dazed peace

Learning a language - intrinsic value

I was bothered by people telling me the practical benefits of keeping a language.

“You might get a job that requires some understanding of that language.”
“You might travel there in the future.”
etc.

I recall my Classics professor telling the class, “Don’t learn Greek because it helps you learn French or Spanish… Learn Greek for the sake of learning Greek!” I think I should take this approach to languages in general.

It feels much more freeing and motivating to learn something simply for what it is. It feels limiting to learn something for mercenary purposes, for the expected real-world practical benefit.

I think this is how I will approach a lot of subjects now - as works of art, things to be appreciated and understood simply for their existence.

Learning - instinctive, kinesthetic, quick

I’m surprised by the quickness with which I pick up commands by hand - doing things instinctively, as though I’m a kinesthetic learner who grasps things by doing. I find this in reacting with keyboard shortcuts - a simple interaction with a computer. I don’t want to lose this ability as I grow. I can imagine my parents struggling to remember the combinations, what to do with your hands. It’s like piano - learning the technical, trying to coordinate - when the best thing is sometimes to just do it. To just suddenly know how to make things happen. This is a subtle layer of learning that seems engrained. I wonder how you teach it. Repetition, muscle memory? I plan to train this and keep it forever no matter how technology changes.

Flow experiences, appearances

flow experiences. losing yourself in a moment, in an activity, immersed so that nothing else exists. technical drivel, the math and science. but I counter-balance with equal attention to the arts, to works of subjective greatness, of immeasurable impact. balance in flow experiences. even as we struggle with comparisons to those similar to us, those who pursue similarly and are of similar background. we differentiate in our minds, draw curtains where they don’t need to exist. but they do in each of our worlds.

does this Word seem more important just because it’s capitalized? it does - for we are so influenced by appearances.

sunset within

maybe I like this
feeling of the sun
setting inside me.

Just go

It’s all too hard to foresee… it’s all about the path, the journey.
How do I make the most of my time? Use poetry to keep my thoughts in rhyme?
Art is a pursuit, I know that much; but there is too much in the world I will never touch.

The End of the World

“We’re going,” they said, “to the end of the world.”
So they stopped the car where the river curled,
And we scrambled down beneath the bridge
On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.

We tramped for miles on a wooded walk
Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk.
Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor
While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore.

We came to a bend, where the river grew wide
And green mountains rose on the opposite side.
My guides moved back. I stood alone,
As the current streaked over smooth flat stone.

Shelf by stone shelf the river fell.
The white water goosetailed with eddying swell.
Faster and louder the current dropped
Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped.

I stood at the edge where the mist ascended,
My journey done where the world ended.
I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky,
The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.

- Dana Gioia

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Leo Tolstoy

Success is Counted Sweetest

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

- Emily Dickinson

you’ll never know