[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Ray asks,
>
> Why do you work?
>
> Arthur replies,
>
> Continual learning, engagement, a feeling of occasional creativity,
> connectedness, a sense of understanding "the system."
[snip]
You are indeed fortunate.
I work because my life is undercapitalized, i.e., I need
the paycheck in order to try to have a life with the remaining
hours in my waking life (I'm sleeping less than when I was
younger, which helps both the ratio and the
"bottom line" somewhat...).
If I had "independent means", I would be an "amateur": I
would do things I loved. And what might I love to do?
For one example, citing a book by Suzanne Bachelard,
I might write a significant book about Edmund Husserl's
philosophy. Somewhere I seem to remember Ms. Bachelard
described as an "independent scholar", but I have been
unable to rind the reference again, so it may be
"wishful thinking" and "false memory" (but in the opposite
direction of the kind of "false memory" which
exercises right-wing psychologists these days).
We admired the Hungarians who "voted with their feet"
in 1956. I am afraid to vote with my feet because
I do not know anywhere worth going to that I think would
let me in, and I don't want to be barefoot without
medical insurance to treat the consequent foot injuries.
Try as I might, I cannot convince myself that
Allah (or even the Christian God...) will provide.
\brad mccormick
PS: I have had at least a taste of close to genuine freedom
in the year I spend writing my dissertation, in which
the only contacts I had with "teachers" were self-chosen
interactions with persons who had no power to hurt me
becsause they were not part of the faculty of the
school I was enrolled in. And I did indeed seek out
and find such persons. I probably came a lot closer
to young Alexander's or Montaigne's tutelage than
99% of contemporary learners in whatever country
or from whatever "background" of "means" (which they
do not make use of...) or lack thereof (which
coerces them to do what their wealthier co-specifics
puzzlingly do voluntarily, although maybe I am wrong here,
since George W Bush may indeed have party-ed his
way thru Yale, but I cannot for the life of me
imagine how -- supposedly he was a history major,
a field which I would not dared to enter bacause
I knew I could never do all the reading or memorize
all the facts, etc.).
There is a heppy land, far, far away.
(--Krazy Kat)
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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