Dear Diary,
It is yet another dreary day here in San Marcos as our fun loving city has been reduced to a cold and gray boneyard of lost hope and broken dreams. Alas, it seems that the inpenetrable cloque of dread has also enveloped my soul, and I fear that a Ukranian winter, along with the depression, alcoholism, high suicide rate, and psychosis is in store for our burgeoning city. Wow, that was a bit morbid... All kidding aside, I think that so much depends on the weather, with the spectrum and severity of the effects being wide. Whether it is a thunderstorm that ruins the kite flying expedition to the long hard winters of Russia that share a positive correlation to suicide statistics, the weather is fickle indeed. I suppose Pip in Great Expectations was more poetically pithy when he stated, “So much depends on the color of the day."
So today I sent my first love an email so I imagine we can all hold our breaths for a response. It seems as though there is an increasing danger of my old friends graduating college, although I know the majority won’t be anytime soon. (No one seems to graduate in four years anymore, with people taking time off and what not.) But the fragmentation of our “group” is certainly imminent at this point, yet I imagine I pretty much chiseled myself off the social block when I started this Cowboy Adventure. Regrets? Not sure yet... The mind reels...
Let’s just all hope that she writes back since after all she did ignite an intellectual passion that has not burnt out quiet yet. Renewed contact with her would certainly fan the flames, since we always did have great conversations and I’m the first to admit she is smarter than me. That was hard. Deep breath Michael.
Conversely, just after sending off my attempt of relationship resuscitation I got word from two old friends they’d like to talk. Perhaps we are reaching a collective quarter life crisis. I wonder if Carl Jung ever considered that one in his whole collective unconscious musings. I’m not one to prolong alienation so I’ll be eagerly awaiting a response to the, well, responses.
Last night I spent some time with Mariah and Matt who, as I’ve mentioned before, are a single entity in my book. Just kidding We spent some time discussing religion within the context of society, and I did my best (probably failed ultimately) trying to explain that you must view religion within the context of society, which means that you can not ignore complexities such as politics, economics, family structure, and language. I feel there is a great contingency and compatibility that is necessitated by these things and they are all inexorably intertwined.
It is always refreshing to be able to understand someone else’s point of view, rather than to just listen to it, which was the case with Matt and Mariah. Good communication relies on this idea I would imagine (Dan can probably complicate this matter some with his Mass Com. lexicon) and it was great to be exposed to their views. It’s a bit analogous to a merry-go-round: if you stay in one spot you will always see the same thing. Furthermore, it is only by moving to different views and spots that things begin to look different and a sense of exhilaration becomes possible. That is the position I find myself constantly trying to achieve as I feel there are so many ways to approach any one subject or idea and choosing one view point is often times not the best place to see it from.
I just got done reading Intellectual Morons and that seemed to be one of the fundamental tenets of the work. It is best to have not only a cerebral dexterity but also flexibility when looking at things, and when one accepts some sort of all encompassing doctrine they do so at the risk of locking themselves into a rigid position that leaves little room for criticism or change. Once again, my long-windedness can be alleviated by a simple quote:
A conclusion is what you call it when you stop thinking.
I fear any more writing will be anti climactic at this point, as the former rhetorical pearl trumps any more fluff I am capable of penning at this given moment. So I’ll be on my merry way for now…
Until next time, I remain, an aspiring Intellectual Moron at best,
MW Rice
(Appropriate) Quote for the Afternoon:
When many hypotheses are necessary to reconcile a theory with the facts, then one should be persuade to perhaps abandon the theory altogether.
This can be paraphrased by the old philosophical maxim:
Achom’s razor shaves Plato’s beard.
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