Get Everything Done

Norman, whose writings influence your style of prose? One or more of the well-known philosophers? It's difficult to understand because it engages many uncommon concepts and phrases. Just curious.

Could you list them, so I might make them more clear? I could do it bullet form but I doubt that would allow the jump to how AF can impact such things as value.

Regarding intelligibility however, someone once said to the effect (or affect?): that which is most meaningful is rarely the most intelligible.

Regarding prose? Depends on what I am writing, I suppose in this case, since it is more serious (although not terribly so), voices from the Continental Tradition.

Some of the weird locutions arise from ontology from Heidegger and to a lesser extent some obscure (far) Eastern writers. The move from the understanding of relation to the world to pragmatics some of the more popular of (far) Eastern understanding and Reynolds understanding of that tradition.

I guess, if I had to summarize quickly what I think is the shift in approach AF allows over other systems:

The old saw: Man proposes; God disposes. Describes the typical approach and folly of attempting to force one's agenda upon the world without much consideration and thought for the world or God first.

I would suggest a new saw (if one is listening properly): God (the world) proposes; man disposes. But this carries an unfortunate suggestion of a duality that need not be. (But does arise at times.) This begins in the collection of items, the pause when considering them, the humility to let some go (dismissal), the openness and curiosity to trust those tasks which stand out which we would rather not do.

If my "style" is interfering with "content" (another duality I don't quite buy). I would be willing to try to make myself more clear, if you think it is worthwhile and if AF agrees.

FWIW

Hi Norman, I'm not actually complaining about your style. Don't change for my sake. I don't mind difficult text, though it requires more work on my part. In truth, much of the difficulty is because the subject is complex. I get the general idea of what you're saying, and a careful reread will enable me to grok it better.

But if it helps you: Below is an exhaustive list of the difficult phrases, from your previous post, which that made me stop and decipher your meaning.

"the calculative I"
"what I mean by the world."
"Those things no matter what on stance on them is which occur to us"
"carry this passive sense of the I"
"the world stands out."
"happens solely in virtue of a single person"
"anything outside sophistry"
"smack of a bit inauthenticity"
"possible empty tautology"
"things which need or ask for our help"
"arguing a dualism"
"system suggests such a method"

I don't need the above explained; I'll figure them out. I only request that you strive to keep sentences well-formed (see example 3).

Your conclusion was hard to follow too:

"Allowing a moment of pause, nothing else, to let your dreams, desires, shoulds, should nots, fears, boredom, etc. the charity and space to solicit your help without considerable calculation?"
"To temper the hubris and extremity of our often self-seeking calculative I with the kindness to allow our rich relationship with the world to speak to us, rather than we forcibly lecturing the world about its importance and necessity?"

Are those final two questions describing systems? Do those suggest a method? Are the questions rhetorical or open? If rhetorical which way does the implied answer go?

Points taken. I usually write and then not look at something for a week then change it. The "casual" nature and speed of posting plus the subject matter and the fact I can't edit after posting makes for nonsensical statements often.

Dropped words, extra words, etc.

Sorry.

Sigh... I think I'd have an easier time reading and understanding Aristotle in the original Greek.

Bertrand Russell on Heidegger -
"Highly eccentric in its terminology, his philosophy is extremely obscure. One cannot help suspecting that language is here running riot."

Some other dude on Mr. H:
"His major work Being and Time is formidably difficult - unless it is utter nonsense, in which case it is laughably easy. I am not sure how to judge it, and have read no commentator who even begins to make sense of it."

Norman, to be honest, at first I thought you were just a Werner Erhard fan-boy. (duck)

Do you really attribute that much power to what is essentially a tool? Do you think maybe you're reading into it a bit more deeply than anyone would (including its creator)? I guess I'm not deep or spiritual enough to understand a belief that a time management tool has magical powers or is some quasi-religious experience.

"Ode to a Daytimer" comes to mind. Boggles (as Mike would say).

>>Regarding intelligibility however, someone once said to the effect (or affect?): that which is most meaningful is rarely the most intelligible.<<

Maybe you're thinking of this saying?:

When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense. ~ Edward Abbey

(BTW, Desert Solitaire was a good book and McMutry is a fan-boy of his.)

In short Bertrand Russell was a light-weight and a one trick pony who got PWND by an Austrian who in a few pages tore apart what was supposed to be his greatest intellectual achievement that totaled volumes (something written along with another man who actually did do something interesting after _Principia Mathematica_ ).

No Jacqueline: throughout time every great thinker who has struggled to come to terms with what is worth thinking has invariable been labeled as "hard to understand" and created their own idiolect to overcome the difficulties and prejudices wrought in the pedestrian use of language. In our time, everyone is supposed to be capable of understanding everything. Intelligibility has replaced thought, so we celebrate transparent prose so highly.

Then again, I ain't Joyce, Homer, Aristotle, Heidegger, Lao Tzu, etc. So I am failing here.

Am I reading more? That is a question for hermeneutics. Of course! What is the author's intent, that is a question that does not necessarily make things more clear.

I guess I've so much time thinking a long these lines, that aside for the poorly constructed sentences which Alan rightly pointed out, I don't any of this to be that difficult.

RE: Heidegger and _Being and Time_. Really, it some of the most clear prose written in the canon. And frankly, the first introduction alone was / is worth more of my time spent than work through the _Principia Mathematica_.

But yes, I could have done a better job, if you too are having a hard understanding me. It is probably because in part due to the nature of forum writing and I spend a lot of my day writing and reading in German about highly technical issues surrounding some of the above subjects.

For vanity's sake another attempt. In short posts, with fewer echoes of Heidegger, Augustine, Desert Fathers, and early Chan Buddhist texts ringing in my ears.

And just read a friend's blog on teaching Deleuze to freshman: if you can't get your students excited and interested, either you don't understand what you are teaching or you are probably trying to go from abstraction to the concrete rather than other way around. Give a concrete example, a provocative one, then they might be willing to really follow the less abstract stuff.

I have not presented these ideas in light of AF at all and certainly am thinking aloud. I am a confessional thinker. And I haven't offered much in the way of the concrete. I was committing the error my friend spoke of.

Simultaneously, I think fear I have become boorish and thus not very useful to anyone. Overly burdening the efforts and time of others is not anything I relish.

Me:

"I guess I've so much time thinking a long these lines, that aside for the poorly constructed sentences which Alan rightly pointed out, I don't any of this to be that difficult."

I guess I've spent so much time thinking a long these lines, that aside for the poorly constructed sentences which Alan rightly pointed out, I don't find any of this to be that difficult. This is my fault.
And I thank you for your indulgences.

Wish could I edit after posting.

I live in the most dangerous neighborhood in America. A buncha insurance actuaries got together and decided to look at crime trends on a per neighborhood basis rather than city or district wide, so they would have a finer tool to evaluate their risk when taking you on as a client. Surprisingly to all those living Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, etc. not one neighborhood came close to mine in density of violence.

My rental insurance when up about 45% after this information was released.

I love my neighborhood. I love my street. I love my apartment. Getting shot or abducted is not uncommon where I live. You hear about it weekly. This is an area comprised of a few dozen small city blocks.

The last good ole' fashioned race riot in America happened where I live about a decade ago. Police were openly shooting young black men with bean-bag guns and rubber bullets. Young black men were openly, even during the day, smashing the windows of neighborhood stores and looting them. They also were beating to a pulp just about anyone who looked white who they could get their hands on.

I look very, very, white.

The reasonable thing to do is to move. (Nearly) Everyone I know thinks this is what I should do and encourages me to do so. Hearing those wizards of math and knowing the week to week violence which goes on here made me reconsider living here, so I put into AF: consider moving.