Here's where I'm at at this point in my life:

• I feel like I'm progressing intellectually very rapidly. Since I'm doing this largely alone, this is both isolating and exhilerating. I bore easily.
• I'm feeling fairly secure in myself as a person. I've put a lot of effort into the integration of the parts of myself into a coherent whole lately. I ( Read more... )

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote this post, largely about my politics, and I am a little disappointed that I don't see much change in my attitude since then. If anything I'm more apathetic, especially about electoral politics and governanceThis is partly because the main way I engage with governments now is as a sympathetic service provider. ( Read more... )

Time out--I want to say a bit more about Christmas, but Mom's friend PL came over today and said some interesting things. She's spent most of her life in journalism, but has been around the block with New York professional life--lawyers, consultants, etc. She kept dropping hints today that she had dated a lot of big shots in her prime. I know ( Read more... )

I've spent the last few days doing many interesting things (and cycling through various emotional states I have trouble articulate). Here are some:
( before stress gets the chokehold again )

Last night was the night of Sex Power God, one of the two annual mostly-naked hookup parties.
( !!!!!! )

( Ostentatious scratching of my brain muscle. )

Ok, the beard is getting a little ridiculous now. I need a beard trimmer, or I should suck it up and start experimenting with wacky facial hair by whittling it down. You know--work with negative space.

I dipped into Ecce Homo for the first serious time today, and I love it. If the N-dog lived in modern times and had a self-indulgent blog, it ( Read more... )

So for now I'll guess I'll try taking it for granted that we can define a type of truth by first selecting a task (which could amount to just a set of criteria) and then determining which concepts, beliefs, or whole-world-mental-models perform best at it.

The task I like best is something like "accurately, powerfully, and ( Read more... )

        Who is Gregory Souza, how has he affected us, and what is the secret of his greatness? This question must be answered not only because I have to settle a bet with him but also because we are facing a New Year, and this time is traditionally one of review and resolution. By the accidents of the academic calendar, of course, this means that ( Read more... )