BOS to IAD
Arrived. Picked up. Drove to Fairfax, VA-area. Quick stop at Lowe's for some home decorating needs (not mine). End up at Gainesville to meet Mac H. and get the "grand tour" of the house. Drop my stuff in my "quarters," check my email and schedule, map the trip to the Metro station, check the train schedule, and confirm appointments. Sleep.
Welcome to VA !
Virginia is for Lovers
Too bad my love can't be here right now...
So, I grabbed Descartes: Philosophical Essays off the shelf in our library yesterday and sat down to read it. We had picked up a paperback copy at a church rummage sale that we stopped by not long after we moved out here to Massachusetts. It looked interesting, and was in remarkably good shape for a 20-year old paperback--no bent corners, markings, highlighting, or water/mold damage.
Anyway, so on the shelf it sat, next to other important looking books like The Dilbert Principle, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Road Less Travelled, and 536 Puzzles and Curious Problems. But, something in me wanted to take a peek inside, so I did.
I found the opening pages of his essay Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences to be both refreshing and enlightening. So far, I am only about 20 pages in to this essay, and, while I'm not sure that I'll agree with what I continue to read, I couldn't not share some of these opening gems and my thoughts.
Good sense is mankind's most equitably divided endowment, for everyone thinks that he is so abundantly provided with it that even those with the most insatiable appetites and most difficult to please in other ways do not usually want more than they have of this. As it is not likely that everyone is mistaken, this evidence shows that the ability to judge correctly, and to distinguish the true from the false--which is really what is meant by good sense or reason--is the same by innnate nature in all men; and that differences of opinion are not due to differences in intelligence, but merely to the fact that we use different approaches and consider different things. For it is not enough to have a good mind: one must use it well. The greatest souls are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues; and those who walk slowly can, if they follow the right path, go much farther than those who run rapidly in the wrong direction.
As for myself, I have never supposed that my mind was above the ordinary. On the contrary, I have often wished to have as quick a wit or as clear and distinct an imagination, or as ready and retentitve a memory, as another person. And I know of no other qualities which make for a good mind, because as far as reason is concerned, it is the only thing which makes us men and distinguishes us from the animals, and I am therefore satisfied that it is fully present in each one of us.
First, I was intrigued by (what I take to be) his sense of humor in the opening lines. Perhaps the Darwin Awards are outlandish examples of individuals who "do not want more [good sense] than they have" and think they are "so abundantly provided with it." But, then again, I think all of us--Darwin Award winners or not--suffer from the occasional thought that we have enough and don't need any more. (Something similar comes to mind...).
Moving along, I thought his discussion the ability of men to distinguish "true from false" has echoes of the concept of the Light of Christ. In fact, Descartes uses a phrase a few pages later in this essay, "the light of nature," which the translator duly notes as:
The "light of nature" was to Descartes and to writers of the Renaissance generally a mental faculty given to man by God for the immediate apprehension of truth.
Cool, huh? This was something that I found refreshing; that the minds of man have been inspired, have expressed [the outlines of] correct principles, and that revelation of truth comes both within and without the Church [N.B. please not truth with a small "t", and not that Eternal Truth, necessary for salvation, which is revealed through the Lord's servants].
Next, his comments regarding a "good mind" brought me back, in my mind, to one of my favorite classes at college: Honors English, taught by Murray Hunt. In that class, we discussed principles of "thinking right" and of using our minds. Surely one must use a good mind well. And I thought Descartes' comments on great souls and walking slowly illuminating.
The next paragraph reminded me of a Hymn that I like, "Know This, That Every Soul Is Free." As Descartes discussed reason making men different from animals, this line from the hymn came to mind:
Freedom and reason make us men; Take these away, what are we then? Mere animals, ...
As the essay continues, Descartes speaks of living "in a world of books." Of his studies, he said, "I knew that the languages which one learns are necessary to understand the works of the ancients." This drew to my mind the writings of Nephi, who said that he had been taught in the learnings and the language of his father; and of the words of King Benjamin, who also taught the connection between learning languages and gaining knowledge. We, too, are taught in the languages and learnings of our "fathers," and can therefore be privy to the thoughts and teachings of great people.
"The reading of all the great books," says Descartes, "is like conversing with the best people of earlier times: it is even a studied conversation in which the authors show us only the best of their thoughts."
Have you had a conversation with a great mind lately?
While looking up some political/campaign stuff online, I stumbled across this campaign ad. Someone is trying to build a webpage with all the presidential tv ads from 1948 until the present (he says he's to 1960 now).
So, today is Monday, and for Family Home Evening (FHE) we decided that we'd write in our Jounal. Only, we're not very good at writing in our journal--but we are good at blogging!, so we decided to re-cap the last few weeks and blog about our life. Nifty, huh?
So, let's start back on February 21, 2008. We stayed up and watched the lunar eclipse. At first, we were standing outside in the cold, but then we realized that our living room window looked out right at it! So we came back inside and snuggled on the couch while we watched. Honestly, it was kind of excruciating, because by the time we got around to watching, the moon was mostly covered in the shadow, and we kept thinking it was changing, but I think our eyes were playing tricks. But, we saw it, and that's what's important.
On Sunday, February 24, 2008, we had some friends over to play games. We played charades, and the boys lost to the girls. There were some hilarious moments when we tried to act out the books, songs, and movies that the other team thought up. And, the game served two purposes: it was fun to play, and it got our friend Cherie moving around. We'd like to take credit for the birth of her baby girl not too long after their visit to our house. =)
Skip ahead a little bit, and we come to Saturday, March 1, 2008. We were trying to think of something to do, and the weather was nice (but cold), so we thought a drive would be nice -- we could be "inside" but "outside" at the same time! Jill planned this trip to Amherst using old roads that took us through little towns along the way.
Well, we only made it to (almost) Marlborough (about 1/4 of the way there). We saw this cool bookstore on the side of road, called Bearly Read Books in Sudbury, MA. We spent about 3 hours or so "browsing the stacks." They had so much cool stuff! A beautfiful, old (at least 150 years) family Bible; first-edition copies of various classics; I can't even begin to name them. We wandered around the book store, craning our heads sideways reading titles, gently pulling copies off the shelves, and leafing through their pages. If we had a library (and a budget to stock it), we probably would have grabbed armfuls of interesting books. One in particular was a "history of Presidential elections" as told by the New York Times; basically, it was a copy of every Times paper the day after the general electrion from Lincoln on through the (almost) present day. It was interesting seeing how the paper layout (and font sizes) changed, to see the election results, and what else was going on in history. We'll probably go back again.
But, while we didn't get very far on our drive, and didn't take a picture at the bookstore, we did take some other pictures along the way. We took some sideroads and found an historic inn and an old mill. [[Jill says the inn was the Wayside Inn. Longfellow wrote a poem about it. The mill was the Longfellow Wayside Grist Mill.]]
That night, we had a group of friends over again and played games into the evening. This time, we played Oodles and the Celestial Companion game, and had a lot of fun again. Jeremy had to sneak out to go get some vittles that we lacked; we were making chicken cordon bleu for the Elders and needed some ham and cheese.
The next day, Jill woke up not feeling well. She stayed home and Jeremy went to church. For the next week, Jeremy fed Jill lots of Jell-O and Jell-O pudding, chicken soup, Fresca, and applesauce. Thanks to a hefty dose of antibiotics started towards the end of the week, Jill started feeling better and was ready to go back to church on Sunday.
On Sunday, after Church, we went for another drive (since we had both been in the house all week), and just wandered around. After driving out past an old, condemned church building (and finding a road that connected to a "dead end"), we drove past a group of about 5-6 deer standing off on the side of the road. We stopped to take some pictures.
Then, somehow we found ourselves in Belmont. In an attempt not to sound too stalker-ish, we'll just say that our though process was, (1) ooh, Belmont. Lot's of pretty houses that we drove past. (2) I think the Romneys live in Belmont). (3) Mitt had to report his address when he filed his candidacy for the presidency. (4) We googled that file on Jeremy's Blackberry. (5) We drove past his house. And around the neighborhood. And back by his house (so we could get back to "our" part of town).
Then, seeing as we were driving past the homes of our friends, we decided to call and "check in" with the Gilbert family. We got their old address and drove past their home (in Needham) and around the high school (where Jeremy will be going on Wednesday to be a participant in a career fair. Funny, since he doesn't have a career...).
Finally, we ended up back at our home. Went to bed, and sent Jill off to work the next day, since she had played hooky long enough. ;-)
In the meantime, Jeremy has been looking for jobs; sending off resumes; looking for more jobs; and waiting to hear back. He'll be spending a few days in DC next week meeting with some contacts that he's made, and hopefully he'll figure out what he's going to do next.
We're excited for what may come, as we start a new chapter in our lives.
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