Category Archives: hitchhikers

On panic

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Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On panic

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Often times, in the middle of a crisis–the planet is about to be destroyed right out from under you, for example–it is too easy to just panic and lose one’s head, do something stupid. One should never let the adrenaline decide anything for you. Panic is the worst thing there is for problem solving because it immediately blinds you to all possible solutions. I find panic is worse when I feel out-of-control, which is most of the time, but panic also encourages you to think that you have control at all. Thinking you are in control is the worst kind of illusion under which you might operate, and panic arises out of the illusion that you can control anything at all. Most all panic can be avoided if we can just keep our whits about us, breath deeply, sip a cold beverage, and, in most cases, just do nothing at all. Decisions made in haste under panic conditions are almost always bad decisions. I would venture to guess that almost anything done in panic should never have been done at all. In fact, most of the time, doing nothing is the best thing to do. Put off your decision, sleep on it, give it some time to mature, let it disappear on its own, or let it resolve itself with no intervention on your part at all. Panicking is for unexperienced amateurs who really don’t understand the wisdom of time and space, and that giving yourself both will often lead to a lucid and less emotional solution that is good for everyone. Most of the things in life that lead to panic are usually the intranscendent trivia that have nothing to do with anything important at all. In fact, most of the stuff that makes us panic can very often be ignored altogether. The second you start to rush things, everything goes badly very quickly.

On the road (not taken)

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Are you one of the sheep? Or do you march to your own drummer? The road of life as a metaphor is an old one, perhaps the oldest one. How we ever choose the road we take is, I think, a mystery. There is always a lot of pressure–material, social, religious–to pick a road that produces optimum results–make a good living, everyone says. Take classes that will make you eligible for a high income job, a job with lots of social prestige, a job that will ensure a secure future. Though there is nothing unreasonable about this approach to life, chasing the brass ring, this road is often over-traveled by people who are giving little thought to either the road or the destination. The problem with metaphors is that they often over-simplify something that is really rather complex. The road of life is not one continuous asphalt ribbon without exits, potholes, delays, or road construction. The road of life is a bifurcating, complex series of stops, starts, and detours. There are also those who get lost or just drive off the road entirely. There are also all of the two-lane country roads, gravel roads, dead ends, and strange curves which have almost no traffic at all. It’s easier to stay on the freeway with all of the others, straight, obvious, no ambiguities or confusion, but is the superhighway the only pragmatic way to go? Or is pragmatism relevant at all? The road is a problematic metaphor because it is way too ambiguous to be meaningful. Whichever road you might take, pragmatism versus impractical, for example, is a subjective value judgment which has no real explanation. If one chooses to ignore the siren’s call of unbridled consumerism and an insatiable thirst for fame and power, then one decides to not participate in the savage ways of unfettered capitalism and the corporate scenarios that support it. To dedicate time and energy to thinking, contemplation, and philosophy is to seriously over-think the road or to ignore the road altogether. The hard question has to do with long term goals and how those goals impact your decision to follow the pack on the highway or to head out on your own, seeking new paths, going down strange byways, getting off the beaten track. Do you dare to be original, odd, non-conformist, iconoclast, anarchic, or unpredictable? It may not be as easy as you think.

On the road (not taken)

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Are you one of the sheep? Or do you march to your own drummer? The road of life as a metaphor is an old one, perhaps the oldest one. How we ever choose the road we take is, I think, a mystery. There is always a lot of pressure–material, social, religious–to pick a road that produces optimum results–make a good living, everyone says. Take classes that will make you eligible for a high income job, a job with lots of social prestige, a job that will ensure a secure future. Though there is nothing unreasonable about this approach to life, chasing the brass ring, this road is often over-traveled by people who are giving little thought to either the road or the destination. The problem with metaphors is that they often over-simplify something that is really rather complex. The road of life is not one continuous asphalt ribbon without exits, potholes, delays, or road construction. The road of life is a bifurcating, complex series of stops, starts, and detours. There are also those who get lost or just drive off the road entirely. There are also all of the two-lane country roads, gravel roads, dead ends, and strange curves which have almost no traffic at all. It’s easier to stay on the freeway with all of the others, straight, obvious, no ambiguities or confusion, but is the superhighway the only pragmatic way to go? Or is pragmatism relevant at all? The road is a problematic metaphor because it is way too ambiguous to be meaningful. Whichever road you might take, pragmatism versus impractical, for example, is a subjective value judgment which has no real explanation. If one chooses to ignore the siren’s call of unbridled consumerism and an insatiable thirst for fame and power, then one decides to not participate in the savage ways of unfettered capitalism and the corporate scenarios that support it. To dedicate time and energy to thinking, contemplation, and philosophy is to seriously over-think the road or to ignore the road altogether. The hard question has to do with long term goals and how those goals impact your decision to follow the pack on the highway or to head out on your own, seeking new paths, going down strange byways, getting off the beaten track. Do you dare to be original, odd, non-conformist, iconoclast, anarchic, or unpredictable? It may not be as easy as you think.

On unpacking my library

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Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.

On unpacking my library

Posted on by

Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.

On alchemy

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I have always thought that most people do not understand alchemy at all, and they think that this ancient science is about changing lead into gold. Other than an interesting smoke screen for those who might stick their noses in where they don’t belong, alchemy has never been about changing anything except for the way we might think about things. It’s just easier to tell those who would concern themselves with material things that alchemists are trying to change one element into another–magic, in other words. All alchemists know, however, that the world is how it is, unchangeable, and that lead has its purpose too, unalterable from the beginning of time–common sense, not magic. There are those people, however, with little imagination and no ability for critical thinking, who think that magic will give them a little extra help, an advantage, so to speak, and put a little extra money and wealth into their pockets. Alchemy never has had anything to do with wealth or possessions or materialistic pursuits. Most alchemists, true alchemists, will probably never even admit to being an alchemist at all. What alchemists do, or did, was to work to understand the nature of the world and the things in it. Alchemists have known since the beginning of time that gold is what it is, but that gold never answered anyone’s questions about the nature of existence, never bought or restored happiness, ruined more than one life that sought to worship it. It isn’t that gold isn’t useful, but it can’t be an end in and of itself. You will never have enough no matter what you might think. If you carry just a token piece of gold, it will always suffice to remind you that the unhealthy pursuit of gold only leads to ruin. Whatever alchemy might be, it has nothing to do with gold. Perhaps alchemy is really about knowing yourself in the world as a small part of a wider context. Ego and pride are the two great enemies of the alchemist who must even be vigilant lest they be prideful of their humility. If knowing yourself as others know you is the ideal state of self-awareness then the true alchemist would strive to understand how the world works, how memory, abstraction, signs, and reason interlock to form new ideas or even ideas that up to that point never existed at all, and they might call it creativity. Alchemy is more about the intangible nature of cognition than it ever was about gold or lead, the wind and the surf, the eagle or the fish, fire or air. Alchemy is about dust and smoke, about lost in-between spaces, about the haze that hangs over a river on a cool spring morning, about unformed spaces and liminal crossings, shadows, hybridization and mixing, chaos and non-linearity, fragmentation, repeating infinitely and disappearing on the horizon. Alchemists will listen, but their words are few. Better to be an enigma than to spread needless gossip and untrue rumors. Let vulture capitalism try to turn lead into gold. That is a simulacrum that will drag many an unwary participant down the rat-hole of unfettered consumerism and out-of-control spending in an attempt to buy happiness. When your garage is so full of crap your cars no longer fit, ask yourself this: have you turned lead into gold? Or have you been deceived by a marauding cooperate culture of overt consumerism and the blind pursuit of materialism? The alchemist’s garage, if he ever had one, is, of course, empty.

On alchemy

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I have always thought that most people do not understand alchemy at all, and they think that this ancient science is about changing lead into gold. Other than an interesting smoke screen for those who might stick their noses in where they don’t belong, alchemy has never been about changing anything except for the way we might think about things. It’s just easier to tell those who would concern themselves with material things that alchemists are trying to change one element into another–magic, in other words. All alchemists know, however, that the world is how it is, unchangeable, and that lead has its purpose too, unalterable from the beginning of time–common sense, not magic. There are those people, however, with little imagination and no ability for critical thinking, who think that magic will give them a little extra help, an advantage, so to speak, and put a little extra money and wealth into their pockets. Alchemy never has had anything to do with wealth or possessions or materialistic pursuits. Most alchemists, true alchemists, will probably never even admit to being an alchemist at all. What alchemists do, or did, was to work to understand the nature of the world and the things in it. Alchemists have known since the beginning of time that gold is what it is, but that gold never answered anyone’s questions about the nature of existence, never bought or restored happiness, ruined more than one life that sought to worship it. It isn’t that gold isn’t useful, but it can’t be an end in and of itself. You will never have enough no matter what you might think. If you carry just a token piece of gold, it will always suffice to remind you that the unhealthy pursuit of gold only leads to ruin. Whatever alchemy might be, it has nothing to do with gold. Perhaps alchemy is really about knowing yourself in the world as a small part of a wider context. Ego and pride are the two great enemies of the alchemist who must even be vigilant lest they be prideful of their humility. If knowing yourself as others know you is the ideal state of self-awareness then the true alchemist would strive to understand how the world works, how memory, abstraction, signs, and reason interlock to form new ideas or even ideas that up to that point never existed at all, and they might call it creativity. Alchemy is more about the intangible nature of cognition than it ever was about gold or lead, the wind and the surf, the eagle or the fish, fire or air. Alchemy is about dust and smoke, about lost in-between spaces, about the haze that hangs over a river on a cool spring morning, about unformed spaces and liminal crossings, shadows, hybridization and mixing, chaos and non-linearity, fragmentation, repeating infinitely and disappearing on the horizon. Alchemists will listen, but their words are few. Better to be an enigma than to spread needless gossip and untrue rumors. Let vulture capitalism try to turn lead into gold. That is a simulacrum that will drag many an unwary participant down the rat-hole of unfettered consumerism and out-of-control spending in an attempt to buy happiness. When your garage is so full of crap your cars no longer fit, ask yourself this: have you turned lead into gold? Or have you been deceived by a marauding cooperate culture of overt consumerism and the blind pursuit of materialism? The alchemist’s garage, if he ever had one, is, of course, empty.

On bifurcating paths

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How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he has no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn’t know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher’s husband doesn’t get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn’t had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn’t get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor–“What about Middlebury?” he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn’t change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?

On bifurcating paths

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How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn’t know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher’s husband doesn’t get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn’t had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn’t get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor–“What about Middlebury?” he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn’t change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?