well, I'm used to writing books, to worrying over words and sentences for as long as it takes until I've convinced or duped myself that my writing and thinking is as good as it gets. They seem to buy this, and nod understandingly. I go on: All of my 'Socrates books' took a minimum of two years to write. Then I became a daddy. So add another year to that for my Constitution Cafe. With my latest manuscript, which I've just turned in, it took 3 1/2 years -- chalk up a new bundle of joy to the family for the even more protracted period.
But to write a blog, to turn something over rather quickly, I tell my commiserators? I have not found it an easy transition. Most of my first series of blogs posted at Huffington and elsewhere were a year in the making. It was a worthwhile experience, but exhausting.
I look at my past entries: in one blast, I came out with a series in about a month's time. They had germinated over years. That approach isn't sustainable. So I haven't posted in six months or so. I'm disappointed, in myself, in my inability (or unwillingness) to write more quickly.
What I don't offer: I used to write columns for newspapers, used to write on the fly. It was pretty good. Mostly well received. Just a different thinking process. Why in the world don't I go back to that, look at these offerings as the first 'iteration' of what turn into something more substantial? I don't share these thoughts, because then my excuses don't hold as much water. Maybe I'm just lazier and less disciplined than I care to admit.
But wait, I then offer out loud (continuing with the rationales: I've written all these books, and a doctoral dissertation on top of that, earning a PhD at the ripe age of fifty. I'm an overachiever if anything, right? Oh, the days and weeks and months of time I waste. No, I'm one of those who feels he always has to be 'productive' - or at least, to me, productivity can include playing with my children, going for a walk, staring at the stars and contemplating and embracing the joyous miracle of being alive and being a hubby and daddy and being aware that I'm part of something bigger or greater and rather incomprehensible and awesome and magnificent.
The understanding and empathy oozes from the group. It becomes a support/encounter group. I've triggered an upwelling of fellow feeling. My presence and ensuing confession is the equivalent of a pent-up human dam being unleashed. Everyone else now feels a sense of relief and release that they're not alone in their own failings to follow through with their creative hopes and dreams. They share in a chaotic outburst what they have aspired to make and do and say and have fallen short in realizing. The message: I'm not alone. We're not alone. Some share how they fear that if they really gave all they had to their professional and other projects, their personal relationships would take too much of a hit, and they're now willing to risk that. There is now a bond and a sense of comfort among most everyone at my table. A sense that it's okay to fall waaaay sort of our goals and aspirations. I want no part of this.
The confessional atmosphere doesn't make me feel better. Just the opposite. There are so many more hours in the day, for many if not most of us, at laest of middle class (and above) backgrounds, than we put to good or meaningful or rewarding use. Or at least, that certainly is true for me. When I think of all the additional books and essays, poems and works of fiction, even songs, that I might have crafted, if only I didn't waste so much time on the good ol' Internet. If only Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn didn't distract me and siphon away so much meaningful time day in and day out.
Walter Kaufmann, the philosopher who most influenced everything I do, had this moving and jarring insight in his timeless classic 'The Faith of a Heretic':
"Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time reading magazines and watching television, hope for eternal life. If one lives intensely, the time comes when sleep seems bliss. If one loves intensely, the time comes when death seems bliss."
Kaufmann is that rare soul who goes against the grain and challenges the notion that most of us live with anxiety about death. To him, knowing our mortal moment comes to an end at some point is the essential impetus for inspiring us to make the most of however much time we have on this earth. It's a shame he needlessly alienates his otherwise keen insight by taking to task those whose belief systems include a notion of eternal life in 'another place,' since this does not have to be any impediment to abiding by his dictum to live fully here and now.
Be that as it may, I'm determined now to post another blog -- now. I write this while I attend a conference. It is a week later. I had left that workshop determined to write a blog that same night. But I was too tired. Then I vowed to write it during the plane flight across the coast to return home. Once again, I played the 'too weary card,' and did not write a word. But that night, upon arriving home, I began -- only for the Internet suddenly to quit working. So i went to bed. I woke up the next morning to resume my work, only to realize I hadn't save my work. It was vaporized.
In what I decided was well-justified self pity, I abandoned the vow. It just wasn't meant to be. But I woke up this morning refreshed, because I slept past the hour I was supposed to take the shuttle bus to this conference. So I arrived late, and as I absorb all the thoughts being offered here, I also am moved to try, try again at this blog. I can listen carefully (or so I choose to think) and write (though whether I can write well is debatable). I started writing this a mere half hour or so ago. And now I want to finish and post it. I can always revisit it, polish it, add to it and change it as new thoughts occur to me.
Is it ready for primetime? Am I so anxious to post that I overlook that I haven't said much of worth, and haven't said it well? I'll find out.
But before I do, I look up the meaning of the word irresolution on Dictionary.com: "lack of resolution; lack of decision or purpose; vacillation."
I am none of those. I am very resolute, just don't come nearly as close as I'd like to the high bar I've set for myself. So now I look up resolute: "firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion."
Welllll, I'm not sure if I'm that either. Or at least, what I'm resolved about, determined to do, the purposes I set for myself and the opinions I harbor, are subject to change -- and that is in part because, as a Socratic sojourner who engages in inquiry of people of all ages and walks of life across the globe, I am forever exposed to stores of knowledge and wisdom ways, to a wide variety of objections and alternatives to any given way of seeing things.
Dictionary.com's second definition characterizing someone who is resolute is "characterized by firmness and determination, as the temper, spirit, actions." Okay, I can go with -- but I'm resolute in a bit of a squishy or at least non-dogmatic way. I'm more resolute (or like to think I am) in the way that someone with a childlike temperament would be -- resolute but open to changing my heart and mind about what I should be most resolute about.
There is a break in the conference now. While I was composing Version 1 of this, I stood up at one point and was moved to offer my Socratic take about what had been shared so far in terms of what we scholar-practitioners should seek to accomplish in making ours a more connected world. It seems to give folks pause. Some now cluster around me in animated fashion; they want to speak with me further. I'll write about this next.
But what about what I'm writing now? Have I offered anything that is 'new' or 'deep' much less insightful? Will anyone at least be able to relate -- at least to take me to task? Does this contribute in any way to how we might go about more thriving ways of living, doing, making?
I hope I'm on a roll. Or at least, I hope I am. I'm at least resolute about posting this particular blog, come what may.
And as soon as I get home, I'll show my oldest daughter. She'll be proud. She has written more books in her 8 1/2 years and sold them at the local Barnes and Noble that her daddy has written. She comes up with an idea, puts thought into deed, her imagination turning and churning as she composes works of beautiful words and tales and drawings of her own making. I hope to be more like her, more resolute in her open and committed and deeply wondrous way, if and when I ever grow up.
But first, I must post this. I feel good. Giddy even. Like a child.
from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/healthy-living/
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