(no subject)
I'm cruising recipe sites for meals that can be made in a mug (I got two crockery mugs for Christmas), and I keep seeing recipes and pictures for whoopie pies. (Not for making in a mug, just general articles on the sites.) My home newspaper featured a recipe for whoopie pies not too long ago, and Trader Joe's has been selling them. And I laugh, because my mom's got an old family recipe for whoopie pies, being part of her Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, and as a kid I used to have to explain what they were and why they were awesome.
Fads're weird.
Think they'll ever discover funny cake?
Someone said something profound about Christmas - can't remember who, but it's something I'm going to be spending time working through: that we don't really need to focus on the joy of giving, if we focus instead on how much is given to us. That is to say, if we understand how monumentally we have been blessed, then we will have no trouble giving to others.
Also, I am relearning the part about how you have to see things from the right perspective. Which applies to the above, but which I saw from a different angle this Christmas. Being a philosopher who works as an accounting analyst sounds a little depressing. Being an accounting analyst who writes philosophy sounds cool. Because then you start wondering what kind of interesting things other people in ordinary jobs do. It's the difference, I think, between a dull gift in bright wrapping, and a fascinating gift in plain wrapping.
And some people may like to phrase it the other way around, because that means that being an accounting analyst is no barrier to writing philosophy, or that philosophers can also do accounting analysis.
It is all about perspective. I was reading about "non-orientable objects", and I wondered about the concept. A Moebius strip is non-orientable: since it only has one side, you can't say that any part of it is "lefthand" or "righthand," "in," or "out." And, okay, in itself a Moebius strip has no orientation. But wherever one exists, it can be oriented. If you pick two spots on it - two spots whose distances between them are not equal - label one "A" and the other "B", and draw a line along the shortest distance between them, you can say that going "A" to "B", the strip twists to the left, while going from "B" to "A", it twists to the right. Furthermore, you can have other objects inside a Moebius strip: it has an inside and an outside. Otherwise, I would not be able to wear one for a scarf.
And Klein bottles are bottles. Maybe they have one "side" and no edge, but if they're in gravity, there's a way to hold one that will hold water, and one that won't.
It's possible to get lost in the abstract, to wonder at Moebius strips and not realize that they're as much a part of the physical world as we are. It's possible to wander far away from a right perspective. We start out far away from a right perspective, living a life where every pain is a screaming emergency, yet clueless to real danger, and convinced that the world revolves around us. And some people manage to turn that inside out, silencing all pain, seeking all danger, and denying the importance of one physical thing we can thoroughly experience: our own joy. Some of us were denied a (good) thing so often that we seek it at all costs; others reason that since they never had it, they don't need it. We ignore our responsibilities and pick up burdens that were never ours. We start our lives out of whack, and many never realize there was a whack. The Moebius strip is tumbling on as we run along it, unable to find an end, unable to orient ourselves.
But the Moebius strip is a strip. It's not everything. Once we look up and away from these four dimensions of time and space, we begin to suspect that the wheel has an axle, that the plane has a center. We find that some things matter more than others, power is not where we expect. The laws of the physical world are surprising, and the laws of the mind and heart are just plain weird. We suspect that the design is much bigger than we thought it would be. We begin to suspect that we may have started in the wrong place, that there is an orientation that, if we could find it, would make sense of the universe. It would resolve everything.
I believe such an orientation exists. I believe that there is a point around which all else revolves - around which all else resolves. I believe that all things have a right place, that there is a way for all things to exist in a right relationship. I don't always see it, and I sure don't always live it. But when I look up to this Polaris, I know where I am, I know who I am, and I have some idea which direction I should be going. Chaos gives way somewhat to order, and I begin to believe that what still seems to be chaos is just me not quite seeing an even greater order.
Infinity has a center, and Moebius strips can be oriented. It's just that each requires an "outside" to find it.
Fads're weird.
Think they'll ever discover funny cake?
Someone said something profound about Christmas - can't remember who, but it's something I'm going to be spending time working through: that we don't really need to focus on the joy of giving, if we focus instead on how much is given to us. That is to say, if we understand how monumentally we have been blessed, then we will have no trouble giving to others.
Also, I am relearning the part about how you have to see things from the right perspective. Which applies to the above, but which I saw from a different angle this Christmas. Being a philosopher who works as an accounting analyst sounds a little depressing. Being an accounting analyst who writes philosophy sounds cool. Because then you start wondering what kind of interesting things other people in ordinary jobs do. It's the difference, I think, between a dull gift in bright wrapping, and a fascinating gift in plain wrapping.
And some people may like to phrase it the other way around, because that means that being an accounting analyst is no barrier to writing philosophy, or that philosophers can also do accounting analysis.
It is all about perspective. I was reading about "non-orientable objects", and I wondered about the concept. A Moebius strip is non-orientable: since it only has one side, you can't say that any part of it is "lefthand" or "righthand," "in," or "out." And, okay, in itself a Moebius strip has no orientation. But wherever one exists, it can be oriented. If you pick two spots on it - two spots whose distances between them are not equal - label one "A" and the other "B", and draw a line along the shortest distance between them, you can say that going "A" to "B", the strip twists to the left, while going from "B" to "A", it twists to the right. Furthermore, you can have other objects inside a Moebius strip: it has an inside and an outside. Otherwise, I would not be able to wear one for a scarf.
And Klein bottles are bottles. Maybe they have one "side" and no edge, but if they're in gravity, there's a way to hold one that will hold water, and one that won't.
It's possible to get lost in the abstract, to wonder at Moebius strips and not realize that they're as much a part of the physical world as we are. It's possible to wander far away from a right perspective. We start out far away from a right perspective, living a life where every pain is a screaming emergency, yet clueless to real danger, and convinced that the world revolves around us. And some people manage to turn that inside out, silencing all pain, seeking all danger, and denying the importance of one physical thing we can thoroughly experience: our own joy. Some of us were denied a (good) thing so often that we seek it at all costs; others reason that since they never had it, they don't need it. We ignore our responsibilities and pick up burdens that were never ours. We start our lives out of whack, and many never realize there was a whack. The Moebius strip is tumbling on as we run along it, unable to find an end, unable to orient ourselves.
But the Moebius strip is a strip. It's not everything. Once we look up and away from these four dimensions of time and space, we begin to suspect that the wheel has an axle, that the plane has a center. We find that some things matter more than others, power is not where we expect. The laws of the physical world are surprising, and the laws of the mind and heart are just plain weird. We suspect that the design is much bigger than we thought it would be. We begin to suspect that we may have started in the wrong place, that there is an orientation that, if we could find it, would make sense of the universe. It would resolve everything.
I believe such an orientation exists. I believe that there is a point around which all else revolves - around which all else resolves. I believe that all things have a right place, that there is a way for all things to exist in a right relationship. I don't always see it, and I sure don't always live it. But when I look up to this Polaris, I know where I am, I know who I am, and I have some idea which direction I should be going. Chaos gives way somewhat to order, and I begin to believe that what still seems to be chaos is just me not quite seeing an even greater order.
Infinity has a center, and Moebius strips can be oriented. It's just that each requires an "outside" to find it.