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Life. Inside me. I hate being conscientious. I hate wondering that my thoughts are correct, that they coincide with reality. What’s with this word ‘hate’ anyway? Why is it in my vocabulary?

I’m gonna let my thoughts flow freely for a bit…

I have a logic exam today. The book is peeled open and…

I find that when I’m stressed my mind operates at limited capacity. My ability to think critically and abstractly and creatively is severely hindered. I think of myself in a haze, a deep fog that extends just out of arms reach which veils the world in confusion.

We’re reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed in Philosophy of Education. While I haven’t read it straight through yet, I’ve been reading excerpts here and there, attempting to harvest his insights. The book it wholly inspiring.
Continue reading “Oppression”

Fuck adjectives.

I like people. I like people and places and things. Fuck adjectives. Fuck’em. I like verbs too a little. I need to work on my writing.

“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”-Hemmingway

What do I feel right now?

I feel like I’m going to lose my mind. I haven’t felt this way for a long time. I can’t hold my attention to a thought. I am always starting again. Like I keep waking up, and these responsibilities and goals are sitting there, unmoved and undisturbed. This is when the anxiety begins to creep into mind. I stress about…

Where is my life going? I’ve been having dark thoughts recently. Terminal thoughts. Its not healthy. Its stress induced. Like there is a wall of challenges that I keep walking up to, and I begin climbing, only to realize it was a dream, and the wall still lies before me.

I am behind on work.

I am making poor decisions. Decisions that I have decided were ‘not poor’, but were ‘reasonable’. These delusions are leaving me worse off. I am feeling defeated. I am unhappy. I have trouble enjoying myself and others without alcohol, so it seems.

I went to panama city beach this weekend. As I was told, it proved to be an exhilarating experience. With my fellow frat mates and their dates, we drowned ourselves in alcohol from the early hours of the morn into the wee hours of the night. When fatigue struck, due to overexposure or sheer inebriation, we popped uppers and chugged caffeine to restore our energy levels. And as often as possible, we had drunken sex with total strangers. These were, of course, our frat brothers dates. Date swapping is encouraged. I clocked in a few hours of sleep in the midst of it all. ‘How?’ is well beyond me.

I used to be a behaved boy. These tendencies to ‘rage’ like an animal, to indulge in these fantastic sensations of the body, were instinctual in my pubescent years. They came all too naturally, like a tsunami hitting the shoreline, decimating every inhibition in its path until the hunger subsided. As I grew older reason became a more trustworthy judge that shielded my inhibitions from destruction. Now I find myself rationalizing these behaviors. My moral compass has become a relative game of spin the bottle. My powers of manipulation have refocused themselves on my ethical operations, and its taking a toll.

Who are these people that encourage my demise? No. These voices? In my head. I am losing my mind.

I have work to do. Instead, I lie in bed. I hide my head from the faces around me. The shame in myself. My lack of attention in school, in the classroom, has caused my self confidence to erode. I cannot simply ‘rage’ like a mad man and maintain a composer that produces. I am not that person. I have never been that person. My attention span is that of a fly. This is why goals, concise and succinct, have been my beacon in dark hours. They provide a flickering blaze on the horizon that orients and alleviates the tension of being lost. But where have my goals gone? I can barely remember my motive for college.

Perhaps this weekend temporarily jostled my brain fluids. Perhaps the sleep deprivation has simply caused stress to double its intensity. Perhaps all these dark thoughts that weigh so severely on my conscience are merely short lived delusions that will burn off with time.

I don’t think thats the case. I am wrestling with something inside me. Something that needs to come out. I know better. While I have not eradicated the demons, I have managed their trouble. My escapades have led me astray. I have failed to keep them at bay and they are wreaking havoc on me.

So I sleep. I escape with dreams. Dreams of the world I seek to escape. It is a horrible nightmare.

Where does this inadequacy stem? Why do I feel so out dated, so expired. In my delusions, my efforts are monitored by harsh critics. My job is to increase the criticism so that I am prepared for the worst. What happens is that I destroy the only confidence I have so that I flounder when it counts. My lack of ease is alarming. Is my only refuge sleeping? Reading! Time wasters. Anything to preoccupy my mind. I steal away into these altered realities. Only here is my attention suspended completely, for a moment. The nagging anxiety melts away as I absorb into the narrative. There is no judgement. There are no peers and professors and red ink and critical counter claims. There is nothing but a suspension. A weightless wonderful suspension.

Until, of course, my habits of routine kick in and I am forced to attend maintenance responsibilities: go to class, show up to frat parties, submit work at an immovable deadline.

These deadlines are the only ones that seem to have any effect on this world that is perpetually postpone. I am not making myself into anything. I am beginning anew with every moment. This is torture. This is hell on earth. Culminated efforts with no direction. I focus and take aim, flexing and commanding my mind to hit the mark, but the direction is lost upon release and I am left wondering where my energy is being invested.

I am a wayward ship tormented by shape shifting skies.

These feelings need to get out. I need to exorcise them.

Smoking cigarettes makes me ill. But I do it anyway. Where are my values?

Why do I hate myself? Why do I hate the contradiction?

And I wake. And I am lost. This world is foreign, these faces are new. They seem to move to and fro as if I were a familiar fixture in their landscape. But who is it that they know? I am unknown to myself. I would give them that person. I would jest for their satisfaction just to give myself I place, just to restore that place in myself.

I am disconnected. Uprooted, I am artificially nourished with lies and delusions.

Not gonna lie, I’m a big fan of eclectic indie bands. Anything chill, harmonious, abstract, or the like. Speaking of…. not eclectic music… I was listening to pandora and owl city came on. Some song “Captains and Cruise Ships”. The song was alright, but what stuck out was the mention of… WEST PALM BEACH. Sweet.

I am stuck in L.A.
Through the week and can’t get away
And you’re alone on the pier
In West Palm Beach on your holiday
Stormy night, reawake
…etc.

What is the first business of philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows. ~Epictetus, Discourses

If I knew I should die tomorrow, I would plant a tree today. ~Stephen Girard

Theres something transcendental about that quote. It causes me to look beyond. To see the value in my actions. A potential that should not be overlooked. A permanency that grows.

Regarding T.H. McLaughlin’s “Beyond the Reflective Teacher”

The essay begins with the appeal to the underlying educational practitioner philosophy of reflection. Author McLaughlin thinks that there needs to be a shift away from the notion of a reflective teaching practitioner and advocates moving beyond to a more comprehensive model. He believes the current conception of a ‘reflective teacher’ has become a mere slogan used to gain appeal and consensus about the methods of teaching.

His inquiry looks into the concept of ‘reflection’, begging critical questions such as how reflection should be understood, what value it possesses, and how reflection is properly developed. From there he gives an in depth analysis that addresses the concepts and processes involved with the practice of teaching. His aim is to reconcile the current demands of teaching with training, a difficult task when using the current conception of reflection. In the end he establishes a need to address the individuality of teachers as a vital component of teaching. To him, character and personality, integral to a teacher’s individual traits, supersede the ability of mere reflection to facilitate knowledge to pupils.

Continue reading “Reflective Teacher”

otiose
o·ti·ose[oh-shee-ohs, oh-tee-]
–adjective
1. being at leisure; idle; indolent.
2. ineffective or futile.
3. superfluous or useless.

In his essay Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature, Edmund Husserl explores the conception of motion in relation to bodies. While an exhaustive summary and examination could be undertaken on the essay as a whole, I would like to begin with examining an excerpt that characterizes the essay’s foundational theme that establishes the origin of the spatiality of nature. After all, as Husserl stressed, it is the implicit formations of such parts that give rise to the unity in which we perceive the whole. 

“We must not forget the pregiveness and constitution belonging to the apodictic Ego or to me, to us, as the source of all actual and possible sense of being, of all possible broadening which can be further constructed in the already constituted world developing historically.”

Continue reading “Husserl & Spatiality”

What is the future?

Perceived events to-come? A something ‘before us’ containing an unpredictable, all-too-predictable, universal structure of immanence? A dangerous ‘understanding’ to come?

Journal thoughts on this notion and conception of future. Look at events that have shaped our apprehension ‘for’ the future. Uncover the essence of ‘future’, not as a physical phenomenon, but as a subjectively charged, intuitively constituted, exploding experience.

Interesting…
Educate is from L. educatus, pp. of educare “bring up, rear, educate,” which is related to educere or “bring out,” from ex- “out” + ducere “to lead”. Ducere is from where the word “duke” is derived.

Educate= to lead out.

Max Born (1949), Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance
From “Metaphysical Conclusions”, pp. 124-28
[My emphasis added in bold]

“[T]he principle of objectivity…provides a criterion to distinguish subjective impressions and objective facts, namely by substituting for given sense-data others which can be checked by other individuals. […] It is perhaps the most important rule of the code of natural science of which innumerable examples can be given, and it is obviously closely related to the conception of scientific reality. For if reality is understood to mean the sum of observational invariants – and I cannot see any other reasonable interpretation of this word in physics – the elimination of sense qualities is a necessary step to discover them.

“Here I must refer to the previous Waynflete Lectures given by Professor E.D. Adrian, on The Physical Background of Perception, because the results of physiological investigations seem to me in perfect agreement with my suggestion about the meaning of reality in physics. The messages which the brain receives have not the least similarity with the stimuli. They consist in pulses of given intensities and frequencies, characteristic for the transmitting nerve-fibre, which ends at a definite place of the cortex. All the brain ‘learns’ (I use here the objectionable language of the ‘disquieting figure of a little hobgoblin sitting up aloft in the cerebral hemisphere’) is a distribution or ‘map’ of pulses. From this information it produces the image of the world by a process which can metaphorically be called a consummate piece of combinatorial mathematics: it sorts out of the maze of indifferent and varying signals invariant shapes and relations which form the world of ordinary experience.

“This unconscious process breaks down for scientific ultra-experience, obtained by magnifying instruments. But then it is continued in the full light of consciousness, by mathematical resoning. The result is the reality offered by theoretical physics.

“The principle of objectivity can, I think, be applied to every human experience, but is often quite out of place. For instance: what is a fugue by Bach? is it the invariant cross-section, or the common content of all printed or written copies, gramophone records, sound waves at performances, etc., of this piece of music? As a lover of music I say No! that is not what I mean by a fugue. It is something of another sphere where other notions apply, and the essence of it is not ‘notions’ at all, but the immediate impact on my soul of its beauty and greatness.

“In cases like this, the idea of scientific objective reality is obviously inadequate, almost absurd.

“This is trivial, but I have to refer to it if I have to make good my promise to discuss the bearing of modern physical thought on philosophical problems, in particular on the problem of free will. Since ancient times philosophers have been worried how free will can be reconciled with causality, and after the tremendous success of Newton’s deterministic theory of nature, this problem seemed to be still more acute. Therefore, the advent of indeterministic quantum theory was welcomed as opening a possibility for the autonomy of the mind without a class with the laws of nature. Free will is primarily a subjective phenomenon, the interpretation of a sensation we experience, similar to a sense impression. We can and do, of course, project it into the minds of our fellow beings just as we do in the case of music. We can also correlate it with other phenomena in order to transform it into an objective relation, as the moralists, sociologists, lawyers do – but then it resembles the original sensation no more than an intensity curve in a spectral diagram resembles a colour I see. After this transformation into a sociological concept, free will is a symbolic expression to describe the fact that the actions and reactions of human beings are conditioned by their internal mental structures and depend on their whole and unaccountable history. Whether we believe theoretically in strict determinism or not, we can make no use of this theory since a human being is too complicated, and we have to be content with a working hypothesis like that of spontaneity of decision and responsibility of action. If you feel that this clashes with determinism, you have now at your disposal the modern indeterministic philosophy of nature, you can assume a certain ‘freedom’, i.e., deviation from the deterministic laws, because these are only apparent and refer to advantages. Yet if you believe in perfect freedom you will get into difficulties again, because you cannot neglect the laws of statistics which are laws of nature.

“I think that the philosophical treatment of the problem of free will suffers often from an insufficient distinction between the subjective and objective aspect. It is doubtless more difficult to keep these apart in the case of such sensations as free will, than in the case of colours, sounds, or temperatures. But the application of scientific conceptions to a subjective experience is an inadequate procedure in all such cases.

“You may call this an evasion of the problem, by means of dividing all experience into two categories, instead of trying to form one all-embracing picture of the world. This division is indeed what I suggest and consider to be unavoidable. If quantum theory has any philosophical importance at all, it lies in the fact that it demonstrates for a single, sharply defined science the necessity of dual aspects of complementary considerations. Niels Bohr has discussed this question with respect to many applications in physiology, psychology, and philosophy in general. According to the rule of indeterminacy, you cannot measure simultaneously position and velocity of particles, but you have to make your choice. The situation is similar if you wish, for instance, to determine the physico-chemical processes in the brain connected with a mental process: it cannot be done because the latter would be decidedly disturbed by the physical investigation. Complete knowledge f the physical situation is only obtainable by a dissection which would mean the death of the living organ or the whole creature, the destruction of the mental situation. This example may suffice; you can find more and subtler ones in Bohr’s writings. They illustrate the limits of human understanding and direct the attention to the question of fixing the boundary line, as physics has done in a narrow field by discovering the quantum constant ℏ. Much futile controversy could be avoided in this way. To show this by a final example, I wish to refer to these lectures themselves which deal only with one aspect of science, the theoretical one There is a powerful school of eminent scientists who consider such things to be a future and snobbish sport, and the people who spend their time on it drones Science has undoubtedly two aspects: it can be regarded from the social standpoint as a practical collective endeavor for the improvement of human conditions, but it can also be regarded from the individualistic standpoint, as a pursuit of mental desires, the hunger for knowledge and understanding, a sister of art, philosophy, and religion. Both aspects are justified, necessary, and complementary. The collective enterprise of practical science consists in the end of individuals and cannot thrive without their devotion. But devotion does not suffice; nothing great can be achieved without the elementary curiosity of the philosopher. A proper balance is needed. I have chosen the way which seemed to me to harmonize best with the spirit of this ancient place of learning.”

When you are walking along, and a pebble finds its way into your shoe, what do you do?

You stop and remove the pebble.

Perhaps I place a pebble in my shoe and begin walking.

Why?

Both situations yield equivalent experience. One is to address a necessary demand, the other is the creation of an unnecessary demand.

The first leads to an ordinary accumulation of knowledge. The second, creative, act leads to an extraordinary accumulation of knowledge.

This is curiosity.

Perhaps we could save ourselves much discomfort by only attending the problems that find their way to us? Or, perhaps it is this curiosity that provides the ultimate satisfaction?

People go about their life, never questioning, never reflecting on the source from where they came. For many, the formulation of God as a super divinity overflowing with answers is enough to assuage the task of inquiry. However, these formulations, whether belief or superstition or paradigm, need to be traced. An origin must be uncovered. As something, we do not sprout from nothing. We should assume that thoughts, a product of natural processes, follow the same principled behavior as other matter. No matter is created or destroyed, but constantly transfers and transforms. Thoughts and beliefs have a source, and if one should ever wonder where they are going, they should ask from where they came.

Continue reading “Reflection and Self-deception”

Discussion with philosophy professor
I feel like I annoyed him with my ideas, like I was violating an unspoken truism that questioning professors violates the teacher student relationship. That his conceptions are already rooted and these foreign thoughts of mine, however (seemingly) viable, should not be tolerated.

So I read this quote:
‘A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.’
Marcus Aurelius

So I was like, whats the difference between aspiration and ambition?
Interestingly enough:
aspiration
1530s, “action of breathing into,” from L. aspirationem (nom. aspiratio), noun of action from aspiratus, pp. of aspirare (see aspire). Meaning “steadfast longing for a higher goal, earnest desire for something above one” is recorded from c.1600 (sometimes collectively, as aspirations).

ambition
mid-14c., from L. ambitionem (nom. ambitio) “a going around (to solicit votes),” from ambitus, pp. of ambire “to go around” (see ambient). Rarely used in the literal sense in English; the sense of “eager or inordinate desire of honor or preferment” goes back to the Latin.

While they are virtually synonymous in modern semantics, their historical roots differ quite a bit. Aspiration is breathing into, like breathing life into an idea. Whereas ambient is going around, like going around with, or soliciting, the idea. Cool, I think.

So a group of dialectically attuned friends and I were conversing on the subject of the existence of God, whilst consuming liquid courage. It serves to loosen the dialog.

So our conversation, at one point, degenerated into poetically poignant and grandiose rants on man’s origin. As a disclaimer to philosophical and theological discussions, I always explain beforehand that I am in favor of discovering the possibility of the existence of God, so long as we abide by the known principles governing reality.

We landed on the topic of ‘order’ as plausible evidence for a higher power. The notion of Life- incredibly intricate systems of order that beget order- seems to run contrary to the sum will of the universe- which we agreed was entropy. I conjectured that popular understandings of order may be faulted.

So my friend says:
Nature tends towards that state in which energy is randomized to the greatest extent possible (disorder).

I replied:
Only in isolated (closed) systems. Entropy of a system that is not isolated (open) may decrease, leading to an increase of order. The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of any system cannot decrease other than by increasing the entropy of some other system. We know the earth is not a closed system because of the energy exchange between the sun. The suns increasing total entropy reduces the total entropy of the earth through the transference of its energy- which is radiation, heat, and light.
Assuming a closed system, the net effect in the solar system (or the universe) is still towards increased entropy. (Is this also why the universe is expanding?–probably a question well beyond my current powers of comprehension.)

Relating back to the discussion about God and order, the question remained: Is the reduction of entropy- leading to increased order and life on earth- really proof of Intelligent design? Or for that matter, the existence of God? Not convinced.

Personal Review of Beyond the Reflective Teacher by Terence H. McLaughlin

            The essay begins with the appeal to the underlying educational practitioner philosophy of reflection.  Author McLaughlin thinks that there needs to be a shift away from the notion of a reflective teaching practitioner and advocates moving beyond to a more comprehensive model. He believes the current conception of a ‘reflective teacher’ has become a mere slogan used to gain appeal and consensus about the methods of teaching.

His inquiry looks into the concept of ‘reflection’, begging critical questions such as how reflection should be understood, what value it possesses, and how reflection is properly developed. From there he gives an in depth analysis that addresses the concepts and processes involved with the practice of teaching. His aim is to reconcile the current demands of teaching with training, a difficult task when using the current conception of reflection. In the end he establishes a need to address the individuality of teachers as a vital component of teaching. To him, character and personality, integral to a teacher’s individual traits, supersede the ability of mere reflection to facilitate knowledge to pupils.

This essay was a provoking call to reexamine the semantics of educational theory and root them in a practical working understanding that combines a refined definition of reflection borrowed from Aristotle’s notion of phronesis, coupled with personal character qualities of individual teachers.

Having recently reflected on ‘reflection’ myself, I was intrigued by the dilemmas McLaughlin brought to light. Academic words like ‘reflection’ are all too often thrown around without much thought that a consensual and pragmatic understanding of such words are up to date. One is inclined to think of reflection as almost synonymous with learning, but this, as McLaughlin says, is the very fault of the ‘reflections’ current paradigm.

Regarding its educational applications, reflection is loaded with relative meaning. It is not simply the act of ‘thinking’. It contains varying complexities that manifest according to the intention of reflection, as well as when material being reflected upon. McLaughlin pulls apart the explicit and intuitive functions of reflection called for specific applications. He refers to Aristotle’s notion of the techne to illustrate how skilled professionalism, such as research, requires skill derived from explicit reflection.

Additionally, there is a further spectrum concerned with the proximity of objects under reflection. Not only does reflection vary in application, it varies in the scope and object of reflection as well. This is on a continuum ranging from specific, present and particular, matters, to more general, contextual, matters. These levels emerge as important for framing reflection to suite the object of reflection. By not recognizing these levels, there is an inherent danger of limiting the scope in which matters are considered, leading to potentially overlooking interconnections among parts.

As McLaughlin moves on in his critique, he arrives at the dilemma of establishing a definitive value of reflection as it relates to effective classroom performance. Establishing the connection of phronesis as ‘uniting good judgement and action’ with effective teaching, there arises the question of defining what it means to be a good teacher. This brings him to the dilemmas of researching the dynamics of teacher and pupils as well as the very quality of their reflection in question.

His last critique relates educational theory’s innate duty to establish rational principles. While this duty appears to be a sincere and worthwhile undertaking, there is the threat of post-modernism that ridicules the possibility of rationalism that leaves to any sort of ‘general standards of judgment’ from existing at all. To most, it would seem absurd to abandon such a duty. However, this forces the question of issues concerning evaluative basis of education itself.

Lastly, McLaughlin moves beyond the analysis and inquiry to formulating a position of launching a new paradigm that he refers to as ‘beyond reflection’. As aforementioned, he stresses the importance of valuing the qualities of character each individual teacher posses. These qualities, he believes, are what consider the relation between teacher and student, and bridge a gap that allows for the connection of the teacher as a ‘whole person’ with the pupils.

Continuing with this connection, while retaining the conviction in reflection as phronesis, he constructs a position that emphasizes the role of rooted, established communities unified by mutual commitments. Because of contemporary educations concern with pluralism and diversity, the utility of these communities have yet to be fully explored.

In conclusion, McLaughlin does wonderful work analyzing the varying semantic of reflection, and presents a convincing platform for the further analysis of reflections role in unified communities that emphasizes a strong link to a teacher character in effective education.

Inspiration:
“The first and best victory is to conquer self.” -Plato

“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life.” James Allen

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” -Horace

“Well begun is half done.” -Aristotle

“You can never conquer the mountain. You can only conquer yourself.” – Jim Whittaker

“Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.” — Thomas á Kempis

Life is but a memory. A continuous stream of recollection. The present is a mere construct of the past, a simple illusion that grounds us. We are forever falling forward into the unknown. We claw about for fragmented reminders of this free fall, for past sensations that resonate with our privileged bag of anamnesis. We are the center of this universe. It is ours, and we alone are the keepers of its history. For man revolves around none but himself; no perspective but our own can be explored.

***
Unsure of my place. I want to produce. More thoughts, more convictions and passions. This restless struggle with idealism. The ideology that yearning for more, for productivity and creation, leads to reward, internal or external.

Sacrifice. I would like to cherish sacrifice. There is only so much time in a day. A finite amount of resources and energy to expend on any given thought or endeavor. Sacrifice. These are made when your roots of preoccupation have become entangled and risk strangling the breath of enterprise. Hack at the roots. Bisect yourself from the web of distraction. Sacrifice. An escape towards desire and its fulfillment, accompanied with disorienting estrangement, pain, and a lack of reassurance. No grounding to slow you down or hold you back. No more gripping assurance when the winds of doubt and currents of change buffet your course. Sacrifice was made and requires to be endured.

Life is a memory.

Time.

Where does it all go?

On and into the unknown it flows.

A drop in a river.

like moments in time.

We are forced into its glimmering pool,

watching the menageries of life,

unfurl and twirl,

and melt and mold,

into this plane

that we forever hold.

Now and then,

We find soon enough,

that this suspension kills,

and we ask to fall.

On and in,

however we go,

Off and out,

as long as its slow.

Look to catch,

and we’re caught.

Moment by moment,

Spewing out.

Our past is fleeing,

Our future stalled.

Stuck in the now.

Go on,

stop off.