Brilliant. If only more people had the time for it-- "recreation" in its deepest sense. How many of us are so driven, or better-- ridden, like Orwell's horse-- through our days, that we come home with no energy left for anything deeper than the sports, or other televised drivel? I'm glad to learn that you sometimes read MacDonald's Travis McGee stories in lieu of Joyce's Ulysses-- I've stooped as low as Louis L'Amour westerns, for their predictable heroism and happy endings. (Didn't Ronald Reagan join me in this?). I am writing at cross-purposes to you, Alexis. My point is when we've been exhausted during our days, we aren't likely to come home and delve deeply into challenging literature, much less political issues. I've often found it distressing (because it is I too) that so many of my friends know so much about their favorite athletes, and teams, often in great detail (Mookie Bett's batting average) yet absolutely nothing about that latest dreadful Bill running through Congress, though it may have a devastating impact on our lives, and things we care most about.
In this essay, I was also happy to see a reference to your beloved mother's wit and wisdom-- wasn't the television forbidden/absent in your childhood home? Perhaps that is one reason your house was the nexus for so many of us, both locals and travellers-- there were real conversations going on in your house. I recall debating with your brilliant pathologist and polyglot father about the way Pacific storm swells, and the waves we all then rode, travelled to our coast from storms more than a thousand miles away. Well Dr. Ludwig wasn't buying it, and gave his deficient analogy about a pebble thrown into a pond, and how the ripples from it soon dissipate... and I wasn't buying his defense of the poor Israelis (this was back in the 80's), and I might have been as wrong as he was on meteorology. So many great debates in that house full of people whose thoughts were not diluted by multimedia. Do those homes still exist Alexis? We don't know about you and your boys, but we were only able to hold back the fetid cellphone swamp till the age of 12. That was because our son felt left out, coming home from a soccer game with every other teammate playing on their cellphones. Ryan just wanted to be like them, and do what appeared so normal.
What were your mother's thoughts about "normality" Alexis? She used to admonish us in her classic French-English: "Normal, Pfff! Don't be so normal" as if there was nothing worse.
Hey Ian. Thanks for the comment. You have the material for a post of your own. Let me know if you want to work with me to post something under your name in my humble newsletter, or cross-post something if you want to start a blog of your own. (You should.) Frankly, I was thinking of original thinkers and go-your-own-way kind of people like you in contemplating who and what we might need to get out of this mess. The great American machine of conformity (as David Brooks put it) has done us few favors in this respect. I remember when I was at UCSC, working occasionally for a Colombian finance whiz and real estate agent. At one point he said he was struck, in speaking with different Americans, by the sense that he was always talking with the same person. And we call ourselves individuals! Ha! I won't say anything here about my sons and technology; I think we lost that fight for reasons similar to those you mention. Funny you mention my father too. I rarely think of him, but found myself doing so these past weeks, particularly when reading the book "Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality" by a Nobel-prize winning scientist. In fact, that book--and a Peter Singer essay that appeared in a separate small volume (edited by my father and published in 1991) exploring different questions surrounding life span extension will be the subject of my next post, which I have tentatively titled "Against Gerontocracy." Always appreciate your comments.
Brilliant. If only more people had the time for it-- "recreation" in its deepest sense. How many of us are so driven, or better-- ridden, like Orwell's horse-- through our days, that we come home with no energy left for anything deeper than the sports, or other televised drivel? I'm glad to learn that you sometimes read MacDonald's Travis McGee stories in lieu of Joyce's Ulysses-- I've stooped as low as Louis L'Amour westerns, for their predictable heroism and happy endings. (Didn't Ronald Reagan join me in this?). I am writing at cross-purposes to you, Alexis. My point is when we've been exhausted during our days, we aren't likely to come home and delve deeply into challenging literature, much less political issues. I've often found it distressing (because it is I too) that so many of my friends know so much about their favorite athletes, and teams, often in great detail (Mookie Bett's batting average) yet absolutely nothing about that latest dreadful Bill running through Congress, though it may have a devastating impact on our lives, and things we care most about.
In this essay, I was also happy to see a reference to your beloved mother's wit and wisdom-- wasn't the television forbidden/absent in your childhood home? Perhaps that is one reason your house was the nexus for so many of us, both locals and travellers-- there were real conversations going on in your house. I recall debating with your brilliant pathologist and polyglot father about the way Pacific storm swells, and the waves we all then rode, travelled to our coast from storms more than a thousand miles away. Well Dr. Ludwig wasn't buying it, and gave his deficient analogy about a pebble thrown into a pond, and how the ripples from it soon dissipate... and I wasn't buying his defense of the poor Israelis (this was back in the 80's), and I might have been as wrong as he was on meteorology. So many great debates in that house full of people whose thoughts were not diluted by multimedia. Do those homes still exist Alexis? We don't know about you and your boys, but we were only able to hold back the fetid cellphone swamp till the age of 12. That was because our son felt left out, coming home from a soccer game with every other teammate playing on their cellphones. Ryan just wanted to be like them, and do what appeared so normal.
What were your mother's thoughts about "normality" Alexis? She used to admonish us in her classic French-English: "Normal, Pfff! Don't be so normal" as if there was nothing worse.
Hey Ian. Thanks for the comment. You have the material for a post of your own. Let me know if you want to work with me to post something under your name in my humble newsletter, or cross-post something if you want to start a blog of your own. (You should.) Frankly, I was thinking of original thinkers and go-your-own-way kind of people like you in contemplating who and what we might need to get out of this mess. The great American machine of conformity (as David Brooks put it) has done us few favors in this respect. I remember when I was at UCSC, working occasionally for a Colombian finance whiz and real estate agent. At one point he said he was struck, in speaking with different Americans, by the sense that he was always talking with the same person. And we call ourselves individuals! Ha! I won't say anything here about my sons and technology; I think we lost that fight for reasons similar to those you mention. Funny you mention my father too. I rarely think of him, but found myself doing so these past weeks, particularly when reading the book "Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality" by a Nobel-prize winning scientist. In fact, that book--and a Peter Singer essay that appeared in a separate small volume (edited by my father and published in 1991) exploring different questions surrounding life span extension will be the subject of my next post, which I have tentatively titled "Against Gerontocracy." Always appreciate your comments.