Meme
Sarah has tagged me. So here we go ...1. One book that changed your life:
First item here is one of the more difficult. I wonder whether it's the book or the act(s) of engagement with it in reading that could better be said to 'change one's life'. I look over shelves of books I have around me and associate various kinds of apparent change in myself with many of them – even with various that I've read only in small part. But, okay, I'll pick one that seemed to come along at a particularly opportune time to affect my long-term thinking: How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand
2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
The Republic, Plato – likely the only book I've read through twice, actually. And yet I'm barely conversant with its ideas. It should probably be read many times.
3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
I don't know if you're assumed to be allowed only one book, or if you're to imagine having a handful of books along, but the first pick for a long period cut off from the world would obviously be a Bible.
4. One book that made you laugh:
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand – didn't actually finish it, but find it a greater occasion for laughter, I think, the older I get. (Apologies to the exceptional girl – whose brief affection for me remains a fond memory – who gave it to me years ago.)
5. One book that made you cry:
It's not a particularly strange thing for me to be brought to some tears, quietly, in reading a narrative work. But moments of feeling moved might be as attributable to the effects of other things going on in life as to the evocative strengths of the book; and moments of feeling moved aren't generally what stay with me after the book's been put aside. I think I do recall, though, tears at points in Jane Eyre – and that's been about 15 years ago. In more recent reading, I'm almost certain I was brought to tears, or nearly so, in roughly the latter half of The Lord of the Rings, at various places where Gandalph's and Aragorn's respective features of personal goodness & capacity to bear majesty are coming more fully to light. (I don't know, truthfully, whether to think The Lord of the Rings is a great work itself, but there I think is where some of the best, and most moving, of many developments of images of great things the story carries out lie – and there also good cause, in my case, to be glad that I managed not to read it until in my 30s.)
6. One book that you wish had been written:
If I can think of it, odds are pretty good that someone's already written it, or writing it.
7. One book that you wish had never been written:
I'm inclined to think it's readings that are corrupt or corrupting, not books themselves. And even corrupt & corrupting readings in a way show the necessity of open accessibility of the whole range of ideas that may find their way to publication.
8. One book you’re currently reading:
The active pile is deep these days. One that's just been added to it – about 9 years after it was urged on me by an English prof., is Philosopy in a New Key, Susanne Langer.
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Augustine's Confessions – but there are so many, it really feels foolish to pick one.
10. Now tag five people:
Here I have to break the pattern. I think there are only about 5 people who've ever looked in on this blog, anyway – and of those, the ones who blog have more than likely already done one of these things.
This is a good place to note that I've been debating whether to continue with this blog. I maintained it more or less solidly for about three months, and I do have quite a few ideas about how to proceed from there. But despite its potential as creative & communicative endeavor in itself – potential I can only scratch the surface of, in any case – in the big picture it's probably not as useful a thing as I'd hoped it could be, in view of what I think I ought to be pursuing. I continue to think about it.
Many thanks to any of my five (or so) kind readers who happen to read this! Thanks especially to Darrell Reimer and Sarah Irani for regularly checking in and engaging my process here with thoughtful comments.
posted by paul bowman @ 11:52 AM
6 Comments:
Before you sign off completely, I (as one of your five faithful) would like to see some definition of how/where you hoped blogging might be useful, as well as what you might pursue in lieu of posting a weekly sketch or musing aloud about what tickles your fancy. Just curious.
Darrell, I'm pleased, of course, that you're curious about what I might think. : )
I wrote a longish reply to your questions and then scrapped it. Generated a few paragraphs — but ended up not having given much of an answer. I'll see if I can come back & do better before too long.
Paul, I think you have to want to blog just for the sake of it...I don't do it for how it may be helpful to others, although have found over the past 2 years that it has indeed been helpful to some in various ways. I do it to record various thoughts and happenings I'm likely to forget, to share my stories (and pictures) with my family and friends and sometimes it's just a good release. But I can understand if you had grand ideas about what your blog could accomplish in only three short months why you'd be disappointed. I enjoy reading here, seeing what you're thinking, but I'm just one person.
Joyella, I could be accused of too much letting 'grand ideas' control my approach to ordinary business of life — in blogging no less than in other things — and in that there's some folly or naivete to be overcome, it's undoubtedly true.
I don't know that I've worried much about whether I'm helping anyone other than myself here, though. I confess I feel that this is a relatively self-focused exercise, my occasional digressions in the modes of exhortation admonition & instruction notwithstanding.
The problem as I see it — in short — is that, without taking it too seriously, I'd like this thing to be a way (one of a variety) of keeping track of certain ideas with a view to connections & convergences, and that so far I've had a hard time telling whether my blogging is, effectively, such a way. What I don't want is to find this serves more to keep my thinking diffuse & disconnected than to help its progress into particular constructive paths. I haven't really come to a conclusion about this, as I say, but I've got doubts — and I'm wary of spending time here that I might spend more usefully elsewhere.
Of course, the criteria for useful expenditure are entirely subjective — and subject to change, moreover.
One thing I don't hope to do is to match your knack for the compact, vivid, & poignant anecdote. Yours is really the most enjoyable kind of blog material, I think. Most of it, anyway — I suppose even you have produced the occasional dud. : ) Hope you will keep it going for a good long while to come!
I am not sure if blogging is useful at all, but I think it is fun. Plus, not much of what I do is terribly "useful" so it fits.
Keep on bloggin'!
. . . make it six. Cool web site, Paul - cachet, indeed! Alissa and I love the style, and think you might ought pursue web design. Hope you are well.
The Scharpens
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