A Fountain, the Moon and the value of belief

The moon is white and hangs in the second pane from the top of my second floor home office window. Warm this moon is now illuminating the ultimate moment of the young lives of many in my community.

In East Lansing university finals ended today and graduation is tomorrow. The energy these degreed young feel tonight beneath Luna’s milky blanket is something I wish I had. If only for a moment my senses would awake to that electrified sense of a wide open universe. Bug lust and passion and dreams as big as the world are all mixed up and course through their bodies and minds.

So perfect a moment is this night that to slip away and lie in the May grass is an imperative. Wearing t-shirts with comments emblazoned like “I don’t need to pee in a cup to prove I’m on drugs,” they look up at the illuminated chalk colored firmament pledging forever friendships, fidelity to ideals, love or to remember if nothing else. For most only a thin sliver of the ideal will last, but that is life. But life is also this moment and they don't need and don’t deserve to have anything rob them of their dreams not just yet.

As my old geometry teacher used to say “sic itur ad astra” or “thus you shall go to the stars”. It from Virgil and his amazing work the Aeneid. Okay I am fudging this a bit what Mr. Helms actually said was "Ad astra per aspera" which is a bit rougher. It means through difficulties to the stars and is attributed to Seneca the Younger. But as these the young hopefuls lie in the grass tonight having escaped Mom and Aunt Joan waiting back at the Hampton Inn and the questions about what is next and is your place broom clean for key turnover “thus you shall go to the stars” is what is appropriate.

On my night like this, or one right before this night those 31 years ago, I found myself sitting by the fountain in front of the dorm making an apology. It was one I owed so very deeply. Over the years I have tried to draft my feelings about what happened that last term at university in a way that would allow me to work through it but it never comes out right. The best way to describe it is in that old Rolling Stones lyric from Wild Horses,

I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines,
Can make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

To that person now after all of these years I offer my hope that you have reached your stars.

Silence. My silence is at times almost total. My children look at me as if I was catatonic. My wife looks at me as if I am addled.

I haven’t been writing and I haven’t been reading. My community connections are very thin right now. It is my own fault or maybe not completely. Most nights I ache by the time I have the chance to get in front of the computer. Having found some blockage in my heart my doctor now has me on Lipitor. It may be the drugs; my oldest brother had a very adverse reaction. Me, I just have a mild ache that pretty much remains the same. Tomorrow I do a blood draw. Monday should bring some results or maybe Tuesday. I know it is the weekend and processing these things is not really a 24 hour basis kind of activity when a non emergency situation is involved. Still it is hard to get focused and write when you feel like you have been running a 5 K. And yes I once did run a five K so I know what it feels like.

Okay it is not just the aches that have stopped me from writing. There is the computer kafuffle. In our home we have traditionally two desktops and one laptop. The “kids” desktop has now died. Okay intellectually I know I should just migrate over and use my laptop. But well I am old and my vision is not good, not really and the big assed monitors on the one dead and one working machine are scaled to be more easily readable for me. Thus I don’t always go to my laptop as my first choice of computing. Hey those monitors on the desktops are set at about 14 point type. Get over it.

Well anyway my beloved is working on a writing project. It is a complex power point display. It involves photos, text, dancing bears and a soundtrack too. Well the laptop would accept the images from the digital camera but the still working desktop would not. On the other hand the working desktop has the needed publishing software. Thus the two computers are now part of the in-home all media drafting collective. I am writing this now at 11:30 on a Friday night because everyone has gone to bed and one computer is open. Yea me.

Okay I haven’t been totally honest; I did read a Biography of Plato’s Republic by Simon Blackburn. I have to admit I struggled with the Plato’s Republic in college and thus the explanation of my line on Facebook about wishing I had studied more. If I dig out my copy I am sure there will be a bookmarker about a third of the way in and a moisture ring from a beer bottle’s bottom on the cover. Even reading Blackburn’s distillation left me with many moments of glazed eyes but I did get a much better sense of the threads of arguments and how they have been used through the years, by Arab, Judaic and Christian theologians, not to mention as fodder for the careers of Hume and all those other dead philosophers.

Sparked by the Republic book I pulled a short paper of Blackburn’s called Religion and Respect. I am not done with it but there have been some interesting bits. Here is one in particular that caught my eye. Understanding that I may not agree with Blackburn’s ultimate conclusions in his paper I do find some merit in this.

I shall not in this essay dwell on the infirmity of ‘anything goes’ postmodernism.
In the present context, that would be the view that belief is a purely personal matter, and furthermore one that is free from normative control. That is, any state of mind on such subjects is as good as any other, and it is some kind of infringement of a person’s right to suppose otherwise. The bull’s-eye is drawn wherever the arrow of belief lands, and everyone, always, scores the same.

I think this is inconsistent with any proper conception of belief, which essentially requires a contrast between getting something right and failing to do so. Archery where you are allowed to draw the bull’s-eye wherever the arrow lands, is not a sport in which you always score highly. It is an activity in which there is no score at all. But here I can rest on the simple reminder that nobody for a moment believes in this promiscuous equality of belief in everyday life. If high tide is at midday, the tide table that says that it is at midday is better than the one that says it is at six o’clock, and thereby puts you on the rocks.

Id., pp 3-4.


Okay enough of the navel gazing. I did come up with one thought of my own recently. It is simple and I think true. Who I am can be defined by the contents of my iphone. My social circle and business world is defined by the numbers on my contacts list. Who really matters right now is reflected on the recent calls list. The local sunset that is my wallpaper shows the romantic wistful side of me. The music on my ipod app shows I am an old hippie wannabe struggling for some relevance, Nic Jones, the Ramones and the Killers. The locations on my mapping applications mostly ice rinks confirms I am a putative father of at least one child who enjoys athletics. The fact that the rest of my apps break down between liberal media (NYTimes and NPR tuner), children’s games (only the lite read free versions) and mind challengers like SAT word hangman and Dictionaire, show I am a tolerant or permissive parent somewhat frugl trying to keep current and desperate to avoid mental decline caused by my children.

Okay I am done for tonight. Enjoy the weekend.