You can't waste more time than this

When I see what people post on social, mainstream, and alternative media (and, yes, I don't catch it all, but I do try to get a glimpse), I wonder what most of them have ever read. More to the point, quite often I wonder if they read anything at all (including the news feeds that they are merely copying and re-feeding). I mean, who really reads anymore?

Yes, I've always been an avid reader, but I never got into reading as much as when I tried to put together an academic paper on the subject. I tried to take a look at how the process worked and what the notion of "reading" even meant. After all, there are lots of people who can decipher and decode the marks on paper or on the screen, who can read aloud to let you know their decoding is correct, but who haven't the slightest idea what those sounds are saying. Yes, a lot of folks can make all the right sounds corresponding to the letters on the page, but like a parrot, they have no idea what those words are saying.

The skill can be learned. The skill can be taught. But, I can't shake off the feeling that neither learning or teaching is taking -- or has taken -- place. Yes, I can sob and moan about not having a lot of reading friends, but the more I look around me, the more I realize that too many people have too little idea what most authors are saying. It got so bad once that I thought I should start compiling a list of the "most misquoted writers of all time". The list got too long too fast and I gave up the project. I became overwhelmed. I had difficulty coming to terms with the fact that a lot of "authority" was being thrown my way, but little of what was maintained as "authority" found reflection in the texts.

A first example: Adam Smith's "invisible hand". I not only studied business once in my life, I taught it at the graduate level for 15 years. (That's not a brag, by the way, it's just a fact ... truth be told, I don't believe to this day that "business" is an academic field of study, but I played the game long enough to at least make this statement.) Though I was teaching a graduate-level course, not one of my students had ever read Adam Smith: neither his Theory of Moral Sentiments (in my not-so-humble opinion, a pre-requisite for understanding his more famous work) nor his Wealth of Nations. Some folks are aware he wrote the latter, most have no idea he wrote the former, but in any regard, we're confronted with Adam Smith's "invisible hand" at every turn in almost every economic discussion we have, be it formal, academic or in the pub. This all-so-important-and-critical phrase appears once -- yes, just once -- in the Wealth of Nations. In and of itself, that means nothing. However, when we consider that (a) it appears just once, and only once; (b) that it is not a topic of discussion or analysis itself but merely a passing example of another point he is trying to make; and (c) the text in which it appears (that is, the treatise on the Wealth of Nations) consists of five books in two volumes encompassing well over 1,000 pages, well, I have to ask myself, just how important this notion must have been to Mr. Smith himself. On the other hand, it appears to be the only clause that Milton Friedman ever understood in the whole text. If you don't believe me, try reading his Capitalism and Freedom and you can see what I mean. Self-interest plays a huge role, but whereas Smith alleged enlightened, Friedman's is wholely endarkened.

It makes you wonder ... well, it makes me wonder, at any rate. I know it takes time and effort to read, and even more to comprehend. It takes the most effort to engage and think through what you've read as well, and for that we apparently have no time left at all.

Recreational reading and other wastes of time

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to read. Anyone who knows me well knows I like to read a lot. And anyone who knows me really well knows that I'm rarely without my nose in a book whenever I find the time to put it there.

Most people who know me know that I'm a fairly eclectic reader. Most of those who know me better know that I'm more than casual reader. And most of those who know me even better know that there has rarely been a book printed that I would not be willing to read.

Yes, I'm one of those kind of persons who, when someone says, "Hey, you really should read this book", I reply with "Give it to me and I'll give it a shot." I won't deceive you into thinking that I've read every book I've ever had in my hands through from cover to cover. It's not necessary with some (say, have you ever tried reading a dictionary from cover to cover?), it's not possible with others (like when you're trying to decipher a text written with green letters on purple paper), but at least I'll give it a try. Who knows what might be in there? After all, someone went to a certain amount of trouble to ensure that the text got around. The least that I can do is honor the effort, even if I can't grasp what's being talked about. I am more than willing to openly admit that there are some texts that I simply don't get.

Truth be told, I wish I had more time to read, but there are only 24 hours in a day. Consequently, I always try to have more than one book going at any one time. I like to vary genres (non-fiction and fiction, poetry and spiritual texts work well together) and languages (in order to keep up my German which I so arduously learned, I like to have at least one book in German going at any given time). Another confession I need to make is that whatever I read on the internet (be it Facebook or any of the online groups with whom I'm affiliated) doesn't count as "real reading": the primary mode of internet communication is the written word, but that, to me, is a lot like a phone call. It may or not be communication in any meaningful sense of the word.

And so, the question naturally arises: what do I have to show for all of this reading. And, the answer is really rather simple: not a helluva lot. There are lots and lots and lots of interesting ideas out there floating about. No doubt about that. But what is every bit as necessary as reading all of this interesting (and, not-so-interesting) stuff is that you need time to reflect upon it. Reading is one thing. Digesting what you read is another. And I have found that quieter times, such as Lent, when, if you're into the spirit of the season, you kind of slow down just a bit, you can more easily find a fleeting moment here and there (even if it is as a change of pace to the normal monkey-brain-chatter we usually put up with before going to sleep) to think about what you've read.

What I miss sometimes, though, is someone to talk to about what I'm reading, but readers don't always read the same things at the same times. In these internet days in which we live, the neighborhood reading circle is an institution of bye-gone days. I am participating in an online reading group right now, for which I'm more than thankful, but that's a rarity, as most of you know. (The folks organizing and promoting the read are young people, however, and if their efforts are successful, I can only hope that they'll be encouraged to continue in the future.)

Still, all of those silent readers out there may one day be moved to speak. I just want you to know, I'm willing to listen.

If not reading, how about reflection?

While I do have my optimistic moments, I'm not the fool many take me for. I know well that most people I know wouldn't read much that is antithetical to their beliefs. The authors of those texts might have a point ... who knows? they might even be right ... and what do you do then? When our beliefs are challenged, the vast majority of us simply reject what we're being told (or what we're reading). It's a lot easier to simply deny than it is to change our minds. How sad is that.

Having said that, however, I'm not convinced that most people know why they believe what they believe. A lot of our beliefs are simply carry-overs from our childhood. Our parents believed certain things, we accepted them, and we believe them now as well. In our teen and young-adult years, our friends or people we admired or looked up to believed things and we decided to believe what they believed because we thought or felt or believed that we were like them. In our adult lives, we believe things sometimes simply because we would like things to be a certain way; our world would be much less threatening and stressful if things are as we believe. What all of these modes of coming-to-beliefs have in common, it is clear, is that they are passive in nature. We don't have to do anything to come to these beliefs, we merely need to accept them and make them our own.

That's fine in as far as it goes, but it's a rather weak foundation, especially when we think of how many people are out there claiming, arguing, hammering home, and trying to impose their beliefs on others. If someone wants to make a strong case for his or her beliefs, then I would like to think that they had at least thought about them seriously, that they had invested some energy in understanding what it is they believe and that they knew why they believed what they believed. Unfortunately, that's hardly ever the case. Beliefs are funny like that: all you have to do is believe them. Personally, I prefer people with convictions (thought-through and grounded beliefs), even if I don't share them myself.

So, now that summer is upon us, and now that many of us are thinking about time off or vacations or just lying out in the sun or going to the beach, I have little illusion that most of you will be taking a book with you. For those who are, I commend you, and I certainly hope you read it. For those of you who are not choosing that option, may I suggest a less strenuous, but I believe more challenging, and, perhaps, even more rewarding activity: reflecting. Yes, why not take the time in which you're not really doing anything else, and think about what you believe. Ask yourself why you believe it. Do little thought experiments about what it would be like, or what the world would be like, if you, or most people or anyone else, didn't believe what you believe. You really ought to try it. It can be a very enlightening experience, if done intensely and seriously enough.

No one's asking you to do anything but think ... about what you think and why. Who thinks they can handle it?

Summer reading

Summer is upon us, and those of you who can still afford it are probably already thinking about which spot in the sun you want to have your fun. We all need a break, don't we?

But WE; that is, those of us in the Western World; get ours at the expense of the rest of humanity, but, hey, don't let me spoil your fun. While you're relaxing, just letting your soul dangle, as the Germans say, you shouldn't really just turn off your mind. Let's face it: most of you rarely find the time to turn it on in normal, everyday life, what with kids and school and activities and work and bills and mortgages and doctor's appointments and re-landscaping the garden and washing the car, or whatever it is that "consumes" our own consumerist lives.

So, in those odd moments between rolling over to have the "other side browned" or between sun-screen latherings or just shifting your position in the hammock, I'd like to suggest a couple of things for your summer reading list. No, it's not light fare, no action-packed, thriller, mind-numbing, unrealistic fantasy. Rather, just a little bit of actual reality to gently challenge that perceptual illusion you think is "real life".

Since we in the West have traded in our societies for economies, it is only fitting that economic topics top the list.

• Try David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years for starters. Prof. Graeber has an entertaining and enlightening style that eases the pain of removing the veneer of false facts and downright propaganda that modern economists like to use to hide their machinations. Consider him a fan to blow away the smoke and a shade to expose the mirrors.
• Also, Michael Hudson's very readable and even more straightforward unmasking of how the financialization of our economy really works, namely The Bubble and Beyond, an honest and understandable look at how we got into the mess we are in. (And, just in case you haven't noticed it, we are in one helluva mess.)
• And, finally, since all good things come in threes, you might want to try a true classic of the genre, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's What is Property?, an insightfully delightful conceptual exercise in understanding one of our most powerful and least understood "rights".

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not foolish enough to think that any of you are really going to read anything this serious, but I couldn't help but at least bring the subject up. You do want a break, I'm sure, and you feel you deserve a break, too. I'm only saying that you can "take a break" now, or you can be surprised, shocked, and overwhelmed when the real break comes.

We're at a critical juncture in history, folks. Something has to and is going to give, and in not the all-too-distant future. I pray that all of you reading this today will be around to experience it. You're not going to like it. You are going to be angry and enraged, you are all going to find yourself asking how this could possibly come about, how couldn't we have known this was going to happen. But you'll only have yourself to blame. You had the chance to find out, but you decided you needed a break.

Enjoy!

Shoot the messenger

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In olden times, if the messenger brought bad news, chances were good he's pay for it with his life. It wasn't his fault the news was bad, but he paid the price anyway. In retrospect, we considered it a grave injustice, but we practice it everyday ourselves.

One of the underlying themes of my past few posts has been just this: our willing to shoot the messenger. In any discussion of a current event or current situation, the easiest, quickest, and most devastating response is to simply call the source into question. There are not a few people who actually consider themselves serious, critical thinkers who have nothing better to offer in the way of discussion. This is unfortunate.

The English philosopher R.G. Collingwood has been my role model for this. In his brief, but extremely readable, fascinating autobiography (called An Autobiography, in English; the German title was Denken, "Thinking"), he relates how most of his colleagues belonged to the Logical Positivist or Analytic schools of thought (the former being focused, according to itself as the logical clarification of thought, whereby formal grammars and logic play a dominant role; the latter being influenced to a great extent by mathematics and the natural sciences, allegedly focusing on narrow themes and logical precision ... that is to say, it's more a style than type of thinking). He himself fit in much better with what is often characterized as Continental Philosophy, in particular Hermeneutics (the art and science of interpretation and understanding). In their monthly department meetings, they would present their latest findings and debate them. Their biggest fear, apparently, was that Collingwood would want to take their side. He believed the best way to figure out whether a position or argument was valuable was to use it as conscientiously as possible. To do this, one has to delve into it and understand how it works. Too often, Collingwood revealed that the argument was a mere house of cards. You're right. He didn't have a lot of friends in the faculty. People who are looking for truth often don't have a lot of friends.

I miss guys like Collingwood. One of my two best friends from college feeds me regularly with articles and op-eds from publications that I would most likely never dream of reading. But, since he's a friend, and I respect him, of course, I seriously engage these readings and we discuss them, sometimes lively and heatedly, but in a very rewarding and satisfying manner. I always learn something, and often something important. He allows me to infuse a little of Collingwood's spirit into my own life. He does the same with the stuff I send him.

Unfortunately, my friend is pretty much one of a kind. I encounter far too many people who are busy building their own little bubbles in which to exist. I don't know why, I can only surmise, and for the moment I believe that this behavior is so widespread because there are simply too many things wrong with our world. Keep your job; whatever you do, don't get fired; keep a low profile; arm yourself to the teeth, if necessary; don't get involved; don't get out of line; but whatever you do, don't think too seriously about what you're doing.

And the best way to keep that process going is to simply shoot whoever shows up with something you really don't want to hear.

The art of understanding discussions

The most obvious and poignant example of not being able to discuss anything (reasonably or otherwise) is American politics today. I don't want anyone thinking I'm picking on the Americans in particular, but what they are showing the world these days is downright embarrassing.

When seen from the outside, all one notices is that two sides have crystallized which are, beneath the surface, surprisingly similar (invested with corporate influence, overtly oppressive, violent, undemocratic, hypocritical, power-obsessed, disrespectful of human rights ... the list goes on), but on the surface portrayed as diametrically opposed. When that organization that is allegedly representative of the people pass certain legislation, say, health care legislation, and the other side tries to repeal it 40 times, you have to ask yourself what the real issue is. When you have religiously questionable beliefs being passed off as reasonable arguments in a discussion, you have to ask yourself if these people are of sound mind. When you have tenets of a particular religious faith being presented in opposition to sound scientific evidence, and when you have the full-scale denial of scientific evidence because it doesn't fit in with what you want to be true, well, then you don't have much basis for any kind of discussion about anything anymore. This is no longer reasoned discussion or debate, this is childish misbehavior.

Oh, I don't think it would bother me, or the rest of the world, so much if Americans weren't so willing to take their current brand of incoherency a-peddling. There are issues that need to be discussed, such as climate change, capitalism, the financial system, globalization, the role of corporate influence, the role of national sovereignty, war, crime, aggression, human rights, just to name a few, but what we have, increasingly, is a situation in which no reasoned discussion; that is, no reasonable search for real solutions, is possible.

This infantilism that American politics embodies is spreading elsewhere. It apparently has no trouble trickling down. It is becoming increasingly difficult to talk to, let alone debate anything with others. Of course, I'm speaking of my own personal experience, but I don't think I'm all that different than most people. Who is actually willing to engage an opponent's ideas? Who is willing to read or consider "the other side's" positions? Who still wants to be reasonable about anything?

I'm very fortunate in that I still have a few friends and people with whom I discuss things that are tolerant enough to consider something other than what's in their own heads. How often have you heard statements like "Oh, you read that in The Nation/The American Conservative, well why would you believe anything written in that rag?" How many folks criticize Adam Smith but have never read him? How many reject Marx outright, but have never read him? How many people do you know who are willing, and able, to follow an extended argument ... say, something longer than a Tweet or a Facebook post ... and who can contribute to the discussion?

My hope lies in the fact that I know there are some folks who still can. My worry is that there aren't enough of them to end up making a difference. How many of you still think you can? How many of you want to make a difference?

The fundamentals of the art of discussion

What applies to any argument being contributed to a discussion (or a debate, which may be more formal or is simply more intense); that is, those factors we considered last time; are equally applicable to the discussion as a whole.

The matter of context is that arguments are centered on a given subject. Changing the subject in mid-stream is never a good idea, just like changing horses isn't. If the subject is, say, the role of austerity in solving economic problems, bringing up alleged cultural shortcomings of economy involved or insisting upon misconduct or weak decisions in past leading up to the crisis in the first place is simply off-topic. If we've got a problem, there is certainly room for valid discussions as to how we got into the mess in the first place. These are not, necessarily, arguments for a particular approach to a solution. Changing a whole society's behavior may take longer than we can afford to wait to get things headed in a positive direction.

Evidence is certainly applicable to any argument being made. And here, we're talking primarily about relevant evidence; evidence that has a bearing on the issue as a whole. One of the most dubious forms of discussion is the one that excludes certain types for certain reasons. We saw this most recently in the Bradley Manning trial, where the judge disallowed arguments by the defense that Manning acted, at least in part, due to the obligation placed upon him by the very Code of Military Justice that was being used to prosecute him. The motives one has for committing a deed are, in my estimation, invaluable in determining the severity of the deed. Nothing we humans construct -- particularly our so-called justice system -- is digitally accurate. Things humans do are never black or white, in fact, they are rarely black and white. There are numerous grey areas which need to be dealt with seriously and cautiously.

As for coherency and consistency, I think I'm pretty safe in assuming that every one of us has been involved in a discussion, at least once in our lives, in which at the end, no one really knew what was being argued about. Somehow the discussion didn't just get off topic (as pointed out in relation to "context" above), rather it got out of control. Not knowing what was talked about calls into question the time and energy that was spent talking.

One additional factor plays a role here, though. It is essential for the success of any discussion that the discussants acknowledge each others' worthiness to participate. If you consider your discussion partner inferior in any way, there's no use having a discussion, you are probably only trying to prove you are right. If you refuse to discuss certain topics with others who have a different position, then you are tacitly expressing that the other is unworthy of talking to in the first place. If you only want to engage the person, not his or her arguments, then you really aren't discussing at all (this is formally known as ad hominem argumentation), then you're wasting everybody's time. But in any event, you are demonstrating that you need not be considered as a serious discussion partner. In other words, if you aren't willing to learn, if you aren't willing to perhaps change/modify your own position based on the course of the discussion, if you are only trying to "prove" you're right, you're not discussing, you are merely pontificating, and Lord knows we've got more than enough of that going on these days.

An introduction to the art of discussion

One of the things we should have learned in school is how to discuss a topic, even a controversial one. I know, we don't have classes in logic and rhetoric anymore (which I personally find sad, but that's just me), but there are still ample opportunities, in all social-science and language classes at any rate, to develop the skills and abilities to discuss something reasonably. When we look around us, particularly at our political landscape, it becomes painfully obvious that even if these were taught in school, a lot of folks were either sick that day or were simply not paying attention. But that's another topic of another day.

One of the things we should have learned, for example, is that context matters. The expectations that we bring to, say, a newspaper article should be different than those we bring to an op-ed. We should expect less bias and more facts in the former, and not be surprised by more bias and fewer facts in the latter. Each, in its own way, has something to say, but they say fundamentally different things. Or, we might expect an historical novel to be less accurate fact-wise, say, than a history of the events in question, but this may or may not be the case. History is often written by the victors; novels are often written by seekers of truth. Things may be reversed, but to determine that, we need to investigate further to discover what the real story is.

Another thing we should have learned is that evidence matters. (This is one of those places where I think German has a leg up on English. In English we have the word "evidence", but the Germans have both Belege (evidence that supports or refutes) and Beweise (evidence that proves or is categorical). In many of my discussions with English-speakers (native or not), this distinction is too often a source of misunderstanding.) Whatever we maintain; that is, whatever thesis or assertion we advance, should be substantiated in some way by corroborating evidence. This can take many forms, depending on the subject of the discussion. It might be facts (that is, things that actually happened or can be verified as being as they are presented), theories (in the case of more abstract discussions where not all the facts are in), arguments of others (which should be sourced and accessible to other discussion participants), perhaps experience (if verifiable and relevant), or perhaps scientific studies (quantitative as well as qualitative) or similar research, and much more. In other words, we like to get the feeling that our discussion partner just didn't simply make up his or her arguments as the discussion was going along.

And finally, we should have learned that coherency and consistency matter. By coherency, I mean the fact that what is being presented makes sense in some way. A science-fiction novel may be very coherent, but since it lacks verifiability, we tend to push it into the fiction category. This may disqualify it is evidence in a discussion of propulsion technology, but it may be valuable as an outside-the-box example for a discussion of future propulsion technology. Consistency means that that the parts fit together well. There are no big leaps between parts of the argument, that there are no huge logical gaps (like the cartoon of the two scientists discussing a formula on the blackboard where the one says to the other, "... and here a miracle happens ..."), that the discussion is what we might also called focused.

These may appear obvious to many of you, but if you stop take a look around at what is being said and discussed everyday, you quickly become aware of how little of any of these three factors can be found. Maybe since we stopped teaching them, we've forgotten how to use them or why they are important. At least that's the feeling that I get ... unfortunately, too often.

The fundamentals of the art of understanding

Last time, I tried to show that we base our understanding of things, to a large extent, on assumptions we have about how things are, and that these assumptions are as good as never challenged. These assumptions lead to our biases about things. If they gain the upper hand, they become what we call prejudices. A prejudice is simply an assumption that one refuses to give up even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The question is, then, where do these assumptions come from?

Any number of situations and circumstances are involved. There is the culture into which we are born. Cultures are defined by what they take for granted about reality. The language(s) we speak also play an important role. There is no single one-to-one correspondence between one language and another; something is always lost in translation. Our socialization plays perhaps the largest role. By this I mean our family and immediate surroundings in which we grow up. There may be, say, an American or German culture, but how this culture is lived differs between New York and San Francisco as much as between Hamburg and Munich. The same holds true of language: dialectical differences emphasize some things and de-emphasize others. So, how our parents see the world greatly influences how we end up seeing the world and what we end up taking for granted. For the "good" child, it is because of the influences; for the "bad" child, it is in spite of them. Finally, our formal education plays an exceedingly strong role in all of this, for in school we don't just learn content, we learn how to read, learn, play games (of all sorts, even social ones) and what is acceptable beyond the boundaries of our own limited, personal communities.

Everybody does this. Everybody goes through this. And everybody conforms or does not conform to the pressures and learning processes all of this represents in different ways. We are, after all, individuals. In other words, the outcomes of the same process may be -- is most likely -- different from one person to the next, yet the underlying principle remains the same: assumptions, pre-suppositions, perhaps even prejudices are formed, and these are the basic building blocks of how we think, how we assess, how we evaluate, how we judge, how we discuss, and how we debate.

The big question that suddenly arises here, however, is how are we to know what deep, dark, secrets are lying beneath our discussion partners' or debate opponents' positions and arguments? How are we going to deal with them? The questions are legitimate, to be sure, but the answer is not as difficult to find as you may think: just like it says in the Good Book, "by their fruits, you shall know them". Yes, we only need take seriously what they are saying (or writing or doing) and a closer look at these can reveal what some of those fundamental assumptions are. We are then free(r) to deal with the arguments themselves. We can draw some reasonable conclusions about what might be driving a particular argument thereby making it easier to deal with the substance of that argument and not who in particular is delivering it.

An introduction to the art of understanding

No one likes to think they don't understand something, especially if they're convinced they know something about it. We live in a very complex, dynamic, data-rich environment these days, and it is not always as easy to keep things straight as we might like. We're all busy. Few of us have any real time to ourselves, time to think or reflect or evaluate thoughts and ideas. Compounding the "problem", if you will, is that most everything we base our understanding on comes to us via language, and anyone who has ever seriously dealt with language as an object of study or who has learned, or even tried to learn, a language other than his/her native one knows that language is at best an ambiguous medium of communication.

Our lack of time to serious engage what we hear and read is a huge contributor to the problem of miscommunication and misunderstandings. There is no doubt about that. It is not the only cause. Just as serious is the fact that most people never had the opportunity to learn how to critically engage what they hear and read, and many who got a taste of it think they've mastered it, even though they haven't.

Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt for a second that this latter group is as sincere as anyone else, but we all have to realize that having an opinion should be the result of thought, not the replacement for thought. Thinking about things -- seriously thinking about things -- takes time, energy, skill, and practice.

Every one of us assumes much more about reality than we are ready or willing to admit. For the most part, most people aren't even aware that we start from some very fundamental assumptions. For example, there are those who believe that people are inherently bad (or evil or sinful or cruel or greedy or even some combination of these), others that humans are inherently good (or cooperative or social or kind or loving or perhaps some combination of these). In both cases, however, we are dealing with assumptions. This particular kind of assumption is actually called a pre-supposition; that is, we suppose it is so and hence we don't question its validity, because to us it is simply given that things are thus and so.

Assumptions are neither good nor bad, in general, we all have them and there are simply some things about life that we can't know for sure. The problem is that most of us are unaware of what our fundamental assumptions and pre-suppositions are, and as a result, we are not aware of how much they influence our understanding of what we see, hear, and read. For example, for a person who believes that people are inherently bad, stories of sacrifice and altruism will be met with general skepticism. One might even argue that these people were really doing what they did to gain something for themselves. On the other hand, someone who believes that people are inherently good will "explain" bad things that happen in terms of how abused or mistreated the perpetrator might have been which caused him or her to do whatever heinous deed is in question. What both of these simple situations have in common is that they are not reasoned, they are simply assumed. They are the starting points from which we start to build our understanding of the situations or events involved.

In our hectically paced modern lives, it is certainly difficult to find the time and focus to think about why we believe what we do, but it colors everything we think we understand. It doesn't make understanding more difficult, it only makes it, in the end, less certain.

Indigestion

For the past couple of weeks I've been feeding my head ... not Gracie-Slick style, rather more traditionally. I've been doing a lot of reading, having lots and lots of words pass by my eyes. I'm starting to wonder what I got out of it. Everything's a little cloudy right now. My head feels like my stomach after too big a meal. Why is that?

Maybe it's because I've been stream-reading, you know: read one thing; stumble over a reference so you go off and read that; it reminds you of something else, so you pick that up and read some of it ... sort of like following definitions through the dictionary, but with big clumps of words instead of single entries. For example, start with Young's Geometry of Meaning, and his fourfoldness gets you to Schumacher's Guide for the Perplexed. Both texts are short, to be sure, but dense ... very dense. Of course, Young also mentions The Cloud of Unknowing and Casteneda, and you find your nose in The Teachings of Don Juan again after 30+ years. But this is all after-hours stuff. My day job has me dealing with an elearning project that prompted me to do a little research to begin with, which is what got me to Young, then ... well, you know where I'm going with this.

What all of these particular texts have in common is that they describe something that most of us would rather not think about, but something that is there just the same. It's hard to put a label on it, and I'm fully aware that labels tend to unnecessarily reduce things anyway. So, for the sake of argument, let's just call it more. Yes, they all describe something 'more'. Young and Schumacher are convincing, that's the simplest way to put it ... very convincing, I might add. The anonymous author of The Cloud is, well, devoted and clearheaded, to say the least; Castenda is passionate. In a word, though they might not agree on the details, they are speaking with one voice at least in principle.

So what's my problem? It's acutally simple enough: who cares? In the hustle and bustle of corporate business, no one gives two hoots about 'more', unless it's money we're talking about. In the challenging world of academe, this 'more' is just not scientific enough, I mean, where's the proof? In the mundanity of everyday life, there are cars to fix and lawns to mow and bills to pay, and sabbaths become unavoidably shopping days ... hey, when else are you doing to do it?

I suppose what's really bothering me is the fact that without the 'more' we just keep getting less and less. No matter how much information we process, how much money we make, how many things we buy, we just end up with less in the end, because there's no 'more' in the more that we think we have. It seems so obvious that the 'more' I'm referring to is there, but not only does it get so little attention, there are many folks out there who will argue with you - vehemently - that it's not even there at all. There are none so blind as they who will not see.

All right, it's time for a digestive. A metaphysical one, of course, and just a small one ... less is more.