Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I'm trying to start journaling in the morning, but my entries always amount to cryptic variations on "I feel like crap" or "I feel pretty good." Any advice?

Monday, April 27, 2009

My Aspiration

Watch (almost) every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Flight of the Conchords (possibly also The Office (either version) should be on this list), and you, too, may come to believe as I have that there is an inestimable beauty in a life of bungling simplicity. You might even have a dream like this:

I took a trip to Rome and found when I got there that although I had brought all my suitcases I had forgotten to put anything in them. I figured I needed to make a living now so I spent the next day in a cafe discussing job options with Bret and Jemaine. I think "cafe guy" (i.e. someone who sits in a cafe) topped the list, just edging out "living statue."

I believe that this dream is an expression of my desire to live more simply and fecklessly.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Why is Adam Cooper's birthday different from any other day of the year?

Last night after the birthday party, around 8, we were lingering at the Lavergnes over coffee, until someone realized that nobody had eaten dinner. By a series of steps, we went from planning to go home to make Natalie's potato egg pie for dinner, to planning to go across the street to the Rathskeller (at this point Adam Cooper himself disappeared into a telephone conversation, ruling out the possibility of taking him out for birthday dinner), to my offering to scrounge up a meal in the kitchen, to Natalie taking over and making potato egg pie.

I hope Adam got some.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

One of the lives I wish I were living

is the life of this guy. He spent some years spending enough less than he earned that he can now live on withdrawals from his savings that total less than the interest (about 4%). He is retired, before the age of forty (except now for half an hour a day of copy editing), and spends all his time doing what he wants, and (this is the really cool part) what he wants is to volunteer his skills to add value to the world.

Every time I read this blog, I think about how inefficiently, slavishly, and selfishly I spend my time. Not that I want to accomplish anything as extreme as Jacob; I think setting myself up as a professional academic will have very nearly the same effects as would achieving complete economic freedom and then doing what I want. But I do want the level of self-mastery Jacob seems to have, instead of letting everything be dictated to me by outside demands (which in some cases include demands stemming from my past decisions, in case you were thinking of bringing up the Grackle as proof that I already have this self-mastery). I'm afraid of finding myself in the situation where I've worked to place and resenting the demands of the position (as I already often resent the demands of being a student) instead of living the life.

So, today, my focus is on bringing the love back to "love of wisdom."