Song of the moment: In this Life- Chantal Kreviazuk
Dose of amusement: this my friends is a slightly old but interesting article, because it hits close to home and it raises some really interesting questions about scientific ethics, gender ethics, gender theory, political correctness and where they all intersect. we should all talk about this in person sometime.
Foucault quote of the day: There are volumes and volumes of books about desire...but when people want to speak about pleasure they become mute...that’s too bad! *hysterical laughter*
The title of this post is one of my favorite Sartre quotes from Nausea. It's a fantastic book, is short and is fiction and you should definitely read it some time. Anywho, that's my plug.
Sadly this email will be a bit on the short side because I sat in a library all day. I know, I'm such a party animal. But actually it was glorious. I've finished reading most of what I need to, although I will have a decently full day ahead of me tomorrow. I think that when I leave thursday I will know everything there is to know about my topic, seriously. So today I sat, staring at the beautiful Abbey ceiling and listening to Foucault lectures. The above quote was one of my favorites. He's quite the amusing guy. Once I started to laugh and didn't catch myself entirely in and everyone looked at me. Oh well, it was worth it and everyone already thinks I'm the silly American girl so no harm done.
The highlight of today certainly was my continued communication break through. The British woman is absolutely wonderful. I think we talked for a total of 5 hrs today and it was just amazing, the kind of intellectual stimulation one can only dream of. Plus it was spiced up with hilarious British expressions like "coot" i told him he could "stuff it" and of course "bloody hell." Intense philosophic convos spiced with humor is intellectual intercourse at its finest. I also discovered another librarian speaks spanish so I'm definitely in! It's so sad that I'm discovering all these wonderful people last minute, but rather late than never.
As I approach my last day I'm kind of torn. I really long to go home and am home sick for familiarity, but at the same time this has been such a phenomenal experience (at times phenomenally frightening, but still worth it). For two weeks I was able to taste what it's like to be a doctoral student and despite that thought of the future I think I have been able to live more for the moment than I ever have in my life.
The insightful Sam Goldstein (aka vagsam) after observing that I'm one who worries about things years ahead of time and is a compulsive planner, said that that's why I must love dance so much because it is my time to really live for the moment. How right she is. It's all about that moment and that song. You can just be, there, with the music, and that is more than enough. That moment is totally in and of itself. I can just dance and be. Happiness realized instead of something I'm looking for in the future. I guess in that sense, this week and a half has been a dance for me. Perhaps not all enjoyable but it was very much so in the moment. For once I was able to forget about the difficult year we have ahead, foolish personal things, and just be about myself, my studies, and a bit of my own enlightenment. I found my happiness in understanding someone for the first time, my books, the garden.
On that bit of a sentimental note I leave you with this thought experiment (sorry I'm so full of them these days...and perhaps always :p). Imagine yourself without a future or with out a past. The only thing you know about yourself and this world is what you have at this very moment.
Suddenly, although you are standing in the same place and you look the same, you are living in another world. Its funny how past and present events, illusionary things which have come or will come somehow dictate the right now. A mere thought changes your very essence and current state. The past and present are but stories and I leave you with Sartre's challenge from Nausea upon this realization:
This is what I thought: for the most banal event to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell.
Live or tell, that is the question. Living for the moment, takes more courage than living for the future.
Well my friends, welcome to the world of my thoughts. I'm going to leave you with that and take a break by eating coconut ice cream which is to my delight wildly popular here in france (it's my favorite!) and watching a movie I will deny because it will undermine the credibility of anything I've written.
Also as a note- I just wanted to thank all of you who have given me such kind an insightful comments on my ramblings. To be a philosopher in the words of my advisor Mark Sheldon is to as questions everyone else is afraid to ask, to ask why something is the way it is when everyone else merely assumes its cause. In that respect, as brilliant individuals, you would all make brilliant philosophers. So if you would ever like to talk philosophy with me, I promise to leave my theory, thesis, and knowledge of specific authors at the door and we can just talk about questions like this and then we are all on the same page, honestly. These questions are interesting and exciting and no one needs experience to ask or discuss them. Good night!
