Out of Egypt:

Christmas and the life of the mind

All my recent thoughts have been going in a notebook, since I lack the Internet at home. I haven't been this self-reflective in years. Whee! Of course, it makes it boring for all you readers, since I just punch in every once in a while to let you know I'm still alive. $50 of book gift certificates for Christmas - pretty sweet. Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind, which I've been reading, makes me want to read some Nietzsche, since he makes a convincing-seeming case that N. is the hidden source of modern thought. And I already know, from what little I've read, that he's a great prose stylist.

And as regards thinkers antithetical to our contemporary nihilism-lite, I've been reading St. Bernard of Clairvaux lately. Favorite quote, from "On Conversion": "The Word of God is a Word of power, rolling through the desert, revealing secrets, shaking souls free of sluggishness."

Wrote some good poems, would like to write a short story. My break is more intellectual, in some respects, than my college experience. (Though the semester's grades were the second-highest out of my whole time at Covenant. Show how you can get good grades while really just going through the motions of thought. Next semester, I hope, will be different, despite that I'm going to be taking almost all core. Chaucer will be interesting, though it is with Dr. Hesselink, the archduke of dryness.)

Wish I saw people more often around here. I have now officially reached the point where I feel closer to my college friends than to most of my earlier friends. Island life is dull, even with intellectual pleasure at one's fingertips - "man is not meant to be alone" applies to more relationships than the erotic. I respect the man whose obituary in the New York Times said that he was a philosopher in the Socratic mold, one who thought through conversation. That, while ephemeral unless one has a Plato for a pupil, is the most pleasurable kind of thought.

Wow. Add a full-time job to that, and you get life after graduation -- pretty depressing, huh?

Actually, it's not that bad, but I do understand about the loneliness. Did you know the word loneliness has the word lines in it? I love the English language. And I need to get to sleep.

Love from far away,
Bob.

Posted by: bob at December 28, 2004 12:23 AM

Since you are anticipating Hesselink classes, then I take it that you are not going to Oxford this spring?

Posted by: funkefreak at December 28, 2004 2:03 PM

Since you are anticipating Hesselink classes, I presume that you are not going to Oxford this spring?

I received some book gift certificates for Christmas, too. I also got Umberto Eco's On Literature and Martin Esslin's Theatre of the Absurd, though the latter was the result of my own weakness when I was supposed to be Christmas shopping for family members, and thus it is not technically a gift. The dangers of bookstores--they lure me into their wordy depths.

Posted by: funkefreak at December 28, 2004 2:12 PM

PS I empathize with your desire not to be forgotten by Covenant-ites. When feeling especially lonely for friends back in Chattanooga, I send out random, bizarre emails. My hope is that by cluttering up peoples' inboxes, I will be remembered, even if the duration of memory lasts only as long as it takes for a reader to click the "delete message" icon.

The ancient Egyptians built their pyramids; I, too, must pursue immortality through incessant memorial-building. To the crumbling stone of ancient temples, I add the fading ruins of comments strewn across the universe of covblog, xanga, and Outlook Express.

Posted by: funkefreak at December 28, 2004 2:23 PM

Nope. Maybe I'll go to Oxford later, Lord willing. I decided, all things considered, to get done with some other things at college first.

Posted by: edonovan at December 29, 2004 3:02 AM

Well, you can always go after graduation...

Posted by: funkefreak at December 29, 2004 11:04 AM

Well, I say it's better to be lured to wordy depths than worldly ones. Here's to bookstores! And did you know Hesselink is one of my distant neighbors, as in, not-next-door-but-just-around-the-corner-neighbors?

Posted by: bob at December 30, 2004 10:06 AM

Well, hope you are not wallowing in seclusion (something I long for at times in my vigorous British family). Congrats on your real Christmas tree. I am eager for the return of school - not only for the return of homey friendships, but also for the challenge of academia. My intellectual teeth are growing painfully long without something to grind into. See ya there. I like your mom.

Posted by: Keri D.L. at December 31, 2004 2:56 AM