Met Henry dog, Great Dane, up close last night. I felt out-of-scale small. He has short hair like a hound dog, looks like a hound , but two sizes too big. He’s six years old, or six and a half, Mrs. B__ said, and he’s 200 lbs. I thought of Sedaris on Great Danes—”bubbling seepage,” “there are cheeses that last longer.”
Back at noon-something after writing—no, reading—online an New York Times article about some teachers promoting certain educational technology. I’m sure, as article points out, there are ethical problems and questionable pedagogy, etc., but I guess I’d see these teachers as too ambitious for teaching. Teaching’s selfless, but these “teacher influencers” want to go to conferences and get famous and so they work hard, blah, blah.
I don’t care to keep criticizing. It’s—and I thought earlier today about mediation —acting as a go-between—ideas mediate between our minds and the physical world.
I feel I have more to say. Let’s see what comes. Another couple pages of writing before a nap.
I could start a program to educate people that they didn’t need to be educated—the Life of Brian, “Think for yourselves!” “Think for ourselves!” problem. Maybe—probably—it’s stupid to think my idea is better than what happens now. I mean, some people seem influenced by flawed societal values (beauty, fame, wealth as goals, etc.). One thing I might oppose would be, say, spending attention on sports. On other hand, sports-watching is something people can do together, and no doubt, togetherness is important, too.
See, so (I hear whirring-pulses of washing machine. I did a load of underwear and work pants last night—shirts and pants now), so, yeah, I come back to this as a reason to publish: I think of those whose published ideas influenced me since my—well, since I started to read, really. Just to name a few: Carse, Kerouac, Thoreau, Annie Dillard, R. Hugo’s essays, Kay Ryan’s poems, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the Bible, Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson, (Simone Weil (that essay I read in college rhet class) and others—my point is that these ideas did shape mine own. So many ideas from these (and informal mentions, too, in news or mag articles, say) influenced me.
That I do have cool ideas—and maybe these are worth sharing—worth simplifying and sharing. I write so much more than anyone needs to read, including myself.
[From journal of Sat., 2 Sept. 2017, Journal 259, page 35-6]
MonkeyMoonMachine 