Micro-Homily.

[degringolade]

The Sun: Milwaukie, OR Sept 10, 2020

Early morning coffee and writing on a Saturday. Number two son is snoring on the spare bed after waking me up at 01:30. As he and his soon to be ex still haven't moved apart, he came to get some sleep and some solitude. I was happy to provide both.

The hardest part about being older and more settled is that one has time to think about all the shit that one ignored due to expedience and youth. Couple that with all the seeds wisdom scattered carelessly in the general education classes of the long ago and you have a pretty good field to plow after letting it lie fallow so long.

You will not reach the essence of the [Way] by merely looking at this book. Think that what is written down here was done just for you, and do not consider simply looking at it, familiarizing yourself with it or trying to imitate it. Rather, you should consider these principles as though they were discovered from your own mind, and continually make great efforts to make them a physical part of yourself.

Miyamoto Mushashi -- A Book of Five Rings

I am wondering if the thoughts I am thinkin' are being echoed anywhere else but in the odd corners of the internet that I frequent?   I think that the problems we are facing are deeper than the oft-trumpeted meme-ish mini-homilies that so pollute the politica/moral discourse.  

I am thinking that a lot of the many discourses sloshing around in my brainpan are related.  As I said, the atomization of science/philosophy into what could be referred to as Species (Speciaities? Professions?) and have created a taxonomy of thought that generates incomplete memes** I really think that the incessant narrowing of expertise by the educational industry in the past thirty years might be a major factor in the mess that we find ourselves in.  Truth be told, I think that the marketing and the bureaucratization and the ruthless self-interest of the educational elite are the reason that we are in the pickle that we are in.

So, where and how do we start digging our way out of the mess that we are in?  The big question for me is what part of the process do I need to be involved in?   One of the biggest fallacies in the last thirty years of intellectual solipsism is that an individual matters.  So, how does one go about asking the hard questions and raising the questions about authority and groupthink that got us to where we are today?

Right now I am just laying groundwork, chopping wood, and carrying water.  I have to come up with a role and a plan.  The first step in that long and possibly fruitless process will be to establish.  The first step will be to try and jam the idea that it if fruitless to think about things in themselves—only about my perceptions.

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 **  I use that term in it's original sense as defined by Dawkins (before he started to be a dick about religion) one could do a lot worse than reading and thinking about The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1976. ISBN 978-0-19-286092-7.  As for his anti-religion dickishness, he does seem to have a great sense of humor (see picture)