Tyranny

The Gadsden Flag

The "health care" "reform" bill forced through the U.S. Congress this evening is unconstitutional, immoral and fiscally unsustainable. The process by which this bill was passed is deceitful, plainly corrupt, unbecoming of that body, and assures thirty more years of bitter, partisan divide ("hope" that President Obama would unite this country was exposed for the myth it was). The bill creates for citizens a new relationship with the federal government that is quintessentially un-American, and antithetical to the Framer's core belief that government is created to secure individual liberties. It is the most consequential (not to mention entirely untested) change to the American way of life in almost a century, and every one of those who voted for the bill should be removed from office come November.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

- C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

State legislatures should act immediately to repeal the 17th Amendment and end this tyranny of the mob.

Release the hounds!!!

Gareth Armstrong, as Shylock

“The mere receipt of an order backed by force seems, if anything, to give rise to the duty of resisting, rather than obeying.” – H. A. Prichard

Canine "leash laws" are a matter of controversy, even among friends. It turns out that they also can be the foundation of bad relationships between neighbors. Living on my street is a man - we'll call him Shylock - who persistently and obnoxiously believes in the letter of the law, and thus objects to the practice of off-leash dog walking, no matter the total isolation, late hour, harmlessness of hypothetical dog, nor other circumstance. Conversely, others on my block believe merely in the spirit of such laws: dog owners must be in complete control of their dogs, and are absolutely responsible for their behavior. After all, if a dog bites, do you care if she's on a leash? I have heard that Shylock's zealous support for the letter of the law has resulted in calls to "the police", though not surprisingly, I have yet to see a Fulton County Animal Control officer on my street... ever.

I make my living by promoting ethical behavior in organizations, a neighborhood being but one example. Not taking into account Shylock's arrogant and bullying style, the ongoing conflict troubles me deeply from a moral point of view: Is a violation of the leash law also a moral wrong? Do we have moral obligations to obey every law, no matter how silly we think one might be?

Laws are statements of minimal social norms. Societies create laws to describe behavior that is either required or unacceptable. Given this absolute quality, one hopes that all laws - which are coercive by nature - are grounded in some sense of shared morality, but the inescapable truth is that The Law is morally fallible, and specific laws are corrected or even repealed using this very rationale. The reality is that some laws unjustly restrict a citizen's liberties or infringe on personal rights and obligations without a compelling moral argument for doing so. These immoral laws should be resisted on principle. Do "leash laws" fall into this category?

I believe that some do. Many leash laws in Georgia do not go so far as to require an actual leash, specifying only that the dog must respond to voice commands and be "at heal" in the presence of others. This makes sense to me, because those laws articulate a reasonable expectation of responsibility and control, but do not dictate the type of control. However, the overly sensitive Fulton County statue to which this neighborhood is subject requires a six foot fixed length lead. Why? Why six (why not seven)? Why fixed? Who can say? From a practical perspective, these leash laws are motivated by the bad behavior of dogs that have not been trained properly by their owners. All the dogs I know at the center of this conflict are small, harmless, non-agressive, and well-trained. If the specific dog is small, harmless, non-aggressive, and well-trained, then what, exactly, is the law trying to achieve in this case?

The Fulton County leash law (and Shylock) is attempting to force dog owners to perform in an arbitrary way that may or may not have any relevance in a given situation, and as such is an inappropriate government infringement upon individual personal liberty. The law actually prevents the dog owner from taking personal (voluntary) responsibility for his own (or his dog's) actions. Much like helmet laws, leash laws start from the presumption that citizens are dumb, insensitive to context, and in need of parenting. So, Fulton County would like to be my daddy, but can I say no?

I encourage all responsible dog owners who have harmless, non-agressive, well-trained dogs that respond immediately to voice commands to resist overly aggressive leash laws by practicing civil disobedience.

Civil disobedience is a violation of the law without any loss of respect for law and the other basic political institutions generally acknowledged to be fair and just. Speaking most generally, civil disobedience is that act which knowingly violates a law, committed in deference to a higher order (like natural rights), or in support of a cause greater than the actor himself (like liberty) and the law itself. Under John Rawls’ strict interpretation, civil disobedience is a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law, usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government.

Civil disobedience is a form of political statement, an invitation for others to join in a just cause. Civil disobedience is deliberate lawlessness, and can be classified as either direct (by breaking the very law that is objectionable) or indirect (by breaking laws which are not objectionable, but which call attention to the wrong). Lastly, acts of civil disobedience must be conscientious, which generally means that one acts out of an honest and sincere conviction that what one is doing is the uniquely correct thing to do, no matter what the personal cost. This stipulation rules out the motives of private or personal gain, or malevolent emotion as primary factors. The actor’s willingness to suffer inconvenience, expense, threats, real danger and punishment helps to demonstrate that his purpose is to protest a greater social injustice or wrong and not to achieve some immediate gain for himself.

So, if you are a responsible dog owner, act on principle and release the hounds!!

Everybody cares about my opinion.

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

Image and quote from The Big Lebowski (1998).

Okay, so not everybody cares about my opinion. However, when I go into restaurants and am accosted by researchers, or browse the internet and am swamped by survey requests, or when I read any newspaper and am encouraged to "talk back" to the author, or when I'm stuck behind a truck that wants me to "tell us how we're doing", you can forgive me for feeling that humble, thoughtful people are begging for my wise counsel and that very soon, the universe around us will change for the better thanks in no small part to a thorough airing of my views. After all, we're told endlessly, "your opinion matters".

I'm weary of this growing obsession with surveys, polls, and feedback. Not surprisingly, it appears to result primarily in banal uniformity and a shameless pandering to people with little imagination. While "my opinion" may matter to the people who are hired to farm it, it's simultaneously obvious that "I" do not. If I mattered in this process, here are a few things that would be different:

• The study would follow a recognized standard and methodology. Most surveys and intake methods appear to have been formulated by Marxist dictators after a full day of drinking. ("Which of the following three adjectives best describes your boss?  Brilliant, outstanding, or wonderful.")  Please don't waste my time with poor surveys.
  
• I would be given an assurance that my name and personal information (like my address) will never be associated with the data I provide.
  
• I would be given the opportunity to comment on related topics into which the study did not inquire. If you really want my opinion, make sure that I can give it to you.
  
• I would be given the results of the study, and not merely my personal data and the summary data, but the researcher's statement of interpretation, too.
  
• At some point in the future, I would be told how the data I provided changed something. This guideline is to prevent what is increasingly commonplace: the organization that sets out to give every indication that they listen to all viewpoints (but don't) and are responsive to their customers or employees (but aren't). Show me how my input was used, or why it was ignored. Otherwise, don't ask.
  

(Political opinion polls are political instruments best seen as weapons, and are not to be confused with other types of research. For this reason, I simply refuse to take them.  I vote.)

We all have a right to our personal views. The current trend toward polls, surveys and feedback seems to downplay the fact that some opinions are not based in reality, are held by individuals who are unreflective and uninformed, or perhaps are even misrepresented for some other reason.  What I dislike is knowing that my world is being shaped by just these opinions.  It's a trend that will one day fade. I hope.

The view from here.

"Tetons and The Snake River", Grand Teton National Park (1942),
by Ansel Adams

One of the most accessible, interesting and insightful books of contemporary philosophy is "The Art of Travel" by the amazing author Alain De Botton. As the summer travel season moves along, I will be jotting down some of my favorite passages from that text.

"Our misery that afternoon, in which the smell of tears mixed with the scents of sun cream and air conditioning, was a reminder of the rigid, unforgiving logic to which human moods appear to be subject, a logic that we ignore at our peril when we encounter a picture of a beautiful land and imagine that happiness must naturally accompany such magnificence.

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect. Thus we will not enjoy - we are not able to enjoy - sumptuous tropical gardens and attractive wooden beach huts when a relationship to which we are committed abruptly reveals itself to be suffused with incomprehension and resentment.

How quickly may the advantages of civilization be wiped out by a tantrum. The intractability of the mental knots points to the austere, wry wisdom of those ancient philosophers who walked away from prosperity and sophistication and argued, from within a barrel or a mud hut, that the key ingredients of happiness could not be material or aesthetic but must always be stubbornly psychological."

Politics and the young man.

"Aristotle with a Bust of Homer" (1653),
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Something about the events of this past Tuesday brought to mind a wise passage in Aristotle's Ethics:

"Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round education is a good judge in general. Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on time, but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit."

Or, as Ronald Reagan famously asserted regarding Walter Mondale, "I refuse to make my opponent's youth and inexperience an issue in this campaign." (Hat tip to Dr. Moore for the historical fact checking...)

You don't recover.

"Homage to the past" (1944), Marc Chagall

"You don't recover from the events of life, you take them with you, you knit them in, you grow with them and around them; they become who you are; they are life itself; how else my life might have been is unknowable." Charles L. Mee

Life and art

"The function of the artist is to provide what life does not." Tom Robbins

"Art is finished once the artist has truly said everything that was in his heart." Christian Krohc

Painting by Michael Sowa. Click on image for larger version.

Post Secret II

Above are two submissions to the Post Secret Project, and they remind me that a) relationships between people do not end, they merely change, and b) emotions are rarely genuine and pure. Methinks Paul Simon doth protest too much when he sings, "I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain", though clearly there are many who appreciate the man who said,

"I wish I had never met you. Because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there."

The unreasonable man

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

Image is "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" (1889), by Vincent Van Gogh. Click on image for larger version.

Henryk Górecki

The most interesting people, and certainly the best artists, are exceptionally self-reflective, self-critical individuals who are entirely free from the desire to see themselves through the eyes of others. It is a delicate state, but those who achieve it are souls truly liberated from the social confines of their surroundings and open to pursue the strength of their own authenticity. They are not sociopaths, for they often possess a conscience and an empathy and a rigid morality that surpasses their peers. They simply do not allow others to motivate or define them.

Consider this quote from the composer Henryk Górecki:

"I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will write for because you have to give the listener something and he has to make an effort in order to understand certain things. The same thing is true of poetry, of paintings, of books. If I were thinking of my audience and one likes this, one likes that, one likes another thing, I would never know what to write."

and this exchange during a 2007 interview attempting to discuss his quartet, "Songs are Sung":

"It’s just notes," says Gorecki dismissively. Does it have a religious or spiritual impulse? "That must remain in my work room," he repeats. Did the third symphony have a message? "Listen," says the composer, "what goes into my music stays in my room. The world can hear what it likes."

It seems that whenever I find a friend or an artist that I admire, a quick look into his or her life reveals a similar character. Will we ever find a politician like this?

While I'm not a big fan of the glossy video interpretation of the movement above, the entire symphony is truly transcendent. Much if not all of his other work is also worth a listen.

Love

"Love in the afternoon" (1992), by Andrew Wyeth

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. - Anais Nin

Anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it. - C.S. Lewis

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell. - C.S. Lewis

No people find each other more absurd than lovers. - C.S. Lewis

Love and Truth: Their warfare seems eternal. - E.M. Forster

A friend loves at all times. Proverbs 17:17

Wish you were here

"Hotel Room" (1931), Edward Hopper

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

by David Gilmour and Roger Waters

About the song

Immortal Beloved

At the end of Ludwig van Beethoven's life in March of 1827, letters were found in his desk addressed to, "Immortal Beloved". The well-written 1994 film by that same name (trailer above) explores several theories regarding this woman's identity and why the two were never united.

It would seem that Beethoven had one true love, a "soulmate", and that a twist of fate kept them apart. The movie asserts that it was this source of passion, frustration and longing that fueled his anger and bitterness over the course of his life, resulting in some of the most transcendent music ever written.

I am fascinated by man's willingness (and capacity) to hold on to people, convictions and feelings indefinitely, even in the face of a contrary reality and long after hope is gone. The mystery to me is not that some people do hold on, but that some people do not. After all, what happened to Beethoven is not rare. Many, if not most people live their lives without that person or thing they care about the most. Apparently, there is a fine line between devotion and futility, just as there is a fine line between genius and insanity.

Here is one of Beethoven's letters to Immortal Beloved:

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I nedd a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a clam consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

Solitude

"La Toilette" (1896), by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Though I value my time with friends and family, I need private space and ample opportunity to think through things on my own. I used to see this as a fault of mine, this inability to cope with reality while in the frequent presence of others, but now I suspect that it's a universal condition. I believe that each of us needs time alone, even removed from those we love the most. As Henri Nouwen wrote,

"Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self."

In the past, I've resorted to all manor of elaborate escape seeking solitude, from fleeing the hemisphere to spending time in a monastery. For the foreseeable future, however, that kind of exodus is impossible. Enter "the Man Cave".

For the last six months or more - and concluding today - I've been working on my Man Cave, formerly a one-bedroom apartment in the basement complete with bathroom and kitchen. The details of this seemingly endless campaign are too boring even for friends who care, but the tasks have included painting, electrical work, tiling, trim installation and threatening legal action against various suppliers and contractors.

I am reminded of a wonderful passage on the subject in the book, "The Winter of Our Discontent", by John Steinbeck:

"It has no name in my mind except the Place - no ritual or formula or anything. It's a spot in which to wonder about things. No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. Now, sitting in the Place, out of the wind, seeing under the guardian lights the tide creep in, black from the dark sky, I wondered whether all men have a Place, or need a Place, or want one and have none. Sometimes, I've seen a look in eyes, a frenzied animal look as of need for a quiet, secret place where soul-shivers can abate, where a man is one and can take stock of it."

So true.

What I've observed over the last several years is that contemporary American society does not readily tolerate a "professional" man's need for occasional solitude. At present, it is more acceptable for women to step away in order to rediscover or reinvent themselves (witness the huge success of the indulgently self-oriented book, "Eat, Pray, Love"), but men today who seek solitude as a source of strength and peace are considered apathetic, unfocused and unreliable. It remains the case that the extraordinary work of Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Ghandi (not to mention Hitler, and let's not) all included significant periods of isolation and quiet contemplation.

But I ramble. The best book on the subject that I can suggest - and I do - is "Solitude: A Return to the Self" by Anthony Storr.

Get away.

The Technological Imperative

"The Scream" (1893), by Edvard Munch

I was watching the trailer for the film Naqoyqatsi and noted the tagline, "There is no more nature. There is only technology." That assertion made me think about the tense relationship between the two, and how the modern world is caught somewhere in the middle.

When philosophers invoke "the technological imperative", they refer to two closely related ideas that try to describe how human beings have come to perceive technology:

1) Once technological advances have been made, further progression is inevitable. In this sense, technological growth - and man's embrace of it - is unavoidable and can not be reversed. For example, can you imagine a future world in which people desired black and white televisions and gravel roads? How about one that rejected the use of antibiotics or tractors? Interestingly, while our society as a whole seems to accept that technological progress is inescapable, some individuals still attempt to moderate the impact of its onward march. Consider that Amtrak now carries a single "quiet car" on most northeastern routes in which cell phones can not be used, and some couples avoid pharmaceutical birth control strictly because it is "unnatural".

2) If something can be done (if it is technically possible), then it ought to be done. The most oft cited example of this view was the French politician Jacques Soustelle who said of the atomic bomb, "Since it was possible, it was necessary." This second view goes beyond the first notion of inevitability by suggesting a moral imperative. Therefore, if we can go to Mars, we ought to. If we can keep a man alive for 200 years, we ought to. If we can find a technical solution to a problem (perhaps one that has a compelling human or spiritual solution), we ought to employ technology.

Should we, really?

I am a big fan of technology, but I am increasingly wary of its influence on our lives, specifically the way in which it separates us from nature and deprives us of authentic human experience. Or, as Max Frisch put it,

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn’t have to experience it.”

What is "natural" and how much of our existence should include this quality, even at the expense of efficiency? I can't say that I know for sure. Email is fantastic, but we should weigh the value of a typewritten letter with the value of a face-to-face encounter. Does checking the weather online provide us the same connection to the earth as going outside and taking measurements - and does that matter? Is the use of a stethoscope really as valuable as a doctor putting his ear on your chest? Maybe, and maybe not.

The painting above is "The Scream" (1893), by Edvard Munch. In his diary, Munch wrote of this day, "... my friends walked on, and there I still stood, trembling with fear - and I sensed an endless scream passing through nature." I believe that it was good for Munch to feel nature's cry. I doubt that he would have had the same experience watching this sunset on television.

Hermann Hesse

I've never made my peace with Hesse, though I've tried throughout several of his novels, from Demien, to Siddhartha, to The Steppenwolf. I don't agree with his belief that salvation is uncovered from within the self-realized individual, nor with the resulting disdain for religion, but I relate to his disgust at societal convention, and the general sense of separateness and isolation that modern life breeds.

It is Hesse's poetic style that impresses me the most. There are times when the reader feels more like he is holding a book of poetry than a novel. Here is a passage from The Steppenwolf, a book so powerful that one of my closest friends has a Steppenwolf tattoo on his upper arm:

"There is much to be said for contentment and painlessness, for these bearable and submissive days, on which neither pain nor pleasure cry out, on which everything only whispers and tiptoes around. But the worst of it is that it is just this contentment that I cannot endure. After a short time it fills me with irrepressible loathing and nausea. Then, in desperation, I have to escape into other regions, if possible on the road to pleasure, or, if that cannot be, on the road to pain. When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so-called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my rusty lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the most devilish pain burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols, to provide for a few rebellious schoolboys with the longed-for ticket to Hamburg, to seduce a little girl, or to stand one or two representatives of the established order on their heads. For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity."

Regret

"Melancholy" (1891), by Edvard Munch

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda

It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and sensless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart. Jonathan Carroll

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sydney Smith

If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world. Mercedes Lackey

Accept life, and you must accept regret. Henri Frederic Amiel

To regret deeply is to live afresh. Henry David Thoreau

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. Woody Allen

Only connect...

The first time I found a home in literature was when I read E. M. Forster's "Howard's End" in 1992. In this work, I discovered a link to eternal truths that I did not know existed. Here was a writer that could be all at once humorous ("... he had no guiding principle beyond a certain preference for mediocrity"), cutting ("The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them"), practical ("Money is the fruit of self-denial") and profound ("Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him... Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us"). I was completely undone by the complex beauty of his poetic prose, and the essential clarity of his thought. It may have taken me three months or more to crawl through the 250 page novel - my original copy is overwhelmed by yellow highlights and margin notes - as I contemplated every single word, but the experience of reading this book was transformational. Here are two of the better known passages:

"... she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it, we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it, love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy going... It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die."

"The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility."

Beer

A dear friend of mine concludes her story about how she came to realize and accept her attraction to other women by pointing out that this occurred long after her graduation from an all-girl's school. Or, as she puts it: "What a waste."

I feel that way about beer.

In this spirit, I quote the immortal words of Homer Simpson, who once said,

"I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming."

I went to a college at which beer was literally cheaper than water. In fact, William Faulkner wrote that,

"At Harvard they teach you how to go for a swim at night without knowing how to swim, and at Sewanee they don't even teach you what water is."

... but I didn't like beer. In the years after school, many of my closest friends tried their best to intervene on the side of beer (I was a cider, bourbon and wine drinker - no, not at the same time), but I still couldn't make my mouth cross over. For reasons lost to the ages, I never tried to develop a taste for beer until the summer of 2006, at which time I undertook a very intentional training exercise in Bali, Indonesia. Over the duration of that trip, I had one beer a day for several weeks (well, it was one beer a day until the idea caught on, and then it was... more than one) and came home with the love. Now, I get it. At present, my beers of choice are Blue Moon, Bass, Harp, and many of the Mexican beers. Certainly, there are dangers to this love affair, but I mourn all those wasted years...

William Henry Channing

"To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart;
to study hard;
to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common
-- this is my symphony."

Painting: Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World", 1948.