Time Talks page 21-- June 1989
The following text was written in my journal on June 7, 1989. It was printed in mostly all caps, in a light black ink. I had been in Spain about a week and it was a good chance for me to reflect on my life up to that point, about a month prior to submitting my papers to my church to serve a two year mission. There is an arrow or so drawn on this page, with notes attached to it. I will do my best to accommodate that on the blog page below. Blue is me interjecting almost 31 years later, hence the title, "Time Talks".
June 7, 1989
All those hours of these last few years I didn't do my homework in so many subjects. I must force myself to work now. It's not work, just patience trying. Ay, caramba.
I would like to think I have learned quite a bit in my lifetime, and that my values are on the up and up, overall.
An NBA game, Bulls-Pistons game 7! [An arrow line points going down a third of the page on the right hand side to the "Game 7" and says at the top of the page, near the date and "noontime": False. #3. ] Oh wow. A video, nonetheless.
I must read what I know to be true.
Kindness is the best.
Throughout my life people tell me I think profoundly. Maybe so, maybe so.
But what next? Actions, fool, actions.
A drop in the bucket is better than nothing at all.
Babbling is easier than a disciplined composition.
I don't want a job that doesn't [sic] stimulate my brain. I want to help people lessen their troubles.
And ... ugh... write -__-__--__--__ [my attempt at a squiggle line, sort of wavy]
It's better to write something than nothing at all. Right?
Of course
That is the way it went that day, introspective and speculating on the future. (see Time Talks page 20--https://clinchitsoonerorlater.blogspot.com/2020/05/time-talks-page-20.html). The page that preceded this one.
All those hours of these last few
years I didn't do my homework in so many subjects. I must force myself
to work now. It's not work, just patience trying. Ay, caramba.
I struggled to push myself through high school; the classes (not all) seemed to become more onerous year after year. I began my mathematical declines in Geometry as a sophomore. The teacher, Mrs. Kinzer, was not very inspiring; I myself became increasingly uninspired, because of her and a number of other factors occurring with me...
What were those factors? Perhaps impossible to list fully, and maybe this is just some lazy excuse of excuses that some people do not believe in or simply do not want to hear... Although some believe by analyzing breakdowns and motivations, or the lack thereof, there can still be valid use or knowledge provided for the "patient".
1. Math became a problem when asking questions in class, by the end of my high school sojourn (my last two years), for different reasons, in both my junior and senior math classes. Was this how life worked? To weed out those with less aptitude and let them struggle to get by in class, in sciences that the U.S. purported interest in helping its populace succeed in, these, the hard sciences, of which they (we) continue to fall behind the rest of the world? This was mostly my junior year, and my senior year the powers that were graciously allowed me to catch up with my retarded math studies, but by then I was jaded, bruised, distracted, and probably worst, I had let some unhealthy amount of self-loathing or low esteem creep into my life about equations and formulas. Things mathematical that would apply to so many other hard sciences, including one in particular that I enjoy more than many, economics (I did a Masters years later including Econ classes at the graduate level, at a very reputable university). As much as I cared on some levels to understand and do well in those four years of math and get it, crunch the numbers and internalize the formulas and processes, as my father claimed to love it, the reins of my control had slipped... Mere weeks after surviving high school and receiving the battered diploma without mastering the requisite numbers and mental gymnastics of that matriculation, I was reflecting on all of it, the finality, the totality, the potentiality... Reflecting on the near and far, the past and present and the future. All the way to 2020. And beyond.
Coming up short in math. What did it mean? Did it matter? Was there a perfectionist part of me that could be satisfied? Many of my math grades and efforts were not satisfactory...
BREAK: Speaking of not satisfactory: Economics, the dismal science, the science of scarcity, and not enough resources. What about hunger? What about poverty where millions upon millions cannot afford vaccines or clean water or minimal amounts of nutrition and medicine? "Education". Was life only elite snobbery? Or should access to basic human rights be available to all? Economics allows us humans to have a metric on how to begin to solve these issues. We are now safely into the 21st century. We still have a lot of work to do, and safe to say Marxism and its thousands of ugly variations are not the answer. We can do better, and general or deep understandings of Adam Smith and all the econometrics would be a good way to potentially solve things. The world has a myriad of problems, greater than Algebra II or trigonometry, and we need to piece together the solutions, so we all live with a modicum of human decency. BREAK-BACK
I plowed through my freshman year with very helpful and congenial Mr. Blair, who always carefully and diligently answered my questions, sometimes to the groans and voiced consternation of some of my classmates; usually a few spoiled sophomores who were already destined as losers, in my somewhat nuanced opinion, (Jeff Davis' dad owned some local grocery stories; I considered him, by my continued impression, a class "A" dork for his apathy, and his callous disregard for learning. I was not a lazy loser like him. But next year in geometry I felt that I was the loser, as the younger class (of 1990) were quicker and brighter than me, and of course that teacher mentioned. Once I went to her desk for a question and she reeked of alcohol. That was not her biggest problem, however. She was not the right fit for me, like Mr. Blair of the previous year. Speaking of wrong fits, Mr Girdley my junior year was a train wreck that played out in slow motion. I tried asking him questions to my multiple times of confusion, like graphing equations and the basics of Algebra II, but I became lost and embittered in the hours of class silence that we sat in after I would ask him a question and he would grumpily reply, "It's in the book." And not re-explain the lessons, of which is my pattern of learning concepts of mathematical or conceptual import. That was the beginning of the end for me in mathematics. I had friends like Jake and Pat, who seemed to be fine with the Algebras, and usually a year ahead of me anyway. Jason and Pete were whizzes in math, and Paul too, among others, especially the rising newer freshmen, the class of '91 beyond the ones just one year beyond me.
The math issues lead to more issues my junior year in physics, but it was not only my retardation of the mathematical variety, but it was my apathy and lack of will to do the work, to really dedicate myself to the problems posed. It was Mr. Blair from two years before when I was freshman for physics as a junior; I am sure he was disappointed with one of his start students from two years prior. I was. Senior year brought chemistry, to my chagrin one of the results of consulting a high school counselor, which I had managed to do pretty successfully for over three years from my 8th grade year till then. Things had fallen apart to some degree, the poem of Yeats and the novel by Achebe would resonate through me for that time and perhaps the rest of my life, the years surrounding me and maybe even into the future.
2. I was determined to learn Spanish in my four straight years taking it but many times I was not motivated enough to even do the homework assignments given by Mrs. Morrow I had third and second year. What was my excuse? Mostly laziness, lack of motivation, not giving proper attention to the details of something that I cared about generally, intellectually, and that I demonstrated that in class I was on who did care, unlike fellow classmate and friend Ross Dinnsen, and others that were not dumb, but not motivated by this second language.
3. Distractions of sports, television, movies, some books, some newspapers and magazines, some, but not all, to do with sports, and the dread of the dread of the accumulation of more and more busywork, some of which I did not have a natural inclination for enough to compensate for my sometimes marginal interest, thus giving up on some assignments and tests and general and specific duties and cares...
Life and its complexities. What would happen to you, young world traipser of 1989? Vagabundo ser, pero nunca tanto. I have wandered here and there, but mostly I go where I am directed and enticed, following the ways of what things that I know or believe in.
Always concerned with what is right, and what is wrong: that is me. 1989, 2020. 20_ _? I would like to live to 2076 and have that be true. Don't sell out or become corrupt, or become part of the problem[s]. That has stayed the same as my guide, my conscience, my raison d'etre. I believe so. Always hoping that what I am believing and putting my efforts behind what is worth doing, that which is right minded and right, moral and just, or at least headed toward justice and virtue.
The NBA? That might be another book or two of mine. A couple of notes about the National Basketball Association these many seasons later after the Magic Johnson '80s: I found out it, the highest form of competitive basketball broadcast from the United States, was very popular in Spain in 1989, as my host family and seemingly millions of other Spaniards would watch at least the NBA Finals in June, at least on tape delay. And, I had been paying close attention to the NBA since 1986. I watched it a little when my dad did prior to that, in the earlier 1980s. Again, see Magic Johnson
What were those factors? Perhaps impossible to list fully, and maybe this is just some lazy excuse of excuses that some people do not believe in or simply do not want to hear... Although some believe by analyzing breakdowns and motivations, or the lack thereof, there can still be valid use or knowledge provided for the "patient".
1. Math became a problem when asking questions in class, by the end of my high school sojourn (my last two years), for different reasons, in both my junior and senior math classes. Was this how life worked? To weed out those with less aptitude and let them struggle to get by in class, in sciences that the U.S. purported interest in helping its populace succeed in, these, the hard sciences, of which they (we) continue to fall behind the rest of the world? This was mostly my junior year, and my senior year the powers that were graciously allowed me to catch up with my retarded math studies, but by then I was jaded, bruised, distracted, and probably worst, I had let some unhealthy amount of self-loathing or low esteem creep into my life about equations and formulas. Things mathematical that would apply to so many other hard sciences, including one in particular that I enjoy more than many, economics (I did a Masters years later including Econ classes at the graduate level, at a very reputable university). As much as I cared on some levels to understand and do well in those four years of math and get it, crunch the numbers and internalize the formulas and processes, as my father claimed to love it, the reins of my control had slipped... Mere weeks after surviving high school and receiving the battered diploma without mastering the requisite numbers and mental gymnastics of that matriculation, I was reflecting on all of it, the finality, the totality, the potentiality... Reflecting on the near and far, the past and present and the future. All the way to 2020. And beyond.
Coming up short in math. What did it mean? Did it matter? Was there a perfectionist part of me that could be satisfied? Many of my math grades and efforts were not satisfactory...
BREAK: Speaking of not satisfactory: Economics, the dismal science, the science of scarcity, and not enough resources. What about hunger? What about poverty where millions upon millions cannot afford vaccines or clean water or minimal amounts of nutrition and medicine? "Education". Was life only elite snobbery? Or should access to basic human rights be available to all? Economics allows us humans to have a metric on how to begin to solve these issues. We are now safely into the 21st century. We still have a lot of work to do, and safe to say Marxism and its thousands of ugly variations are not the answer. We can do better, and general or deep understandings of Adam Smith and all the econometrics would be a good way to potentially solve things. The world has a myriad of problems, greater than Algebra II or trigonometry, and we need to piece together the solutions, so we all live with a modicum of human decency. BREAK-BACK
I plowed through my freshman year with very helpful and congenial Mr. Blair, who always carefully and diligently answered my questions, sometimes to the groans and voiced consternation of some of my classmates; usually a few spoiled sophomores who were already destined as losers, in my somewhat nuanced opinion, (Jeff Davis' dad owned some local grocery stories; I considered him, by my continued impression, a class "A" dork for his apathy, and his callous disregard for learning. I was not a lazy loser like him. But next year in geometry I felt that I was the loser, as the younger class (of 1990) were quicker and brighter than me, and of course that teacher mentioned. Once I went to her desk for a question and she reeked of alcohol. That was not her biggest problem, however. She was not the right fit for me, like Mr. Blair of the previous year. Speaking of wrong fits, Mr Girdley my junior year was a train wreck that played out in slow motion. I tried asking him questions to my multiple times of confusion, like graphing equations and the basics of Algebra II, but I became lost and embittered in the hours of class silence that we sat in after I would ask him a question and he would grumpily reply, "It's in the book." And not re-explain the lessons, of which is my pattern of learning concepts of mathematical or conceptual import. That was the beginning of the end for me in mathematics. I had friends like Jake and Pat, who seemed to be fine with the Algebras, and usually a year ahead of me anyway. Jason and Pete were whizzes in math, and Paul too, among others, especially the rising newer freshmen, the class of '91 beyond the ones just one year beyond me.
The math issues lead to more issues my junior year in physics, but it was not only my retardation of the mathematical variety, but it was my apathy and lack of will to do the work, to really dedicate myself to the problems posed. It was Mr. Blair from two years before when I was freshman for physics as a junior; I am sure he was disappointed with one of his start students from two years prior. I was. Senior year brought chemistry, to my chagrin one of the results of consulting a high school counselor, which I had managed to do pretty successfully for over three years from my 8th grade year till then. Things had fallen apart to some degree, the poem of Yeats and the novel by Achebe would resonate through me for that time and perhaps the rest of my life, the years surrounding me and maybe even into the future.
2. I was determined to learn Spanish in my four straight years taking it but many times I was not motivated enough to even do the homework assignments given by Mrs. Morrow I had third and second year. What was my excuse? Mostly laziness, lack of motivation, not giving proper attention to the details of something that I cared about generally, intellectually, and that I demonstrated that in class I was on who did care, unlike fellow classmate and friend Ross Dinnsen, and others that were not dumb, but not motivated by this second language.
3. Distractions of sports, television, movies, some books, some newspapers and magazines, some, but not all, to do with sports, and the dread of the dread of the accumulation of more and more busywork, some of which I did not have a natural inclination for enough to compensate for my sometimes marginal interest, thus giving up on some assignments and tests and general and specific duties and cares...
Life and its complexities. What would happen to you, young world traipser of 1989? Vagabundo ser, pero nunca tanto. I have wandered here and there, but mostly I go where I am directed and enticed, following the ways of what things that I know or believe in.
I would like to think I have learned quite a bit in my lifetime, and that my values are on the up and up, overall.
An NBA game, Bulls-Pistons game 7! [An
arrow line points going down a third of the page on the right hand side
to the "Game 7" and says at the top of the page, near the date and "noontime": False. #3. ] Oh wow. A video, nonetheless.
Always concerned with what is right, and what is wrong: that is me. 1989, 2020. 20_ _? I would like to live to 2076 and have that be true. Don't sell out or become corrupt, or become part of the problem[s]. That has stayed the same as my guide, my conscience, my raison d'etre. I believe so. Always hoping that what I am believing and putting my efforts behind what is worth doing, that which is right minded and right, moral and just, or at least headed toward justice and virtue.
The NBA? That might be another book or two of mine. A couple of notes about the National Basketball Association these many seasons later after the Magic Johnson '80s: I found out it, the highest form of competitive basketball broadcast from the United States, was very popular in Spain in 1989, as my host family and seemingly millions of other Spaniards would watch at least the NBA Finals in June, at least on tape delay. And, I had been paying close attention to the NBA since 1986. I watched it a little when my dad did prior to that, in the earlier 1980s. Again, see Magic Johnson
I must read what I know to be true.
Kindness is the best.
Throughout my life people tell me I think profoundly. Maybe so, maybe so.
But what next? Actions, fool, actions.
A drop in the bucket is better than nothing at all.
Babbling is easier than a disciplined composition.
I read up on Harold Bloom this past fall and winter 2019-20, checking out five of his books available in the local library (after hearing of his death, after a pretty long, good life); above all else in his endless soliloquies of good and great and epic and ...what are his words, Bloom's descriptors? I have let them pass me recently in this pandemic, but I wrote them in more recent posts -not stoic, no, not empathic... Anyway, among all of Bloom's highest and wildest praise, his love of the classic poetry and Shakespeare, William the Bard, was first and foremost. He had a commanding knowledge of so much poetry and art, and the reasons for his admiration. If I may be so bold or foolish to compare myself to one of his characters, Hamlet, (my favorite version portrayed by Mel Gibson), then the above passage of my page 21 journal was me thinking about my identity and purpose. Alas, Yorrick! (Yoric?) I knew him well.
I had been struggling between fiction and non-fiction and their values for at least four years, since age 14 or so. To read fiction or non-fiction, that was my question. And this debate, internal polemic as it were, would continue... How do you read only what you know to be true, when the fiction that you see is so entertaining, but ALSO contains truth? Besides, much of my life were based on holy scriptures that many people considered fantasy or worse...
Perhaps at age 49 I am closer to the answer. And that answer is: yes.
As for babbling: there are reasons for free flowing brooks, but there are also huge purposes in manufactured and controlled waterways like canals and dammed rivers and their subsequent lakes.
Scott Russell Sanders, of my native Bloomington: thanks for being that naturalist to help me see the earth and its tributaries. Including the great state of Indiana, bordered by rivers like the mighty Ohio. Thanks to my step-mother Janice for pointing him out at her church Christmas service.
I read up on Harold Bloom this past fall and winter 2019-20, checking out five of his books available in the local library (after hearing of his death, after a pretty long, good life); above all else in his endless soliloquies of good and great and epic and ...what are his words, Bloom's descriptors? I have let them pass me recently in this pandemic, but I wrote them in more recent posts -not stoic, no, not empathic... Anyway, among all of Bloom's highest and wildest praise, his love of the classic poetry and Shakespeare, William the Bard, was first and foremost. He had a commanding knowledge of so much poetry and art, and the reasons for his admiration. If I may be so bold or foolish to compare myself to one of his characters, Hamlet, (my favorite version portrayed by Mel Gibson), then the above passage of my page 21 journal was me thinking about my identity and purpose. Alas, Yorrick! (Yoric?) I knew him well.
I had been struggling between fiction and non-fiction and their values for at least four years, since age 14 or so. To read fiction or non-fiction, that was my question. And this debate, internal polemic as it were, would continue... How do you read only what you know to be true, when the fiction that you see is so entertaining, but ALSO contains truth? Besides, much of my life were based on holy scriptures that many people considered fantasy or worse...
Perhaps at age 49 I am closer to the answer. And that answer is: yes.
As for babbling: there are reasons for free flowing brooks, but there are also huge purposes in manufactured and controlled waterways like canals and dammed rivers and their subsequent lakes.
Scott Russell Sanders, of my native Bloomington: thanks for being that naturalist to help me see the earth and its tributaries. Including the great state of Indiana, bordered by rivers like the mighty Ohio. Thanks to my step-mother Janice for pointing him out at her church Christmas service.
I don't want a job that dosn't [sic] stimulate my brain. I want to help people lessen their troubles.
And ... ugh... write -__-__--__--__ [my attempt at a squiggle line, sort of wavy]
Making money and the purposes of living, breathing, working, trying... The life long quest, still at play in the times of the pandemic. 31 years separated but much of the same flesh, blood, heart, and soul. The brain is a mighty computer, indeed. We are so full of potential power, as Henry Adams wrote in 1906, the Law of Acceleration. An amazingly insightful essay written well over 100 years ago.
I have wanted to write, as previously stated. Here I am. Still. Escribiendo. Ana iktib. Na'am.
And yes, can we do something about needless, avoidable, suffering. People first, then animals. Then the planet. And yet we are all connected.
Making money and the purposes of living, breathing, working, trying... The life long quest, still at play in the times of the pandemic. 31 years separated but much of the same flesh, blood, heart, and soul. The brain is a mighty computer, indeed. We are so full of potential power, as Henry Adams wrote in 1906, the Law of Acceleration. An amazingly insightful essay written well over 100 years ago.
I have wanted to write, as previously stated. Here I am. Still. Escribiendo. Ana iktib. Na'am.
And yes, can we do something about needless, avoidable, suffering. People first, then animals. Then the planet. And yet we are all connected.
It's better to write something than nothing at all. Right?
Of course
Again, yes. I agree with my former self and I think also, with the future self. Me today, me tomorrow and into the future. Write, write, write.
Eternal recurrence?
Nietsche, eat your heart out.
Again, yes. I agree with my former self and I think also, with the future self. Me today, me tomorrow and into the future. Write, write, write.
Eternal recurrence?
Nietsche, eat your heart out.
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